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Leading article: Leaders of the gay revolution

Still nearly a year to go to the next election, and the heat of partisan competition is already intense. Not just in the sterile exchanges in the House of Commons over public-spending plans, but in the speed with which a party-political spat blew up last week over the issue of gay rights. The fuss began when Gordon Brown and David Cameron competed to show off their liberal credentials during Pride Week. The Prime Minister did not actually attend the London march, but his wife did, and he sent a message extolling the Labour Government's record in legislating for gay equality. Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition apologised to Pink Paper, the online gay newspaper, for his past support for the notorious "Section 28" – the symbolic law that banned the "promotion" of homosexuality.

This provoked Ben Bradshaw, the Secretary of State for Culture, to say: "A deep strain of homophobia still exists on the Conservative benches." Yesterday Angela Eagle, the pensions minister, and Alan Duncan, the shadow Leader of the House of Commons, traded insults and claims about each party's respective voting records on gay rights. Mr Duncan pleaded: "Get the politics out of this."

No chance. Instead, our aim should be to try to clear away the party-political distortions, because, as with the row over taxes and spending, there are differences between the two main parties on gay equality.

First, we should acknowledge the Government's record. The evolution of Britain as a society at ease with openly gay people is a significant achievement. Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, astutely said on a Labour-supporting website yesterday that "a lot has been accomplished". Section 28 has been repealed; the age of consent has been equalised; the law against discrimination has been strengthened; above all, civil partnerships represent a huge step towards full legal equality.

Second, we should acknowledge the importance of David Cameron's conversion. The Tory leader is rightly proud that he got a Conservative Party conference to applaud gay marriage three years ago. Nor should his apology for Section 28 be brushed aside as mere positioning. It matters because it ensures that the social revolution of the past 12 years cannot be rolled back.

In both Mr Brown and Mr Cameron's cases, it is possible to cavil. Mr Brown has not been brave or principled in his support for gay rights. As far as we can tell, he has never taken part in votes in the House of Commons to promote equality for gay people. Nor is Mr Cameron quite as radical as he pretends. Tory representatives may have clapped when he said that "marriage is a vital institution", adding: "It means something whether you're a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman, or a man and another man." But he was talking of civil partnerships, rather than gay marriage as such. Gay marriage, advocated by Peter Tatchell, the perpetual campaigner, is supported only by the Liberal Democrats.

Both Labour's record and Mr Cameron's conversion are relevant in judging which party is more likely to maintain the forward momentum of this great social change.

It is in this respect that Mr Cameron, or rather his party, is suspect. The evidence for this is not the Conservative Party's new alliance in the European Parliament. The new group is embarrassing because it puts the Tories on the fringes of European politics, not because some of its members are a bit odd. There is an air of electioneering artifice in Labour's attempt to embarrass Mr Cameron by citing the homophobic past of the Polish Law and Justice Party. "They do believe in equal rights and they have made that very clear," Mr Cameron said.

No, Mr Cameron's problem is not the Poles; it is his own back benches. They are still full of MPs for whom the transformation of the past 12 years is a matter of profound regret. Even the expenses-driven clear-out is unlikely to shift the composition of the parliamentary Tory party much. There is a tension at the party's heart; witness Mr Cameron's initiative on family values on which we report today. To that extent, the charge laid by Mr Bradshaw and Ms Eagle must be upheld: the Tory conversion on gay rights is nothing like as thorough as the leader and a few of his allies would like.

Labour has the edge, therefore. But, because the Conservatives are unlikely to reverse the gains already made, how much this matters depends on how much more of the social revolution you think there is to be completed.

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Exclude religious influence and old politicians.
[info]richardm30 wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 07:46 am (UTC)
The only way in which a for society can exist is if we remove all influence from religious leaders and old politicians. It is about time they gave gay people complete and utter equality and be done with it. It is going to happen so why not just avoid the heart ache and do it straight (forgive the pun) away. Old fart politicians (and their backward ideas) are dying off - you have only to look at attitudes of young open minded people to see that things will change in the near future. But religion opposes all progress - either implicitly or explicitly - so all religious influence should be expunged from the decision-asking process - why? Because it is irrelevant and cannot inform the debate in any meaningful way.
with the greatest respect
[info]tph197 wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 08:03 am (UTC)
We all know what's coming when someone starts, 'with the greatest respect', So, with the greatest respect, the Gay Revolution (whatever that may be) or indeed Dave's backbenchers, don't matter a hoot. In the real world, its the voters who count, and, unpleasant as this fact may be, the overwhelming majority of the voters, have very old fashioned ideas on morality, especially when they become parents. Recent additions to our demographics of course have very, very old fashioned ideas. Its not this election that's going to be interesting. Dave will be voted in, simply because Gordon and his not so merry men are a complete dogs breakfast. Its the next general election which will be instructive. The electorate are beginning to abandon the main political parties and form networks, alliances and matrices which are independent of these parties, and no one knows yet what the effect will be. But one thing is certain, its frightening the giblets out of the metropolitan elites.
Re: with the greatest respect
[info]errol888flynn wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 09:08 am (UTC)
This article has great insights into the real agenda hiding behind the increasingly hysterical promotion of homosexuality: http://www.henrymakow.com/001421.html
still a struggle ?
[info]nicholson007 wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 10:50 am (UTC)
Alan Duncan - to say take the politics out of this issue - how irresponsibly stupid can a poltician get ? But we're about to elect this party to power and it's full of Alan Duncans.

Further - the gay issue is struggling through the system, often with alot of campaign effort. You cannot simply give up the fight and assume in a vague way everything has been sort of made fair. The devil remains in the detail. The equality issues become more fine, more complex, more sophisticated.

Beyond constructing our own national legal framework correctly (ie. so as to project a clear sign about how we define freedom and morality both to ourselves and to the world) there are monumental struggles taking place in other parts of the world which will look to the advances we make during these years when their own time comes to modernise.
Re: still a struggle ? [Idealistic Idiocy]
[info]errol888flynn wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 11:38 am (UTC)
" ... there are monumental struggles taking place in other parts of the world which will look to the advances we make during these years when their own time comes to modernise." Huuhhh???

You are living in a pornography induced dream world nicholson007.

Most countries around the world view Britain as a plaything of those who own and control the City of London. As a people we are already held in contempt. London is already called the Gay-Ass Capital of the World.

The only things that London produces these days are financial scams, violent crime figures, prostitutes of all colours, and mincing homosexuals. Since the 1970s, it has been turned from a city of communities into a thug city of disrepute monitored 24/7 by trigger-happy policing.

Nobody wants to copy Britain and America anymore. They have all wisened up. They already know that the Britain they once knew is on its last legs and that a revolution is in the offing. Why should anyone in their right minds want to emulate cultural failure, economic collapse, and social breakdown?

The real comedy is that someone like you has the nerve to call all this "progressive."

Your and my self-proclaimed enemy (NB: they declared war on us, not we on them, remember?) resides in the City of London and in the gated communities of rich London and its commuter environs. These people have no allegiance to England or to Britain; they call themselves internationalists and cosmopolitans and bankers; they think nothing of destroying whole communities in Britain or elsewhere, in order to make a fast buck in India, Brazil, or China.

Except for those who occupy its Apex, we are now all living under a great big pyramid scheme; and it is as corrupt as your worst ever nightmare could imagine.

You need to step outside your Trance Club and enter the real world. Your mind carries in it a disease. Face the hard facts .... if what you do means you can't ever reproduce then you are in effect a genetic failure. That is mother nature talking. Can't argue with nature. So, there will be no legal framework for you people because the general public is not going to tolerate the creation of two systems of law in order that the normalization of anal sex can be encouraged. Has the penny dropped with you yet? The harder you people keep pushing, with complete disregard for the views of others, the more violent will be the eventual reaction.
Re: still a struggle ? [Idealistic Idiocy]
[info]cylusys wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 02:07 pm (UTC)
The world faces a critical overpopulation problem and your worried about gay people NOT breeding?!?
Re: still a struggle ? [Idealistic Idiocy]
[info]errol888flynn wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 04:35 pm (UTC)
Yes indeed, the World is suffering a critical overpopulation problem. India's population has exploded from around 350-million at Independence in 1947, to over 1,100-million (or 1.1 billion in American counting) by end 2006. Bangladesh now has so many people every wave over 3 feet arriving from the Bay of Bengal kills thousands. More Arabs were born after 1972 than the total accumulated Arab population counted since the beginning of time. In Africa, many people living around the Equatorial regions of that continent can only survive by eating Bush meat because there are simply too many mouths to feed via normal farming methods. Kenya and Zimbabwe, once the bread baskets of Africa and major food exporters, now cannot even feed their own populations. Tens of thousands of desperate African males aged under 35 (hungering for both jobs and white women) cross the Mediterranean in leaky boats, each and every year, to claim "economic asylum" in Europe.

I can assure you my first paragraph does explain the reality; it's not hype.

Paradoxically, in Europe, North America, and White Russia, a major DEPOPULATION is underway. Our white culture is being psychologically attacked on several fronts, but the most obvious social engineering weapons have thus far been Feminism and Homosexuality. Both movements have led to plummeting birth rates amongst all the white peoples of the Earth.

Many intelligent people have identified a deliberate structure and malicious purpose to these momentous, post World War II social changes. It would appear somebody, or more correctly, some group wants the White Race to disappear; to essentially be subsumed by the rest of humanity and our ancient lands taken over by hordes from the east and south.

I have already had one comment deleted today because it is clear certain (politically insane) groups are scared stiff of more people (such as you) finding out the truth that lies hidden behind their pernicious and well-planned propaganda campaign. You'd better wake up my friend and fast. There are people in this world who want you (or your offspring) dead simply because you are White. If they can stop as many as possible whites from breeding with each other, in the first place, then that reduces or removes the need for bloodshed to achieve their demonic goals. That is why the acceptance of homosexuality is so important to New Labour and their NGO allies.

As you will see any day of the week, if you open your eyes, there is no shortage of white men and women around the world willing to cooperate meekly in their own self-destruction. Those peoples who fail to reproduce and thus continue their race, eventually die out like the Dodo.

Time to learn what manhood really means, brother.

www.henrymakow.com/001421.html
Re: still a struggle ? [Idealistic Idiocy]
[info]nicholson007 wrote:
Tuesday, 7 July 2009 at 07:56 am (UTC)
technically you are incorrect on 2 points.
The rise and developement of self help gay organizations across China, various countries of the former USSR, various Arab, African & Latin American countries as well as the Indian subcontentinent has been greatly supported by outside voluntary organizations from the west who have offered advice and their own models as part of discussions.
In countries where gay rights face a struggle, that activity is often undertaken by local, dedicated volunteers who sacrifice much of their time setting up the social and legal frameworks which will become legitimate should political freedom arrive. ( South Africa and India being recent examples.) These people often face threats to their lives including imprisonment and most contrary to your opinion, are grateful and make full use of international discussion and support mechanisms which foster opposition against human rights violations, the denial of AIDS, the rights of individuals etc. This support network naturally contains the vital component where those who have suceeded in their own struggles inform and support those who are currently engaged in struggle.
The views you express do exist in the world but not where successful foundation-building is occurring concerning international human right legal framework creation which is an area that is inherently co-operative across culture and boarders where it has achieved long term success. Again contrary to your view, Britain has played it's part in the demand for human rights where they are abused through networks of charitable organizations which represent minority rights. You should note that when these organizations engage in such work they are not in the business of dictating national dogma as you suggest, as you do even. But they are in the filed of encouraging democratic openness of ideas, education and resources concerning the toleration of minority sexualities and that is unavoidable.
You are technically wrong in the 2nd point. I do not live in the decadent world you so vividly describe to yourself with such self consumed glee, Nor do the people i know involved in the real and concrete work i explain. My genes are fine and i have 2 children. You sound angry beyond reason and in need to some kind of spiritual guidance which will provide reason, kindness and wisdom perhaps...
Heres a message the conservatives might understand
[info]cylusys wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 02:02 pm (UTC)
It can be said that in Britain, GLBT citizens have ALMOST attained full and equal rights. But they do not ALMOST pay all their taxes, they pay ALL OF THEM. If members of the GLBT community are expected to be a full upfront taxpaying citizens, then why should they settle for less than full and equal rights and recognition.
Taxation without representation - thats something the conservatives can understand, even the old guard.
It's The Progressives Who are Promoting Real Family Values
[info]loveablelefty wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 04:31 pm (UTC)
There's a kind of Alice in Wonderland effect here.

Moral, conservatives can be incredibly stupid sometimes. Fifty years ago, with the kind of prohibitionist laws that the anti gay brigade seem to hanker for, stable gay relationships were almost impossible, and gay people were forced to live in a seedy and ephemeral sub culture.

Today, thanks to the activities of "sexual radicals" we are seeing that gay people really are increasingly like everyone else, with more and more settling down happily. That is certainly true of me for most of my friends, who would find it hard to differentiate most of our life from our straight married friends.

Conclusion. Attempts to prevent homosexuality encourages sexual anarchy. Embracing it actually encourages conformity.

I was at London Pride yesterday, and it really was hard to tell the participants from the ordinary tourists.

The simplest and most morally desirable thing is to have one set of rules dealing with gay and straight relationships alike.
FF and MM are SO different from MF
[info]ushivon wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 06:38 pm (UTC)
The reason that homosexuality is thought of as the same as heterosexuality is because the heterosexual man and woman have lost their genders. To be female is to be capable of being a mother unless one is sexually disabled. Today women are sexually disabled through hormones rendering them into female androids. Very little sexual activity can cause infertility through STDs too! Men have had the snip or are not having true relations with their woman because of latex, chemical barriers, abortifacient/ contraceptives hijacking mankind's fertility.
The difference between homosexual love and heterosexual love is that one is ALWAYS infertile. Women are deceived into taking the artificial hormones for so long that her system becomes permanently disabled. Natural rythms are actually incredibly effective and always reversible in providing natural family planning and can best be learnt through CCL.
Some are now calling heterosexual sexual activity gay because it is not usually open to life. They have a point as the two ARE so similar. The marriage of man and woman with no artificial birth control or family planning save fertility charts, is TOTALLY different from homosexual relationships or their heterosexual equivalent ones. The sex is really different too and is meant for a true love.
Interestingly the IVF is not nearly as efficient, successful, pleasant or even cost effective in helping sexually disabled men and women to achieve pregnancy as natural methods. NaPro is in Liverpool and London UK. The big lies of our world need to be exposed.
Loons
[info]tallskin wrote:
Sunday, 5 July 2009 at 08:47 pm (UTC)
Dunno what is but whenever any gay thread comes up for discussion you always get the utter nutjobs unwrapping their keyboards, blowing the cobwebs off their screens and venting their utterly demented bigoted garbage - as if anyone is interested!

I can just picture their wives downstairs talking to their neighbours "Oh yes, Reginald is upstairs again on the computer that's the loud banging you can hear, sorry about that. It's just he always bangs his legs when we take off the straitjacket. Naughty I know but I need the peace and quiet, just for a while"

I feel so sorry for the poor wives!
Re: Loons
[info]loveablelefty wrote:
Monday, 6 July 2009 at 08:10 am (UTC)
In the interests of equal opportunities, I feel obliged to point out that, while admittedly a minority, some of the most foaming at the mouth homophobes are women.

Certainly if THEIR wives are upset by their behaviour, then they are guilty at the very least, of hypocrisy...

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