Homosexual Heads in the Sand

Many of you will remember the very recent outpouring of vitriol against the Daily Mail's Jan Moir, who dared to write an article which pointed out that inviting strangers home is not necessarily part of a normal, healthy marriage.

I haven't actually read the article, nor the vast majority of the shrieking about how wicked and bigoted she is; but from what I did see, many denizons of the "gay community" stepped up to condemn her right to her own opinion as "spreading hatred" (a classic phrase used by those who wish to silence someone).

I wonder if Jan Moir's article can be held responsible for the following snippet from Court News UK:

WHITECHAPEL, LIMEHOUSE, STEPNEY GREEN, EAST LONDON. Three thugs who punched and kicked a couple in an unprovoked attack have been spared jail after blaming alcohol for their shameful behaviour. Muhamed Saleh and Mohammed Areif, both 22, and Golam Dhuha, 23, screamed 'white faggot' before laying into Matthew Hayes in Whitehcapel, east London.

No? Must be why we've heard nothing about it, then. Sounds a lot like a hate crime, to me - assuming of course the couple in question are homosexual (the article conveniently doesn't say, although from the context one would certainly assume so).

Oddly, no newspaper felt the need to report this crime. No representative of the "gay community" stepped forward to tell us how shameful it is that they were spared jail, and how such attacks are the sign of a profoundly hateful and intolerant society which must be fundamentally reformed.

It was just ignored, buried in the archives.

Now, the thugs in question may have blamed alcohol - but there is a pattern of young Muslim men attacking gay couples in most major European cities, particularly ones with large Muslim areas.

I wonder if some jolly, enlightened soul such as Stephen Fry would care to step forward and help us understand this pattern, what it means for gay people and what it means for our society - just as clearly and vehmently as he helped some of us understand what a despicable human being Jan Moir is.

Or is the safety of gay people on the streets only important for some when it is an excuse to bash traditional society and values?

That does seem to be the lesson of the future - when two protected groups clash, we must simply avert our eyes and pretend nothing has happened, lest the lies that prop up our wonderful tolerant and diverse society come crashing down around our ears.

A Semi-detached Home Secretary: Weekly News Round Up, 8th-14th February 2009

The week that shamed Britain. However, the Geert Wilders debacle was far from the only thing in the news. Here is an overview of some of the more interesting stories from this week's UK newspapers.


1) 'Smith faces official probe over expenses scandal'

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is currently embroiled in a different kind of 'home security' issue; that is fraudulently securing funding for her second home allowance. Apparently she has been staying in her sister's spare room in London during the week (despite turning down a free grace-and-favour apartment which comes with her office), and claiming a second home allowance. That means she's walking away with a tax-free sum of at least £24,000 per year, which is about the average national income.

Nice to know one with such honesty and scruples is in charge of the criminal justice system.


2) 'Prescott launches online campaign against bank bonuses'

Former Deputy Prime Minister John 'Moneybags' Prescott has taken it upon himself to fight bank bosses who have been awarded large bonuses, despite the government ploughing millions of pounds of taxpayers money into propping up said banks after some spectacular failures.

In principle I agree with him, but I think a slightly more palatable crusader could have been found; this is man who was once nicknamed 'two Jags', and unlike anyone who writes at the Daily Mirror I do not think his authentic northern accent makes him some ambassador for the poor. However, I have one suggestion for his movement; maybe failed politicians could also be stripped of all financial perks and bonuses.

If you define 'fail' in the same way as the Oxford English Dictionary and me, then an awful lot of money will be saved.


3) 'Harry to be sent on a diversity training course'

Prince Harry is to be sent on something called a 'diversity course' after yet another controversy over racism in the Royal Family. Apparently, Harry told black comedian Stephen K. Amos 'he didn't sound like a black chap' after a performance at Prince Charles' 60th birthday celebrations.

Oh dear. This comedian was so bothered he took almost 3 months to say something, duly went to the newspapers at an opportune moment, then after several days of screaming headlines and controversy piped up again to say 'it was no big deal' and 'Harry's no racist'.

Well, someone has certainly got a first class publicist, that much is certain.


4) 'Geert Out: Far-right Dutch MP banned from Britain'

Dutch MP Geert Wilders made a splash in most newspapers this week after being banned from Britain. One person against the ban was Islamic cleric Anjem Chaudary, who said he would have welcomed an opportunity to engage Mr Wilders 'in an open debate about whether Islam offers a better solution than Capitalism.'

He didn't specify whether this was to be a 'Mohammed Bouyeri Vs. Theo van Gogh' style debate, however, one where success is measured by the number of stab wounds your opponent receives rather than the traditional 'rational argument' method.

I'm also not quite sure in just what field 'Islam' is supposed to be a better way forward than Capitalism. I would assume he's talking about economics and governance in general, but I must admit a glance at any particular Muslim country does not inspire me in either of those fields, or indeed any other. Certainly not when oil money is taken out of the equation.

But still, it's official. Anjem Chaudary is technically more open minded than the Home Secretary.
That or he just wanted an excuse to watch our city centres burn, not that one is usually required.


5) Kent Police, my local force, decided to celebrate 'LGBT History Month' by sending out poetry packs to school children urging them to 'think about how it feels to be gay' and 'what being gay might mean to them in the future'.

Isn't taxpayers' cash a beautiful thing? It can be put to almost any purpose, except of course that for which it was designated.

Personally I prefer to think about 'why crime is soaring yet the police are wasting time on such pointless trivialities' and 'Kent Police: is this nonsense really their job?'


6) This week it also emerged that a 13 year old boy has fathered a child with his 15 year old girlfriend.

I'm fairly certain anything I could possibly add after that sentence would be superfluous, and whilst that doesn't normally stop me, the situation simply leaves me at a loss for words.

However, it has now been revealed that this 15 year old girl has slept with so many males that the baby's paternity is in doubt, and the father of the 13 year old may have played up claims his son is the father for money.

Just makes you proud to be British, doesn't it?


7) Government professor Tony Nutt recommended that the illegal party drug ecstasy be downgraded from a Class A drug to Class B. To demonstrate his case, the eminent professor compared taking ecstasy to horse riding, because apparently they're responsible for a similar number of deaths each year. For most people that would be where the comparison ends, but not the aptly named Professor Nutt; to him, the activities are so similar in terms of risk, worth and moral standing, he coined the term 'equasy', a term allegedly supposed to be a playful word association.

Unfortunately for him, it just made him sound like a complete idiot, and pretty much discredited anything else he said beforehand. For which I thank him - it makes my job so much easier.


8) London Mayor Boris Johnson was caught going on a 'foul-mouthed tirade' at MP and professional passport salesman Keith Vaz. Good - it's about time someone did.

I'm sure if I had to deal with such people on a daily basis I too would snap. However, the circumstances do not damn Mr Johnson as the headlines would like; Vaz is the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee and is trying to justify the arrest late last year of opposition MP Damien Green.

Good Golly: Weekly News Round Up, 1st - 7th February 2009

(Pictured: Collectible 'Golliwog' badges from Robertson's Marmalade).

This week we have a bumper crop of news stories from the UK which show the current priorities of the powers that be and the state of our nation. So, without further ado...

1) I think the biggest 'cultural clash' in the news this week came from Carol Thatcher's use of the term 'Golliwog' to describe a black tennis player.

Thatcher may be banned from the BBC over use of the term 'golliwog'

Unwise, certainly, but it's OK, because several employees of the BBC got so uncontrollably angry that they reported Miss Thatcher behind her back, and she was sacked.

I must remind you that in the modern world this word is considered so absolutely, gratuitously offensive that if a famous person uses it in a private exchange, it must be repeated in the national media no less than 20 times a day until the person concerned has done the decent thing and hurled themselves from Tower Bridge whilst sobbing penance.

To be fair, I think this term is offensive when said directly to another person, and a few years ago it was neutered to become 'golly'. However, that does not seem to be good enough, because there was further uproar when it emerged that 'Golliwog' dolls were on sale at the Queen's Sandringham gift shop. This led to much hand wringing, and the closing of the suitcase in which they sat in the display window, in turn leading to helpful 'before' and 'after' photographs. Just in case we were in any doubt over how that evil racist had tried to cover her tracks or something.

This second revelation led to a storm of controversy, my favourite example of which is the imaginatively titled Facebook group 'WTF?! the queen of england ain't allowed to sell racist toys!'

I would email the moderator and ask them to define 'racist', but seeing as they can't spell, punctuate, string a proper sentence together or bother to look up the actual title of the monarch they are disparaging, there doesn't seem much point.

The 'Golliwog' certainly belongs to another era, but I personally see no cause for seeking out and destroying every last one. I thought it was a real wrench with tradition when Robertson's Jam stopped giving away tokens for Golly badges with each jar, as they'd been doing it for generations. I can't help but feel this situation is less about 'racism' and more about controlling what people do and think. Carol Thatcher's silliness is one thing; but to strike the Golliwog from the face of the earth is quite another. I am as entitled to find the badges a part of our history and culture as anyone else is to find them offensive.

2) To continue our 'The George Orwell Prize for Effectively Controlling Thought Crime' theme, a nurse was suspended this week because she offered to pray for an ill elderly patient. It seems that being a Christian (publicly, at least) is becoming increasingly unacceptable to the authorities here in Britain.

Nurse suspended for offering to pray for elderly patient's recovery

What struck me as particularly odd was the language used to justify the suspension; she was accused of "failing to demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity" and told "you must not use your professional status to promote causes that are not related to health."

Is it just me, or are these two statements contradictory? What on earth does 'diversity', Orwellian left-wing speech codes and curbing one's personal compassion have to do with health? Would they say the same thing to a nurse of any other religion?

It seems to me that again, this is not about diversity or respect, but about deconstructing what was once mainstream culture and replacing it with anything else that comes along. Fortunately, the nurse was reinstated, but this still seems rather ominous.

3) Next up, something outrageous tempered with common sense.

'Outrage as police replace Union Jack with Gay Rights flag'

Apparently, it is something called 'Gay History Month'. I prefer plain old February myself. However, some officers serving with London's Metropolitan Police evidently disagree, for they replaced the Union Flag with the rainbow flag of the 'LGBT' movement. It has also emerged that in north Wales, said rainbow flag will fly over the force - sorry, service - HQ all month.

However, when Sir Paul Stevenson, the new Commissioner of the Met, heard that Limehouse nick had come over all PC (OK, pun intended), he immediately ordered that the flag be taken down, an admirable decision for which I laud him. The police should be on the streets enforcing the law, a job they do increasingly poorly, not trying to force a political agenda down the throats of the public.

In spite of this, some Metropolitan Police spokesman was forced to grovel to 'Pink News' (Europe's largest gay news service) that:

"The Met is supporting LGBT History Month through events "aimed at encouraging victims of hate crime to report incidents to police, and to celebrate the contribution made by LGBT people in the Met.
"As part of our activities officers will be attending LGBT venues to encourage people who may suffer or witness hate crime to come forward; holding seminars on safety issues for people in the LGBT community; promoting our LGBT liaison officers for victims to approach as well as participating in other educational and cultural events."

That's odd, because I thought they were paid to prevent crime, arrest criminals and protect the public. Perhaps this revelation explains why the long-suffering tax payers who fund this nonsense are getting such terrible service.

4) 'Lord' Nazir Ahmed's threat to lead 10,000 Muslims on parliament if Geert Wilders was invited to screen Fitna has been ignored, and apparently the invitation has been extended and the screening will go ahead, in the House of Lords.

He hadn't quite finished making a spectacle of himself, however; he called for any British Jews who served with the IDF in the recent Gaza campaign to be arrested upon their return to Britain and tried for 'war crimes'.

Surely if we're going to be completely fair, Nazir Ahmed is then guilty of treason for attempting to subvert parliament? I can't help but notice that when certain individuals with 'links' to Britain were released from Guantanamo Bay (not because their innocence had been established, mind), Ahmed was not one of the many who demanded they be tried for treason. So, if you fight in a civilised Western army when you have dual-citizenship you're a criminal, but if you join a gang of terrorists in an attempt to kill British and allied troops, despite all this country has done for you, you're a poor lamb who's being picked on. Aren't double standards wonderful?

5) A brief note once more from the world of the Metropolitan Police. After the Chinese PM arrived in Britain for trade talks with Gordon Brown, there was a protest outside the Chinese embassy. Protesters concerned about Tibet and human rights issues in China broke through the lines, and were man-handled, despite some being diminutive females.

Unless the Met's 'diversity' commissars specifically asked the officers to help the Chinese feel at home, I can't help but compare this footage of a young Chinese woman being dragged away in a headlock by two policemen to this. It seems those brave boys in blue don't fancy their chances against marauding Muslim crowds screaming 'Kuffar', 'poofs', 'cowards', 'swine' and 'Allahuakbar'. Shame it's their job, really.

6) Peter Mandelson has miraculously clung on to his job yet again after reaching a deal with British workers striking over an Italian company's plans to import its own staff. Quite why the British government needs this individual is beyond me... But the Tories thought up an excellent new poster, 'Mandy Antoinette', then didn't have the guts to use it. Telling. I have added the advert to the sidebar, as it really is very good.