14 March 2002 - 14 April 2002
The headline: "TEEN SEX SHOCK" jumped out of the Dumfries and Galloway Standard and alarmed readers with the knowledge condoms were to be "dished out" to "kids as young as 14" in a bid to slash the number of teenage pregnancies in the region. This skipped lightly over the vital information that sexual-educationalists desperately want to be 'handed out' with the condoms. As covered previously in the Scottish Media Monitor, militant religionists were recruiting mostly pensioners in churches all over Motherwell and Hamilton to sign a petition that would outlaw this information in schools. It was eerie. Creepy. And it was happening in Lanarkshire. The Hamilton Advertiser reported: "School sex guidelines slammed as offensive". At a meeting held by the education committee of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, (I kid you not), it was reported that 50 people packed the Orange Halls in Larkhall to discuss resource books for teaching sex education in schools! It must've been like asking kids to vote on what they wanted to do in school. There was no mention of any of the studies that guided the way proper sex education needed to be taught in schools or their success in progressive European countries, only details of the "controversial" nature of this material. "Some of the explicit material in the booklet includes: Pupils role-playing homosexuality in the classroom, lessons about mutual masturbation with their partner and primary school teachers demonstrating condoms to pupils by putting them on an artificial penis". David Bryce, an elder at Hamilton Old Parish Church told the Hamilton Advertiser he was "disgusted". Once again, homosexuality united Protestant and Catholic when the Rev. Ron Campbell, grand chaplain of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland grumbled: "There were words used in it that as adults we didn't understand. We had to look them up in a dictionary..." A spokesperson for the South Lanarkshire Council said they would set up a working group that would provide guidelines for sex education and told the paper: "This includes consultation with parents and other parties such as churches and relative organisations. The final guidelines will then be adopted by individual schools". It stinks doesn't it? The council proudly insisted that they had been using the same resource materials for a number of years, despite boasting one of the highest incidents of teenage pregnancies in Europe.
The Sunday Times Scotland took to airing the concerns of militant Catholic group Pro-Life Alliance who are taking a leaf out of the Scottish Media Monitor's book and challenging the portrayal of religionists in the media. Sister Roseann Reddy, who runs the Alliance from the Church Hall of Holy Cross Parish Church in Albert Road, Glasgow with donations that included £15,000 in the wake of Cardinal Winning's funeral, complained TV's Eastenders Dot Cotton and High Road's Mrs Mack were portrayed as "over the top" and "mad". Sister Reddy has been profiled on BBC's Everyman and also by Daniel Johnson in Scottish editions of the Daily Telegraph, who painted an absurdly over-the-top portrait of her as the new Mother Theresa. "Unlike most Catholic clergy, she is not shy of the media, but she is also wise to their knavish tricks. She has learnt from Cardinal Winning that it pays to be bold, but she has now emerged from his shadow as a formidable presence in her own right". I don't know what religionists have got to complain about. They already have the Scottish media eating out of their hand! Reddy told the Sunday Times: "Religion is not a minority thing in this country, yet in any of the soap operas, Christians are mad... Any religious people in them are bonkers. They are complete wimps or completely mad". They have already complained to the BBC for using Richard Holloway, the former leader of the Episcopal Church, to present an Easter programme.
Another cranky organisation of religionists shocked Aberdeen's Evening Express with their claim that the city was "the most ungodly city in Britain". Jesus Revolution 2002 planned to bring up to 4,000 Christians to the city for a rally between June 14 and July 28 in a rally backed by US evangelical group Somebody Cares America that is said to cost in the region of £300,000 to stage. The group's glossy publicity material claimed: "At the request of the Lord Provost, every park will become the venue of ongoing children's festivals ministering to every child in the city". This was nonsense. Aberdeen's Lord Provost Margaret Smith had given no such support. The organisation also sent letters to head teachers asking if they could visit schools without first seeking permission from the education authority. The group's website says: "The doors of the schools in Aberdeen are opening. Join us as we implement a strategy to present the gospel to every school-aged child in Aberdeen". Youngsters are their primary focus. Brian Taylor, of the Deeside Christian Fellowship believes their TV advert, which brands Aberdeen, as 'ungodly', will be seen by millions. They also plan to knock on every door in Aberdeen.
Every year the Sunday Times compiles a list of Britain's richest. As Melanie Reid remarked sharply in The Herald: "Were the nation to read a pornographic magazine instead of the Sunday Times rich list, we would be markedly more entertained and a whole lost less offended. Our children's moral health would be a lot less endangered too". For the first time the list included those who had been the most generous. Guess who won? Donating a sum equivalent to 41% of his assets to charity especially Christian ones - was Brian Souter! But how does the Sunday Times know how Souter disposed of his money in private? He doesn't talk about it. The list excluded, not only bank accounts but also small shareholdings in private equity portfolios. I wonder how generous his low paid bus and train drivers would say he is? Many have been forced into taking industrial action over pay. As Ms Reid points out: "In the fairytale world of the rich list, of course, there is no ruthlessness index".
Glasgow has left prostitution to the mercy of dinosaurs. Morality-councillors like Jim Coleman; busybodies who spend years brushing it under the carpet until it is exposed by a string of murders, drugs, crime, violence and the finger-pointing morality of sections of the Scottish press. With sex workers rounded up and arrested on the streets of Glasgow, I remember watching Jim 'call me Mary Whitehouse' Coleman on television bumbling on about Glasgow not having a problem with prostitution before one female sex worker after another was murdered. The sexually repressed Sunday Mail echoed his sentiments. Reporter Derek Alexander found the night manager of the Brunswick Hotel "rakes in a fortune" by hiring out rooms to men who took back sex workers. Unfortunately though, in this particular case, an undercover Sunday Mail reporter. People in furry, pink slippers gasped in horror as they read what was lining their cat's litter tray. "When the hotel bar closes and respectable guests are tucked up in bed, (Andy Wilson) transforms the Brunswick into a hotbed of vice". Rather than exposing sex workers and their clients to the cold, enterprising Andy "lines his pockets" - if I could use the Sunday Mail's turn of phrase - and offered them a bed. Of course, the undercover reporter had to "decline what was on offer"; but then they always do when they're on the job, before he "asked if he could take photographs of the 21-year-old vice girl instead". All in a days work, I suppose, "to show how prostitutes get the run of the hotel after dark". A list of some of the Brunswick's impressive clients was presented with the warning: "They will all be shocked at Wilson's seedy activities", before the Sunday Mail added: "The Brunswick is also a popular venue for gay tourists attracted by the gay haunts in the Merchant City". One day Glasgow will grow up! But if there are any liberal councillors or journalists out there, please speak up!
And finally, one did. In The Scotsman of all places. Bored with the anally retentive drivel of reporter Hamish Macdonell, James Doherty's piece on education officials of Glasgow Council's decision to ban nude life art classes offered by the Royal Academy of Art came as something of a surprise and was a credit to the newspaper. Yes, believe it or not, what has otherwise been a pre-requisite for entrance into most art colleges, the students' subjects have been ordered to slip into leotards! Ken Corsar, the city's director of education was responsible for the decision. A council spokesman claimed they hadn't time to discuss this with parents and teachers, which is, of course, an insult to their professionalism. Even Colette Douglas Home in the Scottish Daily Mail confessed: "Not since my convent school have I met such prudery. Back then my sister's art book sported Michelangelo's David in shorts". In the same paper, Allan Massie, not usually given to commenting on questions of morality, compiled a whole essay in defence of the nude that ran much along the same lines as those in a defence of homosexuality, drawing on ancient and historic examples. The Scotsman's sister paper, Scotland on Sunday has also shown some encouraging signs of improvement under its new editor which was demonstrated in its leader on the news lesbians with children could now be regarded as a family in Scotland. It was a "commonsense view" which advised: "If marriage is not necessarily a promised land, neither are same-sex unions Sodom and Godomorrah. Society should recognise that a child may thrive in any number of different structures".
News that a Glasgow court defined a lesbian couple as a 'family' - "Anger after lesbians win 'family' rights" (Scottish Daily Mail) - was never likely to escape the wrath of the moral press-hounds. The same paper noted that the landmark legal ruling "enraged morality campaigners" which only turned out to be that doyen of all things moral: Valerie Riches of the militant Family and Youth Concern and a spokesman for the Catholic Church who ignored any authentic research to the contrary to declare: "Children brought up by both biological parents, who are married, are most likely to prosper". The Scottish Daily Mail leader warned of a "nightmare world we could be entering by allowing such irresponsible dabbling with the very stuff of human life". They trawled the world and found an American lesbian couple who had gone to "extraordinary lengths" to have a deaf child. "They have even denied him a hearing aid"; the Mail sneered. "For that's exactly what the twisted couple - a pair of graduate lesbians - intended", warned the Scottish News of the World, adding: "...His warped parents are tickled pink". Old Mother (Joan) Burnie in the Daily Record gasped: "And if this repulsive pair's kids grow up heterosexual, what are they going to do about that - disown them?" On the wider issue of embryo research and cloning, in Scotland on Sunday, Gerald Warner thundered: "Saints cannot be manufactured in test-tubes, nor Satan be genetically modified. Christian believers will trust in divine providence to frustrate the Luciferian ambition of scientists to usurp the prerogatives of God". Archbishop Mario Conti was given space in the Sunday Herald to regurgitate the Catholic's holed argument on gay parenting, claiming that such an extension to parental rights "demeans the natural basis of parenthood, a basis that must remain the norm". Describing gay parents as fickle, selfish and incapable of marriage ignores not only current research on gay parenting, but also the contribution of the Catholic Church in making such an institution so unpopular with homosexuals. As for the American lesbian couple, there are many conditions whereby, to help make life easier for those living with them, they are 'normalised'. However much you may think this might've been a step too far, the lesbian couple firmly believed their child would benefit from the enhanced sense of smell, touch and sight they ardently believed they had been blessed with. That should have been the issue, and not the fact they were lesbians.
The Daily Record has had some diabolical columnists in its time and Simon Houston is up there amongst the space cadets. He might be advised to research his subject before putting crayon to paper. His oh-so 'with-it' and 'surely-not-in-this-day-and-age' view on why pop stars shouldn't just 'come out' and be done with it was choked with ignorance. On Big Brother winner, Brian Dowling, he chuckled: "It was the hilarious in-your-face way he dealt with his sexuality which appealed to so many viewers, and females in particular. Brian was as camp as a row of pink tents - and all the girlies loved him". Houston didn't think much of Pop Idol winner, Will Young's hesitancy: "...A little bit of honesty would have done him no harm whatsoever"; he chimed. Perhaps Simon Houston would like to make a statement in the Daily Record on his own sexuality? Houston has watched too much TV. Gay sexuality was never just entertainment. This is directly from the Inman-Grayson-Clary school of thought. Not every gay person is so comfortable with his or her sexuality and it is certainly not displayed just for "a bit of a giggle", as Houston suggested. His blinkered view was that: "With the exception of a few dinosaurs who still think it's funny to poke fun at gays and talk about 'faggots', Britain has largely moved into the 21st century on the gay issue. In fact, it's not really an issue at all..." So what century does that leave the Daily Record then, which, until only a few weeks ago, still managed to make it very much an issue when it banned gays, lesbians, bisexuals and people of transgender from advertising for partners in amongst its personal ads? After a five-years of pushing, (editor Peter Cox promised me he would look into this soon after he took over as editor), the Scottish Media Monitor has achieved another small victory. Now men can seek men and women can seek women. What is the world coming too, eh?
The fact that a former cop was brutally murdered in the gay cruising area in Cathkin Braes, outside Glasgow appeared to take second place to what else went on there. The Daily Record focused on: "Kinky sex games at cop killing beauty spot" and "couples stripped off for 'watchers' at car park where body found, trial told". These "bizarre sex games" were told to the court by a 42-year-old "watcher" who had found, not a woman who would strip for him, but the body of a 6ft 8in former cop. Two men, Stephen Bates and William Wilson, both 21 and described as prisoners at Barlinnie prison, were accused of stabbing Gordon Gibson. His widow told the court she believed he may have gone to Cathkin Braes to "chill out" and he suffered from stress which had began after working in a mortuary used to hold the bodies of Lockerbie disaster victims. Sexuality in Scotland today is steeped in lies, contradictions and deception. The Scottish press must find it very appealing.
There is a hint of double standards in the way the Daily Record reported an erotic website using the Scottish Executive's name. Underneath the word "smutty" they still showed a "sleazy" selection of some of the pictures on offer: A leggy model bending over vacuuming and a few others showing their legs. All very tame. MSP Margo MacDonald told the Record: "I don't like the idea of porn on the web". And the Executive is worried that the speed of the electronic revolution is leaving millions of us behind? Get with it girl!
The Daily Record's manufactured outrage was found hanging around a bus stop on the way to Easterhouse watching passing buses carrying ads for Legs & Co, a lap-dancing club. "...Mothers of young children and elderly people... have branded the images offensive and claim they will stop using the buses unless the advert is removed". The women were no less clothed than the average holiday ad, but one mother, who understandably didn't want to be named - I would imagine in case her own prudery or membership of some militant religious organisation be revealed - shored up the Record's froth with the comment: "The whole bus is covered in pictures of half-naked women. What kind of effect is it having on children who see it every day? I have had my seven-year-old son asking me embarrassing questions. The other day he asked me what lap-dancing is. It is just not on. I speak to lots of parents who are just as annoyed".
I don't know why the Sunday Herald should be so upset their exclusive on the doubling of incidents of reported child abuse within families should not have been picked up by the rest of the Scottish media. How often have other sexual issues of such importance been fairly or even properly reported? Perhaps they should have tried the Big Issue? Or maybe not. Nicola Barry has suddenly resigned from editing the Big Issue in Scotland leaving one of the editorial team, Chitra to hold the baby until a replacement can be found. Without giving any reason, she informed me that the Big Issue in Scotland would not review Sexual Fascism. Another one. So much for 'big issues' when the first and only published response from the Scottish gay community - a political one detailing homophobia in the media - is too hot for them to handle! Perhaps the Big Issue would be more comfortable if the homeless handed out penny romances!
Would you expect a heterosexual man up in court for speeding say, or even shoplifting to be pictured in full drag without reason? No, of course not. So why then should the Daily Record picture teacher Allan Kellman, in a dress and blonde wig with the caption: "Frock jock"? Was it because he "confessed" he might be gay? Another question. What if, after a party and a lot of heavy drinking, a man attempts to lift the covers where you are sleeping and suck you off? Would you, a: Open your legs for easier access? b: Slap him and tell him to go back to his own bed, or c: Attempt to have him charged with indecent assault at Dunfermline Sheriff Court. No guesses to which action "victim" Scott Barker took. When they were friends the pair used to play together in Perth Territorial Army Band. That was before this "incident" took place after a millennium party. Trouble was, Kellman, "a married dad-of-two" claimed he was sleepwalking and was therefore acquitted. For that reason alone - as much as Perth and Kinross Council would like to - he could not be sacked from his job as teacher at Perth High School. Neither could he be moved to another school because no one would take him. Cue, a string of "outraged teachers" who are threatening to resign or stage a "mass walkout" should he ever return. A parent, who begged not to be named, told the Record: "It doesn't bare thinking about... I won't let my daughter stay in his class. I'm sure other parents will do the same". But is this really the "bizarre gay sex attack case" the Daily Record are keen to make it out to be? For goodness sake, I've seen much worse behaviour from men after a few jars! The court was told handling dead bodies in the Gulf War had disturbed Kellman. Welcome to turn-of-the-century sex in Scotland as recorded in newspapers of the day.
CUT IT OUT!
Lorraine Kelly on Robbie Williams in the Sunday Post: "Tut, tut! Methinks the self-styled hardman is a wee bit of a Jessie. Robbie was in Edinburgh to see his best pal Jonathan Wilkes' perform in Godspell". She was, of course, referring to the fact Robbie wore underwear under his kilt, not that Jonathan was his boyfriend.
Louise Rimmer writing in Scotland on Sunday: "Although councillors and public figures are coy when it comes to admitting that sexual transactions occur in saunas, they struggle to hide their pride in delivering Edinburgh from an AIDs epidemic". Anyone told Glasgow's councillors?
A Daily Record headline after Boy George grabbed a photographer: "Handbags at dawn".
Where has Scotland on Sunday's homophobic Gerald Warner been hanging around lately? "In the lavatories even of quite good clubs nowadays one sometimes hears the waspish buzz of a zip-fastener".
Gerald Warner on what he describes as the "destruction of femininity" in Scotland on Sunday: "Now is the time of year when, a generation ago, the streets began to brighten with girls and women in colourful summer frocks... Men could claim little credit for this annual renaissance; but at least they looked like men, rather then mobile Oxfam parcels, and carried themselves with some dignity".
Conservative Katie Grant in The Scotsman: "Grief is so much better expressed through dignified dress and silence than through leisure clothes and wailing".
Old Mother Burnie exercising her wisdom in the Daily Record: "I could be wrong - according to my 'fans', I always am - but I doubt most men are obsessed with feet. Maybe a few, but by no means the majority".
