22 May – 20 June 2004
Scottish Media Monitor
The mouthpiece of religious militancy in Scotland, The Scottish Daily Mail rattled off another propaganda exercise. Home affairs editor, Graham Grant reported that “promiscuity” had “sparked a huge rise in sexually transmitted diseases”. This had apparently “prompted health chiefs to advise women to ‘abstain from sex’.” Oh, great, the straight boys are just gonna love that! Good job the gay boys are there to give them a hand. It was the usual tale; fingers pointing at “the Scottish Executive’s liberal health policies…” (Whatever they’re supposed to be)! The editorial leant its full support, blaming “…decades of permissive, ‘non-judgmental’ sex education dispensed by liberal-minded experts and politicians” a “consequence of the discredited policies of the sex education industry and its politically correct acolytes in the Scottish Executive”. Grant gushed that “critics” were up in arms. Not surprisingly, one of these turned out to be David Davidson, health spokesman for the Scottish Tories! He moaned: “The Executive is basically saying: ‘Have sex and don’t worry if it goes wrong – there are always abortions or morning-after pills’.” The other was our old friend; Peter Kearney who declared that the Executive’s “value-free approach” had “catastrophically failed”. After laying out the statistics the report declared that “experts” had warned “the only way to stop the growth was to encourage young people to follow a new American craze, the Silver Ring Thing. The scheme involves youngsters buying a ring and pledging to remain celibate until their wedding night”. This ghastly American evangelical Christian group bathed themselves in the free publicity before they arrived in Glasgow. This pathetic report was ‘balanced’ with news that Murray Petrie, chairman of NHS Tayside’s acute services division “has urged giving sex education lessons to children at the age of five”, an entirely sensible idea, which worked for the Netherlands. The editorial cried over the “harsh lesson of a failed sex policy” despite the utter failure of such policies backed by religious militants and some $270 million of Republican government funding in the US. The failure has surely been the inability of the Scottish Executive to properly implement successful campaigns instigated by our European neighbours, n’est pas? So, if The Daily Mail’s warped idea of a good sex education was so successful, why has it not worked in Catholic schools, since they, after all, form part of the collective high rates of STIs and pregnancies plaguing Scotland? Or was that just something else the Catholic authorities have tried to conceal, along with the myth that their schools provide a better education? The Mail’s editorial declared: “This is insane. If endless instruction in every variety of sexual activity is force-fed to schoolchildren, it is absurd to imagine they will not engage in homework”. The editorial also begged that the public insist ministers and health boards “stop the premature sexualisation of schoolchildren – effectively a form of abuse – and give them back their childhood”. They were on a roll... “The value of sexual abstinence and of marriage must also be promoted”, it added. “Parents should not ask this of the Executive – they should demand it”. But parents should think very carefully before setting off for the school gates on the instruction of militants. Studies at Columbian University have shown that whilst chastity pledges might deter kids from having sex for a year or two, nine out of ten of them still go on to have sex before marriage, but worse, they were found to be more than 30 per cent more likely not to use contraception! I’m surprised more of the Scottish media, trumpeting the US Bible-bashing Silver Ring Thing, would not have put Scotland’s kids first and thought to mention this.
That shameful blot in Scotland’s history: The repeal of Clause 28, was no excuse for the Scottish Executive to prevent the publication of its findings of a review ordered by First Minister Jack McConnell in 2002 into religious observation at Scottish schools. Such school assemblies always were pointless affairs, best remembered as shuffling from one foot to the other while mouthing the Lord’s Prayer and choking on giggles after Dougie McPherson farted over the Head’s sermon. It only shows how divisive an issue it is that someone should now be leaking its findings. It advises that ‘organised acts of worship’ should not be a formal part of the curriculum. The Sunday Herald reported: “The review group’s policy has been endorsed by a panel including representatives of the Church of Scotland and Catholic Church as well as bodies representing headteachers, parents and minority groups”. But who exactly are the ‘minority groups’ represented in this review? Are they the one per cent of religionists who are sufficiently dedicated to their cause that they are bothered to attend a church, or does this refer to the same amount of out-and-out gays who owe very little to the Church in upholding our human rights?
Flashback 2000 and Scotland echoed to the march of jackboots as moral conservatives paraded under the flag of ‘Keep the Clause’. The Scottish Executive soon buckled as The Daily Record - the Der Stuermer of the militants under its editor Martin Clarke - sang the praises of The Three Macs, Scottish ministers rooted in the old traditions of Lanarkshire Labour: Henry McLeish, Jack McConnell and Tom McCabe. There were rumours of leaks to The Daily Record. Ministers leaking against ministers who were bravely trying to do the right thing against a scandalous backlash from ‘Keep the Clause’, funded and run, as it was, by a powerful militant religionist, Brian Souter and his cronies. The Daily Record and a gang of other right-wing papers led the rabble. The stories against Wendy Alexander and those repealing the Clause were brutal and personal. The media recently reported that, as First Minister, Jack McConnell faces an investigation for leaking details of the future on Scottish Opera. After 55 leading academics were contacted by Scotland on Sunday to add their names to a letter signed by editor John McLellan accusing the executive of mishandling its future, John McLellan’s name subsequently disappeared upon publication, but a row over McConnell’s leaking of information over Scottish Opera’s future has caused a furore. McConnell dismissed it as, “all nonsense”. He is a ruthless operator. As he turned on the Scottish National Party and the Conservatives, The Sunday Herald reported him “off-key throughout… waffling and evading”, and “in danger of disappearing up his own arias”. It is surprising to find the Tories demanding what must be up to £10m of taxpayer’s money to be injected into an ailing Scottish Opera, but there you go! Scotland on Sunday reported how McConnell transformed himself from old Labour into New as Blair repositioned his party. They reported: “He even allowed his radical deputy and close friend, Tommy Sheppard, to be pushed out of his job on the say of London”. An ‘insider’ told them: “If you look at all of McConnell’s friends from those days, they no longer associate with him. He left a lot of bad blood. He is a chameleon”. An MP said: “Apart from nationalism, I’d say Jack was a principle-free zone. You’d struggle to think of any act he has been associated with that had anything to do with principle. I can’t see any motives apart from self-advancement”. A ‘party insider’ told SOS: “There was this occasion when a number of us had a dispute with the party management. Jack… strode into the office one afternoon, full of himself, and said, ‘You’ll get no help from your union. I’ve just had a round of golf with your general secretary’.” The paper reported: “During the Donald and Henry era, there was stuff in the papers constantly. (Much of it appeared in The Daily Record, which supported a clause that singled out gays in education). Then when Jack became First Minister, suddenly the leaking against colleagues in the cabinet stopped. Why was that? Was it because peace and harmony and fraternal love overcame the party as they were led by their wonderful new leader, or was it because all the shits who had been doing the leaking were now in post?”
Cardinal Winning might be six-feet under, but many of the vile religionists who helped fuel the hate-filled Keep the Clause campaign are still in active service. All Scotland’s Catholic churches have been in receipt of a letter penned by the homophobic Bishop Joseph Devine, bishop of Motherwell, urging parents to turn off their TVs and change ‘couch potato’ lifestyles into something more worthy to counter a “daily diet of soaps and drama full of storylines supporting divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality”. But there was another bad smell in the air. Martin Clarke, the former editor of The Daily Record who orchestrated a campaign of terror against gays during the Keep the Clause debacle, was back from Ireland on Sunday to take on a new post as executive editor of The Mail on Sunday. He will be based in London. And recently, Tom Hunter bequeathed £5m to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. You couldn’t miss the story. It made most of the papers. With references to him following in the footsteps of philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, it was a remarkably successful exercise in self-promotion. I remember receiving a call from Hunter’s office, begging me to remove a report on the Scottish Media Monitor’s website of a story in The Scottish News of the World on an alleged sexual dalliance with his secretary in a roadside motel with very thin walls. Of that I made no moral judgement, the only thing that riled me was that Tom Hunter was a man who had put his name forward as a sponsor of Brian Souter’s private opinion poll aimed at preventing gays receiving equal treatment in schools.
Whilst Scottish Television wrestled with a decision whether or not to broadcast a party political broadcast by the Scottish Socialist Party accusing Tony Blair of lying over the Iraq war; or whether the BNP’s broadcast should go out at all, the blatantly homophobic Reverend J George Hargreaves, leader of Operation Christian Vote went out on BBC One Scotland without any intervention. Only the Communication Worker’s Union (CWW) spoke out, promising to back post office workers refusing to deliver their leaflets. Interestingly enough, Hargreaves is black and used the platform to challenge racism! No, wait! There’s more…! His homophobic campaign rode bareback on royalties earned from penning the hit single, sung by gay club entrepreneur Stefan King’s former friend, Sinitta: ‘So Macho’. Now would we have boogied so hard had we known the song might’ve referred to muscular Christianity? He told Scotland on Sunday: “…It was for the gay scene to go mad to on poppers”. But adds: “I was never gay…” (Aye, right you are)! Worryingly, compared to the Greens who polled around 79,000 votes at the Euro elections in Scotland, this extreme Christian party polled around 20,000, demonstrating, along with news that two brothers were beaten up after hugging each other in a pub, that Scotland still has a long way to go before it emerges from the Dark Ages.
It’s parade time! Trying to negotiate my way through lines of hatchet-faced members of a quasi-religious cult decorated in orange sashes, I was blocked by an elderly bouncer. Imagine that happening at Pride! A bit of Queer Eye for a Proddie Guy might teach them something, if only good manners! The Orangemen’s efforts to portray themselves as a harmless group celebrating with pipes and drums, doesn’t hold water with me. Chatting to a policewoman walking beside me on Glasgow’s Pride march, she quite openly expressed her dread of having to police them. Not that the marches weren’t well organised, but because of the dross they attract. With news that the First Minister will be appointing an expert to help curb the hundreds of these marches blighting the west coast of Scotland brought The Herald’s Melanie Reid out in blisters: “…Religious marches have no place in this society any longer. They shame Scotland. The only people to benefit from them are publicans and few dozen sad bigots…” Monsignor Peter Smith, writing in The Herald, described Glasgow as “a city in which a tiny band of bigots blackmails the population”. (Given the threats from Orangemen if marches were to be curbed, that might be an accurate description, but he has a very short memory indeed given the Catholic’s record on bigotry)! Remember, it was moral conservatives and religionists, not liberals who made rich pickings for the fascists looking to swell their numbers in the thirties. Fascism never dies; it only sleeps. We must remain ever vigilant.
Every year there’s a “shocker” at the Fringe. It’s hard work competing in the world’s biggest international festival, choc-o-block as it is of entertainment of every kind. A good “shocker” just clinches it. This year The Daily Record was giving away valuable publicity to a “De Sade shocker”. The play, XXX, an adaptation of Marquis de Sade’s 18th century book, Philosophy in the Bedroom, simulates acts of rape and incest and had been “branded” the most explicit ever seen on stage in the UK. The Scottish Daily Mail’s Paula Batters joined The Record in adding that it was “being hailed as the most controversial show in Fringe history and has already shocked audiences across Europe”. It’s on at the Pleasance between August 4 to 14 as both papers appeared eager to point out which begged the question: Were they faking it?
Scotland on Sunday was quick to declare, “birthday-suited… naked cyclists caused outrage…” as over 50 protesters demonstrated against important environmental issues and global warming. Hundreds of onlookers, many with cameras, somewhat took the wind out of this report. There were similar protests in almost 30 cities. According to SoS, “outraged residents in Marchmont” branded it “obscene”. The Sunday Mail gasped: “Two girls went topless and one man flashed his bum…” Scotland on Sunday turned to Susie Agnew, a 52-year-old secretary of the local Community Council who thought it was “about promoting nudity”. The protest turned into the world’s first non-naked naked bike ride since The Sunday Herald reported that some residents and politicians were: “concerned about ‘the effect on children’ the event would have”. Organiser Lucy Anderson condemned the press coverage after Lothian and Borders police officers appeared on the scene threatening to arrest a 20-year-old student if she removed her top. Sometimes I worry about this country, I really do!
The media has little concern for those it tramples on in the process of manufacturing outrage to satisfy its net-twitching readers. The Sunday Mail’s Charles Lavery is rewarded handsomely for his efforts. He focused on a gentle, retired man who ran an antique valuation business living for many years the quiet village of Buchlyvie in Stirlingshire. He had cared for his wife Elizabeth before she died of Parkinson’s disease. Only then, did he courageously take steps to act on “something that has been inside me since the day I was born”. ‘Jim’ became Gladys, the oldest Scot to change gender. She begged rather touchingly in The Sunday Mail: “I don’t want to say too much about it just now because my daughter is not allowing me to see my wee grandson, so it’s all a bit difficult… I’m going to hospital but not at the moment. This is pretty difficult for me just now because of the situation with my immediate family”. Any decent person would leave it that. But The Sunday Mail, always first to preach to its readers on morality, put its own needs for a good story first. “The OAP’s sex change” had “stunned family and friends… set tongues wagging… He walked into the two local pubs and the local grocer and introduced himself as Gladys. He also went to church in twin set and pearls”. He “attends classes in deportment and dressing properly”. The tabloid went shopping around for some outrage and found a neighbour who said: “…You would have thought he would be a wee bit past all that at his age”. Gladys… There’s a place in heaven for you, my love! And Charles Lavery… There’s a place for you too… I only hope you can stand the heat!
garry@scottishmediamonitor.com
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CUT IT OUT…
Muriel Gray in The Sunday Herald: “Important voices of political dissent are being gagged in America by a right-wing Christian power in a way we haven’t seen for decades. Since Salman Rushdie’s terrible ordeal in the 1980s, even the world’s boldest, most intellectually sound commentator daren’t criticise or make fun of Islam for fear of being hounded and killed by barbaric thugs. And in the rest of the world, religious fundamentalism, for from withering in the hot glare of reason, is growing in strength like some vile bacteria in a Petrie dish”.
Mrs Katie Grant, this time in the Ecosse section of The Sunday Times Scotland on the Aberdeen couple whose “outdoor shenanigans” - (The Press and Journal) was disturbed by a thief running off with their clothes: “The naked couple were not starstruck young sweethearts but drunken strangers who had met only hours before in a bar”.
