11 August 2002 - 21 October 2002
The Herald reported how "law reform body backs live-in couples' right to claim", centring on awarding gay couples the right to claim for damages if their partner died through someone else's negligence. Why is it, that each time there's any incident in the slow and painful process of achieving equality for gays in the UK, the Scottish media are down on their knees, tugging at the hem of the Catholic Church? It bores me. The majority of Catholics are far less homophobic than those guaranteed this regular platform to swish their frock in disgust. If they really must seek a homophobic and negative opinion for these stories, couldn't they perhaps spice up the report with quotes from other religionists with identical views to Catholics, the Orange Order or political parties like the BNP for instance? The Sunday Times Scotland's report by their Scottish political editor, Kenny Farquharson on possibilities that the Scottish Executive might support state registration of gay couples in a similar way to other countries in Europe brought about the headline: "MSPs to push gay marriage on Whitehall". This is not because gay marriage has to be pushed on Whitehall at all, (the Scottish Parliament is perfectly able to introduce the civil registration of gay couples), but because inheritance tax relief, which is not a devolved issue, has to be legislated by Westminster. And then, only if your partner leaves you over £240,000! The report declared that "not everyone is in agreement" and - quelle surprise! - promptly wheeled in a spokesman for the Catholic Church: "John Deighan, parliamentary officer for the church in Scotland, said there was 'a difference between tolerance and promotion', and gay marriage crossed that line. 'Giving equal status absolutely demeans marriage. It undermines it and it undermines the family'." Dignified civil registrations of gay couples do not undermine marriage. Heterosexuals don't need our help to do that. Be they nude, underwater or performed dressed-up like Elvis, the hetties win hands down. This is nothing to do with preserving the sanctity of marriage and everything about the sick obsession with homosexuality by militant religionists and their toadys. Talking of which, The Scottish Daily Mail reported the story the very next day, highlighted with bold printed sub-headings, presumably to excite those with failing sight: "It undermines the family", read one, and "Not a real priority" declared another. The tabloid had no hesitation labelling this a "demand for equal rights". But it wasn't gays who were doing the 'demanding'. Oh, no! Most gays don't give a monkey's cuss about marriage and operate outside this rather camp, hierarchal religionist institution that looks so fresh once you've rubbed a bit of Vaseline on the lens. Those gays who campaign for 'gay marriage' join the ranks of dedicated campaigners and politicians committed to the concept of equality and there is nothing at all wrong in that. For that alone they deserve our respect. Tory justice spokesman, Bill Aitken told The Scottish Daily Mail: "I think couples should have the same rights in inheriting property as heterosexuals but I think legislating in this way is going completely over the top". So equality in half measures from the new, tolerant Tories then! Once the Parliament's equal opportunities committee has made its recommendations, The Sunday Times Scotland warned: "It risks a new debate on morality later this year..." and "Scottish ministers are desperate to avoid a repeat of the debate that accompanied the repeal of Section 28". Such a debacle is unlikely. Yes, Christian organisations still receive huge funds to fight such campaigns, but they no longer have the same clout in the Scottish media to launch anything like the hideous Keep the Clause campaign that was stoked by a former editor of The Scottish Sun and a businessman's cheque-book. The only fear is that weak-willed politicians like First Minister Jack McConnell might buckle under the religionist's demands. The Sunday Times Scotland admits McConnell "is anxious that new initiatives reflect the priorities of voters". (That excludes gays; you can count on it)! But listen up! Do we want to jump on the big bus leading Scotland to a progressive nation in Europe, or do we want to loose ourselves down a country lane onboard some clapped-out stagecoach?
Like most of us, I suppose, I was gripped by the unfolding tragedy of Holly and Jessica, the two girls whose bodies were found unrecognisable in some forest scrubland in the English countryside. Anyone who did not agree that hanging and flogging was good enough for the perpetrators of these dreadful crimes were dismissed as sops, liberals, politically correct, 'Guardianistas' and goodness knows what else by Britain's reactionary press. Unfortunately, irrational hatred and vengeance, starting long before the suspects were even found guilty, is the enemy of compassion, reason and justice. Hanging will not stop such atrocities ever happening again. They will be brave researchers to enter the dark minds of those murderers, but it is a journey that must be made if we are ever to find the answers we desperately need to understand and fight these evil crimes. The sexual element appeared only too soon with The Sun, in letters as big as it could print beside the face of the suspected murderer: Ian Huntley's mother had "a lesbian fling". The suggestion was clear. Lesbianism = evil. The News of the World jumped back on the 'Sarah's Law' bandwagon. Any 'evil monster' would do. Dozens of 'perverts' whose crimes had been reported over the years were once again paraded across its pages. The News of the World bemoaned the fact they were unable to tell their readers exactly where they were living. "Paddle steamer captain, aged 57, jailed for 18 months in 1998 for abusing five boys in North Lanarkshire. After release, moved into a house close to a primary school". Apart from the fact that, when you think about it, most people probably live near a primary school or a playground, the offences with the "boys" between 12 and 15 was a spent conviction. Amongst other Scotsmen listed was an "ex-Scout troop helper, aged 49, jailed for 15 months in 1998 for sex offences against boys between 15 and 18. Area of activity: near Perth". Area of what activity? Abusing children?
Over 100 politicians, scientists and writers faxed the BBC asking - although "demanding" was the preferred currency - that they end their exclusion of non-religious contributors to Thought for the Day. In her column - strangely empty of Scotland's part in all this - Kirsty Milne insisted in Scotland on Sunday: "This is not standard fare for the tranquillity zone before the 8am news. Regular contributors are more news-sensitive and circumspect. Contemporary ethics take precedence over articles of faith". Do they? For starters, you can cut the "tranquillity zone" crap with me! It is a slot reserved for religionists to interrupt the morning news programme with religious propaganda as was painfully obvious during the Keep the Clause campaign when Bishop Joseph Devine who was busy petitioning churchgoers to retain Clause 28, begged for "tolerance" before lending his support to Brian Souter's private opinion poll in support of the homophobic Clause 28 with the message: "Let the people have their say". After one liberal suggestion from Kevin Franz, general secretary of Action for Churches Together in Scotland that it wasn't too late for those opposing Clause 28 to sit and talk to gay fellow citizens. Souter's PR, ex editor of Scottish editions of The Sun and former Mirror columnist Jack Irvine, protested to Blair Jenkins, the BBC's head of news and current affairs, suggesting Thought for the Day had been hijacked by gays for political activism!
James Mulholland and Marcello Mega's article in The Scottish News of the World, a rehash of something Mega penned almost a year ago for The Scottish Mail on Sunday took journalism just one step further than the neds who tried to spray the word 'paedo' on a wall outside the home of a paediatrician. Or the gundog breeder who threw leaflets from his car in the Cumbrian town of Longtown, wrongly accusing a Scotswoman and her husband of being paedophiles. The leaflets read: 'PUBLIC NOTICE: SAVE OUR SCHOOLKIDS. PAEDOPHILES NOW OPERATING AT OAKBANK FISHERIES. We know what to do, encourage them to close them now'. They had outbid him in their purchase of a fish farm. With the reaction to paedophilia in this country affecting the way teachers, medics and other professionals deal with children; academics have already expressed concern that they are unable to properly document and research paedophilia in the UK. Post-graduate student, Richard Yuill had been researching inter-generational relationships between males. (Paedophilia is an approved subject of research at the department of sociology at Glasgow University). Yuill - described by S.N.O.T. World as a "balding 48-year-old" who "lives with his mother" - had his computer seized last year and became the centre of a University court investigation. A picture of Yuill bore the caption: "SICKENING: Academic Richard Yuill is studying paedophile behaviour". A police officer commented that he found his work "absolutely sickening" and suggested there was "genuine concern among officers". Appearing with pages of emotional reaction to Holly and Jessica's murder, Yuill's story was juxtaposed with a report on a "beast dad", pictured 'clutching' his daughter, who won "custody of kids".
Ding, dong the witch is dead! I doubt there are many readers of this magazine who will be mourning the death of Baroness Janet Mary Young. An enthusiastic cricketer and rugby player at school, politically Conservative and the first woman leader of the House of Lords, she was usually found dressed in a grey suit with no tie and her blouse buttoned to the top like a man's shirt. Supported in her quest to promote Family Values by the notorious Christian Institute she made our lives a misery.
Closeted, conservative and religionist, we must also wave goodbye to weekly columnist John MacLeod who has been sacked from The Herald. He was famous for commenting on - in response to Michael Barrymore's admission that he was gay -"forbidden desires", describing gays as "unnatural... dangerous..." and "evil". He linked homosexuality to "promiscuity, instability, neurosis, substance abuse, suicide, untold depths of degradation, misery, self-loathing" and declared gays "simply not equipped to live". This was apparently "borne out by study upon study". Editor Mark Douglas Home gave him one month's notice and said in The Sunday Times Scotland: "effectively, he devalued his own currency". No! This was not because of his insulting lies about gay sexuality, shouldered by his own hypocrisy, (MacLeod is himself gay), but because he wrote: "Had the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman kept the Lord's day, their daughter's would still be alive". MacLeod's wish to become a full communicant in the superstition of his choice, a hard-line Free Presbyterian church, has led to progressively cranky opinions in his columns and further regular commissions from the home of on-their-way-out journos, The Scottish Daily Mail. In The Herald, MacLeod wrote: "Scotland had better days. Once we exported a peculiarly intelligent, profitable brand of vital Christianity around the globe. Today we hardly bother to go to church, and fill our emptiness with football, booze, and a host of vanities. Yet, alongside this metaphysical decline, there is a troubling increase in superstition. What happens is 'demonic impersonation', the spirit mimicking the voice and phrase of the departed - but here is darkness indeed. In truth, a medium is either a witch or a wind-up, and no-one of any Christian knowledge, or even common sense, should go within a mile of one". Whatever you might think of MacLeod, The Herald, a censorial rag at the best of times, should not have sacked him in this way. Neither, as many have suggested, should the editor have 'revised' his copy before publishing it. (Douglas Home himself was quoted in The Press Gazette saying MacLeod's column "should not have been published in the form that it appeared"). MacLeod has his supporters. Censoring them won't make them go away. Contesting his opinion with qualified and challenging copy might, however, educate them into changing their minds. Newspapers should be encouraging, not censoring free speech. By licensing Conservative and religionist columnists, for example, to opinionate on gay sex without gay columnists to provide balance and challenge those unqualified opinions, The Herald is itself guilty of appalling imbalance and has itself devalued its currency as a newspaper that is supposed to reflect a broad readership. Perhaps it is Douglas Home's head that should roll. (The world's oldest English-language newspaper The Herald is up for sale. Daily Mail & General Trust have been reported showing interest. Heaven help us)!
How out of touch is The Scottish Sun, eh? When a lad walked naked into tourist centre in Glen Nevis, he was thrown out, for smoking. Manager Anne Matheson told the tabloid: "He was quite gallus about it apparently. Of course I had to be on holiday at the time - I always seem to miss all the good bits!" The Scottish Sun stormed: "A TEENAGE boy walked naked into a busy tourist centre - but was thrown out for SMOKING". They just couldn't get over it. "But centre workers... only asked the puffing streaker to leave after pointing out the No Smoking signs".
CUT IT OUT!
Columnist Alan Taylor in The Sunday Herald: "I yield to no one in my contempt for Brian Souter, the Cardinal Winning of omnibuses. The tacky multi-millionaire boss of Stagecoach, who dresses like David Jason in Frost and prefers carrier-bags to briefcases..." We love you Alan.
Muriel Gray's response to composer James MacMillan's claim that anti-Catholic sentiments dominated Scottish life in The Sunday Herald: "A Church of Scotland minister expressing some mumbled message of theological disquiet about abortion or homosexuality to the soporific General Assembly for its members to take back to dwindling and ageing congregations, has hardly the same impact as, for example, the call for the support of bigoted, homophobic political lobbying that was being demanded by certain Islamic and Catholic fundamentalists at the time of James's concerns, once again through the pulpit, and often to large numbers of deprived and poorly educated people".
Muriel Gray in The Sunday Herald: "But the fact remains that if the press criticised Catholic representatives for trying to spread offensive, divisive and highly political views about homosexuality and sexual reproductive health through the pulpit rather than the ballot box, then it was the media's absolute responsibility, in a secular democracy, to challenge that as forcibly as they could".
The Sunday Mail stoking it up over a wee kiss in ITV's The Bill: "A TV kiss between two policemen has sparked hundreds of complaints. More than 300 viewers rang in to protest..." Ooh, woopy-doo! Considering how many millions simply got over it... I would suggest the Mail did too.
After Mrs Katie Grant registered her disapproval in The Scotsman of breastfeeding in public: "You might think I had been advocating bringing back wetnurses instead of just gently criticising MSP Elaine Smith's desire to give women the 'legal right' to breastfeed in public. Apparently, my remarks on the Today programme caused fury in the wimmin's brigade. I know we have a Parliament that has a Sexual Orientation Reporter specially to conduct inquiries into the provision of LGBT Aware Services (what can they be?), but surely we can sort some things out without legislation?"
Cruel sport propaganda from Mrs Grant in The Scotsman, feeling "duty bound" to spend time in prison to defend fox-hunting, (still legal in England and Wales), in a campaign masterminded by the same PR group behind Keep the Clause. "At 82, the Duke of Devonshire has nailed his colours to the mast, so it is only right that the rest of us should follow suit... In teenage thug circles, it is noted with glee that protecting the public against old men pottering about behind a pack of hounds is shortly to become a greater priority than catching muggers". Mrs Grant behind bars? Oh, pleeeeease!
Catholic Mrs Grant in The Scotsman: "...Perhaps if it comes to sending me to prison, the fact that I have done my patriotic duty by producing three healthy future Scottish taxpayers might be taken into account by the sentencing judge". Not if I have a word with one of my 'friends in high places' it won't!
Description of murder victim, a muscular kickboxer from the west end of Glasgow, Alex Blue in The Scotsman: "Since the killing, Mr Blue has been described as a gangster, a cocaine user and drug dealer. There are rumours, no more than that, of him being bisexual and this caused his death".
Rikki Brown on why Glasgow council are so against erotic dancing by girls in The Scottish Sun: "Well, pole dancing isn't mentioned in the Bible and council can't tax the pole, give it a parking ticket or put a cycle lane round it. So they don't like it... It's a strange thing but you can be chibbed quite easily in Glasgow by one of the many knife-wielding maniacs roaming the streets but they don't want to make it easy for lap or pole-dancing clubs"
