On Monday, 17 January 2000, visiting the Orbiston Neighbourhood Centre in Bellshill; a camera crew filmed Cardinal Winning publicly calling homosexuality a perversion. Winning was not without his apologists. Hugh McLoughlin, who witnessed his remarks, told The Herald: “The media were supposed to be present to help publicise the work and ethos of the Orbiston Centre but, sadly, they had their own agenda. And it had nothing to do with Christian social action”. McLoughlin rattled out Winning’s defence. “During the previous week Mr Brian Souter had indicated his willingness to finance a campaign to retain Section 2a. On the previous day, the Sunday, Donald Dewar had been interviewed on TV and had defended Wendy Alexander in the face of mounting criticism of her inept handling of the proposed repeal of the law protecting children from homosexualist proselytising in schools. At the press conference in the Orbiston Neighbourhood Centre that Monday morning the media, and most especially a TV reporter, relentlessly harried Cardinal Winning for a comment, any comment, about the proposed repeal of Section 2a. His Eminence neither sought the opportunity to comment on the matter, nor had he come to Bellshill prepared in advance to do so. He was there, and he repeatedly tried to make this clear, to observe and to comment solely on the work of the centre. Exasperated, he finally made a few comments about Section 2a as much just to get rid of the media as anything. They clearly were not interested in the good endeavours of Mr Johnstone and his board to provide social services to the local community in a Christian but non-denominational setting (sic) so it was better that they should just go. His Eminence neither then nor at any other time called anyone a pervert. He stated that no matter how reluctant he was to do so - and if you take the trouble to look again at the interview on tape it is abundantly clear that he was reluctant - he had no choice but to clearly state that the homosexual act itself, that is buggery though he did not use the word, was a perversion. That statement is clearly in conformity both with the Romans Catholic Catechism and the civil law”.
Four days later, on Friday, 21 January, Cardinal Winning - as guest of honour of the Cana Catholic family movement in Malta – once again let slip his opinions, comparing homosexuals to criminals and branding them ‘perverted’. Cardinal Winning told the Maltese: “Today, society is facing a new threat, aided and supported by governments and politicians: the threat to equate homosexual partnerships with marriage. In my country at this very moment there is a national debate about this issue… I am glad to say that a broad coalition is now emerging to combat the threat which lies before us… Do not be complacent. All over Europe an active and militant homosexual lobby is pushing for greater power and the threat to the Christian family is very real”. Martin Pendergast, chairman of the Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement said: “The Cardinal’s intemperate language, with words such as ‘perversion,’ places him out of line with even the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which said it deplores violence in speech or in action towards gays”. Tim Hopkins, of the Equality Network in Edinburgh hit out: “Cardinal Winning’s claims of an international conspiracy were reminiscent of the kinds of claims being made against the Jews 100 years ago”. Scotland on Sunday issued a warning to his camp after their headline blasted: “Gay lobby compared to Nazis in new broadside by Winning… Cardinal Thomas Winning has compared the threat of the homosexual lobby in Europe to that of the Nazis in the Second World War, sparking widespread anger among politicians and gay rights campaigners. (He) drew parallels between a ‘militant homosexual lobby pushing for greater power’ and Italian and German bombers”. Their editorial warned: “To compare the power of the gay lobby - as distasteful and misguided as he believes it is - with Nazism threatening civilisation in Europe in the 1930s is to invite the scepticism of many he might otherwise have counted as supporters. We would caution the Cardinal to bear this in mind as he continues to defend, as no doubt he will, his church’s position”. The Scotsman remarked how “his views appeared to resonate with those expressed by Pat Robertson, the right-wing American evangelist…”
Iain MacWhirter observed in The Herald: “Intoxicated by what they believed to be an awakening of a Scottish ‘silent majority,’ the mask of moderation slipped. The leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Winning, resorted to the queer-bashing rhetoric used by Mr Jack Irvine in his Mirror column”.
Cardinal Winning was reported saying in a sympathetic Scottish Daily Mail: “These stories are clearly intended to discredit me and my church over our stance on Section 28”. (Scotland on Sunday was, in fact a virulent supporter of his campaign to retain Section 28). Winning claimed he was referring to the invasion of satellite broadcasts.
Cardinal Winning had been planning to attend Mass at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta; followed by a lavish dinner at a luxury hotel, which had taken a year’s planning by the Maltese people. It was suddenly cancelled. Joseph Mercieca, the Archbishop of Malta explained Winning had a Sunday appointment in Glasgow and his Sunday morning flight from Malta to London had been cancelled. The Catholic Church in Malta said it was the connection from London to Glasgow that had been cancelled. Tracey Lawson wrote in The Scotsman: “A reasonable enough explanation until inquiries at Malta, Gatwick and Heathrow airports failed to give any evidence that the early flight… had ever existed, let alone been cancelled”.
When Cardinal Winning arrived back in Glasgow he had a letter waiting for him. Opening The Scotsman he was confronted by an open letter addressed to him from a University graduate, working as a medical doctor in cancer research. He had required hospital treatment after having been assaulted leaving an Edinburgh gay bar the day after Souter pledged his million. “I was hit from behind with a baseball bat and I lost consciousness for several minutes. Whilst unconscious I was viciously assaulted by several people and suffered fractures to the bones of my face and lost several teeth. I have also been left unable to remember much about the events surrounding the attack… To make the remarks such as you do and believe that most of society possess the subtlety to understand their meaning reflects a naiveté about humanity which is no less than I have come to expect from you. You remark in newspaper interviews that most of society do not believe that Section 28 should be repealed. Your opinions were passionately expressed, but lacking in both intellect and articulacy. The duty of government in a democratic society is to aspire towards the creation of a society characterised by justice and peace. Supporting the customs and conventions of the masses does not necessarily assist in the creation of such a society. Millions of people in the UK read the Sun, but were its expressed editorial opinions to be adopted within government policy we would be living in a society considerably less tolerant and more violent. The teenagers who attacked me probably consider themselves to be good Christian boys, and your recent remarks will have done nothing to dispel them of their delusions. Were they to have had questions of gay, straight and celibate sexuality discussed in an intellectually informed environment at school, perhaps attacks such as mine would occur less frequently. So much for a Church claiming to give guidance to the young. Having been brought up in a Catholic family and having attended Catholic state schools in Greenock, I have always considered both yourself and your Church to be simply offensive. I now consider you both to be nothing short of evil. Yours sincerely, Dr S T”.
Cardinal Winning was smug: “We condemn a lot of people because of their lifestyle – burglars for example. The fact that the prison population is bigger than any other part of Europe shows we condemn a lot of people for their lifestyle”. A spokesman for Winning boasted that the Section 28 debate had given him the biggest postbag in 26 years.
Although Winning’s comments provoked a good deal of anger, even amongst members of his own church, he never received the indignation of having his church described as ‘split’ as The Record did when the Church of Scotland’s moderator declared his support for the abolition of Section 28. Instead, The Daily Record’s editorial remarked how Winning had “found himself on the end of another tirade of abuse from people grasping at any straw with which to discredit him. Winning may have been ill-advised to compare the courage of the Maltese during the World War II to the courage needed to retain family values in the 21st century. But at no time did he compare the vocal gay lobby to the Nazis… They were so keen to latch on to any perceived lapse that Winning found himself misrepresented in most of the so-called quality Sunday newspapers. Meanwhile, most of Scotland’s chattering classes were handed space in the same broadsheets to vent their outrage at The Daily Record for allowing readers to tell the Scottish Executive just what they thought of its plans to repeal Section 28. Despite trying to seize the high moral ground, their writers were left with egg on their faces”. Cardinal Winning had at his disposal the best press manipulators. Dominic Ryan wrote in The Herald, in preparation of a profile on BBC’s Frontline Scotland: “He has a knack of being able to play the press, reeling in and playing the slack until headlines are moulded to his cause”. The Cardinal refused to take part in the programme, but his spokesman Ronnie Convery faced a barrage of questions about Opus Dei, a right-wing faction that pledged to “contribute to the evangelisation of every sphere of society” and operated within the Roman Catholic Church. Opus Dei was formed in 1928 by Nazi-sympathiser, Jose Maria Escriva Albas who was canonised by Pope Benedict XVI in 2002. Its 80,000 members included priests and influential figures in both the media and government. Cardinal Winning had been reported stating his admiration for Opus Dei and Ronnie Convery admitted on the programme that he had once been a member himself. Convery denied that Cardinal Winning was at odds with the majority of Catholics and said: “It puts us in conflict with what you might call the forces of political correctness; it puts us in conflict with what you might call the siren voices of liberalism”. Monsignor Tom Connelly explained to Scotland on Sunday: “Opus Dei is a fully approved part of the Catholic Church. It has the full support of the Vatican and enjoys excellent relations with the cardinal, who values the dedication and loyalty of its members. To describe it as a ‘sect’ or suggest it is somehow sinister is wilful distortion. It is also in insult to Cardinal Winning to suggest that he is under the influence of any ‘group’.” Many of Pope John Paul II’s recent announcements were sourced to this faction; he made their top man a bishop and invited them to meetings. Father Fitzsimmons, of St John Bosco’s Church in Erskine, Renfrewshire, who The Scottish Daily Mail dismissed as “a leading critic of the Cardinal’s decisive moral leadership”, claimed on the programme that the Opus Dei faction had secured access to the Cardinal and went on to criticise the Church leadership for allowing Opus Dei to build a closeted power-base in Scotland. Ronnie Convery hit back, shrugging off suggestions Opus Dei was right-wing and emphasised that it purely applied itself to the Pope’s instructions. 60-year-old Father Fitzsimmons lost his patience and told The Sunday Herald he “didn’t give a bugger” about his courting the wrath of the church hierarchy.
Of Winning, columnist Iain McWhirter wrote in The Herald that Catholics were “outraged, not just at his pejorative language, but his sheer opportunism. By what right did he hitch his church to a campaign organised by fundamentalist Christians, monomaniacal journalists and opinionated businessmen with more money than sense? I suppose that is a difficult question to pose in an organisation which has historically been based on the moral infallibility of its leaders… Of course, the whole affair could have been better handled by the Scottish Executive. The decision to move on Section 28 should have been delivered to the Scottish Parliament and not leaked to the press in a futile attempt to win the backing of The Daily Record”.
As the letters poured in, in a special supplement printed in The Herald, Rev David A Keddie wrote: “The clod-hopping, black-and-white, judgmental, medieval, Aquinas-inspired dogmatic of the Cardinal is as insensitive as it is irrelevant”.
Ian Bell, in his column in The Scotsman, contested the lies and stupidity behind Cardinal Winning’s rhetoric. “First, as a matter of fact, you can neither be converted to nor cured of homosexuality. The medical and scientific evidence, far less the testimony of gays themselves, simply does not exist. Therefore any attempted promotion of a homosexual lifestyle - more tasteful, better dressed, better jokes, capable of painting the Sistine Chapel - would be meaningless as well as entirely pointless. Or rather, entirely beside the point. Secondly, if this promotion-of-lifestyle gimmick is so effective, how do we explain the failure of the heterosexual lobby to prevent all those regrettable occurrences of the gay thing? How did they escape the promotional campaign? If it is truly possible to promote sexual orientation, why, given a world drenched in heterosexual imagery, are there gays at all?”
Spot the campaigner”, urged The Herald under a picture of a cheerful Cardinal Winning playing dominoes with three elderly ladies at the neighbourhood centre in Bellshill. Despite the photo-call, Winning was still focused on the campaign to support Section 28 and said: “What pains me about this whole situation is that the silent majority are so silent that the silence is deafening… I wish to God they would speak up for their society”. He told The Daily Record: “Homosexuality is promoted every day. It’s promoted by people who are on the streets, it’s promoted by people who are attracted to others”. The Scottish Daily Mail advised: “He warned that primary and secondary school children faced being exposed to ‘explicit and perverted material’ which could encourage them to become homosexual…” Courting public sympathy by steering the debate into the emotional arena of child sexuality, he added: “I am concerned that children might be converted by some of the literature. There’s no doubt about it”. Under a huge portrait of himself in The Record, Winning comfortingly smiled, “I’m no bigot”, before showering Souter with his praise. “I am happy with his Christian commitment. I applaud the man”. The free paper, The Metro reported Winning suggesting, “Mr Souter had been the victim of a witch hunt by Mr Dewar and gay rights activists”.
When Prime Minister Tony Blair declared his support for the repeal of Section 28 in the House of Commons, Cardinal Winning was sitting in the public gallery. The Daily Record was vitriolic. The headline: “Blair backs gay lessons”, was dropped onto the front page. “Tony Blair’s decision to wade into the Section 28 row north of the Border is unfortunate and ill-advised”, The Record’s editorial raged. “Winning had to use a private entrance to Dover House to avoid gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who had turned up to confront the churchman”. The Herald columnist Anvar Khan wrote waspishly: “Some MPs have been taking the back door for years”. Peter Tatchell had attempted to get Cardinal Winning to name the people he claimed wanted to ‘promote’ homosexuality in schools. In a letter to a The Scotsman Tatchell pleaded: “Using religion to oppose equality echoes the actions of Afrikaner church leaders in South Africa under apartheid, who distorted Christianity to justify racial discrimination. Section 28 singles out homosexuality for special legal penalties that do not apply to heterosexuality. It is a form of sexual apartheid, which treats gay people as inferior, second-class citizens, and causes great suffering. Is that what Cardinal Winning wants? If not, why is he backing a bigoted campaign that is stirring up prejudice and intolerance?”
Glasgow Kelvin MP George Galloway, a friend of Cardinal Winning and one time columnist for the Catholic newspaper Flourish, joined the row by lambasting Cardinal Winning for calling homosexuality “a perversion”. He told BBC Scotland’s Holyrood programme that the description was “pernicious… I was disgusted by the use of the word, which could have dripped from the lips of any raving bigot… Cardinal Winning is not fit for the great office he holds… He ought to have known the atmosphere that it would help to create”. The Scottish Mirror’s headline blasted: “BOOT OUT THE BIGOT”. A spokesman for Cardinal Winning told The Scottish Daily Express it was “quite inappropriate” to call the Cardinal bigoted. “He has made it clear that homosexuals should be treated like everyone else”. A spokesman for the ‘Keep the Clause’ campaign, referring to Galloway, told The Scottish Mirror: “I don’t think a prince of the church need worry about Labour’s clown prince”.
Cardinal Winning said in The Herald that he had been “shocked and saddened” by the press coverage. Then, with the same debate looming south of the border in the House of Lords, Dr George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury joined the fray, backing the Cardinal with his remarks that Section 28 was also “a matter of concern” to him. The Scottish Mail quoted Dr Carey’s “dramatic intervention” over Section 28. “I condemn totally prejudice against anyone on the basis of sexual orientation. But I also resist placing homosexual relationships on an equal footing with marriage as the proper context for sexual intimacy”. Dr Carey, of course, merely ‘intervened’ in the debate as opposed to ‘militant gays’ who responded with ‘hysterical reactions’ and ‘outrageous demands’.
“Suddenly religion matters again in Scotland”, columnist Tom Brown gasped excitedly in The Record. “For God’s sake, people are actually speaking up for their beliefs. Those who claim to follow Him – whether they display the brainless, bigoted ‘religion’ of the football terraces, or the churchgoing, dressed-up Sundays-only sanctimoniousness of the ‘unco guid’ – have been getting God a bad name in Scotland of late… The Christian churches (because the Moslem and other ancient faiths are obvious exceptions…) are irrelevant to many, because they have had nothing relevant to say… So hallelujah for Cardinal Thomas Winning and Brian Souter… What puts them in the same pulpit is a shared belief in promoting what is right and wholesome and opposing what is unwholesome and perverse… I haven’t lived a sheltered life – entirely the opposite, in fact – and I know the wide range of acrobatics and abnormal activities heterosexual couples can get up to… You don’t have to be a prude to know some things are wrong”.
The Record emptied its mailbag and printed another selection of letters, allowing only one to show any compassion for gays: -
“We shouldn’t be too shocked at the Government. Surely it’s been noted that there are several gay members of Tony Blair’s ‘Pink’ Cabinet”. Thomas Moran, Edinburgh.
“I cannot accept (Brian Souter) saying: ‘I respect homosexuals as individuals and I respect their rights’. How can he, as a Christian, have respect for something God condemns?” Alex Lennox, Lochwinnoch.
“Brian Souter has done a wonderful thing for Scotland”. Mary Potter, Bellshill.
“Why all this fuss over Section 28 when the biggest influence on our children – TV – is littered with homosexuals? We are, by our silence, making it all seem quite natural”. T Stowe, Kilmarnock.
“To focus on homophobic bullying and make a special case of it is just as likely to exacerbate the problem as it is to diminish it”. Bill McHaffie, Johnstone.
“How can brainwashing our kids with gay sex propaganda not create a whole new set of social problems?” J Brown, Glasgow.
“…The words used by the homosexual movement to describe themselves, their contrived scenarios and aims for legal privilege…” are “fallacious”. Margaret MacDonald, Glasgow.
“…It is no surprise that the Government allows them into the armed forces. I can imagine the Last Post being sounded to the tune of Kiss Me Goodnight Sergeant Major”. D Cooper, Glasgow.
“I would like to thank the Record for speaking up for the parents of Scotland… I am not homophobic but I want all children to be protected from the promotion of homosexuality”. Mary Campbell, Uddingston. (Mary Campbell of Uddingston appeared again in The Sunday Mail: “As a parent, I will do everything I can to help keep out the filthy material that has already been printed, just waiting to be given to our schools in the guise of health education”).
A Kennedy of Glasgow wrote: “What next in the name of equality – teaching children how the mind of a criminal, rapist or serial killer works, so they can try that out too?”
G Smart of Glasgow wrote: “I was appalled to read of the money and support handed out to gay groups by councils across Scotland. This is a shocking waste of public money. Let these communities fund their own lifestyles and stop trying to convert the rest of us”.
Concerned of Ayrshire wrote on the “upraised voices screaming ‘discrimination’… What a wonderful weapon this word has been for the furtherance of the homosexual cause and how skilfully they have used it”.
D B of Paisley wrote: “Keep Section 28. I am 71 and no-one has ever asked me if I am illegitimate or gay”.
M B of Elgin wrote: “Thank you very much Daily Record for your wonderful achievement in campaigning to keep Section 28. Had you not printed all the readers’ letters, the immoral people and the unsavoury Labour Government would have their wicked way already”.
The Daily Record had a one-word headline set aside for its cover on Friday, 21 January, accusing Labour MSPs of being “ROBOTS”. Along with a coupon for readers to fill in and send to First Minister Donald Dewar expressing “deep unease”, the editorial suggested “the row over Section 28 is fast turning into a calamity for Donald Dewar’s Scottish Executive. Just how panicked it is can be seen by the response when we dared to ask some rank-and-file Labour MSPs what their view was on the move to repeal the section and allow gay sex lessons into Scottish schools. Within minutes the New Labour thought police swung into action. Pagers went off in the pockets of all 54 MSPs ordering them to duck the question”. MSPs had been sensibly advised to ignore The Record.
Gerald Warner in The Scottish Mail found Labour MSPs were “expressing horror at the prospect of homosexuality being promoted in schools” despite the majority clearly supporting repeal. The Record wrote: “Despite his (First Minister, Donald Dewar’s) gagging order, more than 20 MSPs broke the ban and openly gave the Record their views on Section 28. However only two of them, Irene Oldfather and Gordon Jackson, refused to back the Government’s line”. And even then, “both claimed they had not yet made their minds up…” The editorial was scathing. “…It was hardly surprising that the only MSPs willing to risk actually speaking to the dreaded newspapers were the ones who agreed with Donald anyway”. Well almost. Under the picture of Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North were the words: “DID NOT ANSWER”.
Scotland on Sunday recorded “the unusual sight of Labour and SNP MSPs banging their desks for the two leaders as they both sat down” in their seats in the Scottish parliament. Iain Macwhirter wrote on the spectacle of Labour and Scottish Nationals moment of unity in The Sunday Herald: “When the Scottish parliament met… Dewar and Alex Salmond pressed home their advantage. In an uncharacteristic display of consensus, they joined forces to reassure parents that abolishing Section 28 did not imply that the Executive favoured the positive promotion of homosexuality in schools. It was an electric moment, and one of the most significant episodes in the short history of the Scottish parliament. But it was scarcely reported in the next day’s press. The Record had by this stage begun a witch-hunt of MSPs seeking to ‘out’ those who didn’t support the Executive line. It found none - but that only confirmed its suspicion that the entire parliament was founded on a conspiracy to promote ‘gay lessons’.”
The Record was adamant; not only its readers, but also Scotland did not want this “nonsense”. Their agony aunt, Joan Burnie tried to contact Wendy Alexander but was left “distraught, devastated and dismayed” after her “humble request for an interview” was knocked back. “That it should be a woman makes it doubly hurtful”, Burnie whined. “Wendy, Wendy, can’t we kiss and make up?” she begged before remarking acidly: “…Don’t you think the Ann Widdecombe hair-style and wardrobe is inappropriate for someone as young and sweet-natured as you?” Poor Wendy Alexander could do nothing right in Old Mother Burnie’s eyes. On another occasion, the so-called ‘agony aunt’ sniped: “I’m surprised Father’s day is still allowed. I should have thought Wendy Alexander and her Parliamentary pals would have banned it by now. After all, we can’t have kids without fathers being made to feel that children with a daddy are better, can we?”
The Record’s report by Gethin Chamberlain: “Gays target kids and teachers”, plumbed new depths in hysteria. They reported that a “publicly funded group, Healthy Gay Scotland, publishes a guide telling young men how to come out as gay… The group, funded by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, offers advice to young men on having sex in public places”. No. It was advice to young men who were having sex in public places. There’s a difference. The Record declared: “Edinburgh-based Gay Men’s Health, which receives Ł138,000 of public cash from Lothian Health, also publishes a guide offering advice on where to have sex in public and where to buy porn and sex toys”. Worse… “Grampian Health Board publishes advice to teachers” and “advises that teachers should provide positive images of gays”. None of the groups – apart from David Macauley from ‘Keep the Clause’ - were given the opportunity to challenge the report. Macauley was - of course - “appalled”. The report declared: “Campaigners… are targeting teachers and pupils with homosexual propaganda. One gay group at the forefront of the campaign to scrap Section 28 has published a leaflet urging school children to try gay sex. A group calling itself Avert offers a range of information for training teachers and school governors. The site suggests open discussions about homosexuality in class and offers links to other gay sites with instructions on gay sex practices. The Daily Record also discovered dozens of other websites with openly pornographic images masquerading as education material”. Of those condoning violence and the murder of gays at this time, one of the most notorious was a ‘Christian’ one called God Hates Fags. Jim Mearns in Glasgow, unable to get his point across in the pages of The Record, wrote instead to The Herald about the website devoted to Matthew Shepherd, the young gay man mutilated and murdered in the USA and whose funeral had been picketed by Christians. Mearns advised the site “shows a photo of Matthew surrounded by flames, with a day counter and a statement that this shows the number of days he has spent in hell because of his unacceptable, unnatural lifestyle”.
“DEWAR DODGES HEAD-TO-HEAD TV GAY DEBATE”, The Record now fumed in a headline after the First Minister, Donald Dewar “ducked” a challenge to enter into a live TV debate. Brian Souter had faxed Dewar with the following request: “I agree with Tony Blair’s call for mature debate concerning Section 28, as I believe this sensitive and important family issue is worthy of proper discussion. I would therefore like you to consider debating the intellectual case for and against repeal with me in a public televised forum which would, I feel, be in keeping with our democratic traditions”. A spokesman for Donald Dewar told The Record: “The First Minister doesn’t believe this sensitive issue should be reduced to either a personality or gladiatorial contest”.
On the moral panic that now engulfed Scotland, in The Scotsman, Tom Pow quoted a piece from Stanley Cohen’s book Folk Devils and Moral Panics and warned: “Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; its moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions”. That time had now come. The Herald called in Professor John Haldane, FRSA, FRSE and director of the Centre for Philosophy and Public Affairs at St Andrews University to explain homosexuality to readers (…the paper omitted mentioning his Catholic connections. He became the author of Faithful Reason: Essays Catholic and Philosophical and wrote such articles as Thomas Winning: Streetfighter for God for The Tablet). “…The primary definitive use of sexual organs is intersexual, between male and female, and for the sake of reproduction. Does it also follow that this is the only legitimate use? I do not think so. Consider the analogy with eating. The organs of this are the mouth and digestive tract. Accordingly their primary definitive use is to consume food for the benefit of the body in general. Is this the only reason to eat? Evidently not. There is also the pleasure of savouring the taste and texture of one’s meal as there is the pleasure of sharing the table with others. None the less, someone who divorced the practice of putting food in their mouth from the process of digesting it would be - and ought to be - judged perverse. Eating and spitting out, or vomiting up, adopted as general practices are pathological conditions. …The primary function of sexual activity remains that of reproduction. Homosexual activity, like the intentional consumption of indigestible material or the continuing and deliberate regurgitation of food, is a misuse of natural human capacities. How serious a misuse is not a matter I feel competent to judge”.
The Sunday Mail, The Record’s more gay-friendly sister, edited by Peter Cox, supported the Government line and carried an exclusive declaring: “Catholic priest Gordon Brown is so sickened by his Church’s stance on gays he has chosen to ‘out’ himself… He claims there is a significant underground gay movement within the Catholic Church in Scotland, with gay priests too scared to reveal themselves for fear of being expelled from their jobs and the Church”. Father Brown said: “To say that homosexuality is a threat to family life is just nonsense. Who would consider a lifestyle which is considered to be second best”? The Scottish Daily Mail saw it somewhat differently and decided to go for the story from a different angle, declaring “the Catholic Church in Scotland was left reeling after a secret network of gay priests was exposed by one of its members”. The Catholic Church in Scotland assured Father Brown’s sexuality would not be an issue as long as he continued to remain celibate. Father Danny McLaughlin said: “Provided Father Brown does not indulge in gay sex then there is nothing to say that he is not living a good life… Considering it from a personal perspective seems to make him look at it in a slightly different way. Our position is quite clear. We are opposed to the promotion of homosexual activity as being equal to sex within a stable loving marriage. It is sad he can’t accept that”. Already in the US, 300 priests had died from AIDS, a rate four times higher than in the general population. Experts blamed the church’s dishonesty over sexuality and avoidance of safer sex education. Father Brown was not alone in disgruntling the Catholic hierarchy. Letters poured in to The Catholic Observer to challenge Edinburgh’s Evening News columnist, Father Steve Gilhooley’s liberal stance on homosexuality. Before his book The Pyjama Parade was published, detailing the abuse he suffered at the hands of Father Francis Bligh who was jailed in 2001 for two and a half years and placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register after admitting 10 counts of indecent assault on boys aged between 11 and 15, he was asked by The Evening News if he had published the book for money. “Do you want to come and see my hate mail?” he argued. “Or punch my name into the Internet and see all the slaggings I get? Or the bomb left under my car? And the flaming rags soaked in petrol left on my doorstep? Or pay for my broken windows? Anyone in Edinburgh knows that my auntie runs an orphanage in Bolivia. That’s where my money for my Evening News column goes, and that’s where money for the book will go too”.
Years later, after the publication of The Pyjama Parade and after launching a scathing attack on the appointment of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who he claimed was trying to silence him in The Irish Times, Steve Gilhooley went missing on a ‘soul-searching’ trip to Ireland after announcing he would not be returning to the priesthood. He claimed in his article that “Rome’s response was to deliver a threat to my archbishop that if he didn’t silence me, they’d discipline him. I was treated as the perpetrator rather than the victim”.
But, after the heat was cranked up in the progressively vile campaign to ‘Keep the Clause’, there would inevitably be victims.
garry@garryotton.com
Next: Murder!
