Religious Freedom?

So it seems that the religious "civil partnership" may be going to hit a reef of bigoted Tory MPs and bigoted Tory peers. But, to be safe, the Church of England has already rushed forward to make it clear that equality and love cannot happen in their churches! No surprises there; the homophobic church is pre-emptively ensuring homophobia is upheld but still hasn’t cracked its teeth on this hot mess in the Church of England newsletter.

Of course, we know that the Tory promises on marriage are pretty hollow, and the pathetic Lib Dems are going to continue to run interference on that one (no doubt lead by enabler in chief, Lyn Featherstone) so we’re probably not going to see marriage any time soon. But if we do see it, then it will also include a religious ban.

You’ve got to love the whole ridiculous “religious freedom” argument here. In the name of religious freedom, it’s necessary to prevent churches from having religious civil partnerships and it’s necessary to prevent gay people from having religious elements in their civil partnership.

We got that? In the name of religious freedom my religious choices are restricted, the religious choices of non-bigoted churches have to be restricted in the interest of religious freedom.

And this really shows you how hollow the argument of “religious freedom” really is. Here are religions that want to have marriage equality – the Quakers WANT to hold religious ceremonies marrying us but are prevented from doing so by a law that restricts their religious freedom.

In fact, I’m well and truly sick of the whole “religious freedom” argument. I’m sick of bigotry being characterised as “freedom.” I’m sick of my right to exist as a full citizen being considered less important than a bigot’s right to hate me. And I’m sick, sick, beyond sick, of us tip-toeing around some of the most hateful, bigoted monsters because they wave a Bible around.

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Section 28 was last decade. Now we have Clause 28 - the homophobia's the same though

So, after deciding to waste a considerable amount of tax payer money giving out free Bibles to all schools (which, of course, already have Bibles), Gove has done something much less mockable.

The government’s new flagship Free schools and academies are going to have rules. Some of these rules strictly govern what can and cannot be taught when it comes to sex and relationships.

Let me quote from the article: Headteachers will be told that children must be "protected from inappropriate teaching materials and learn the nature of marriage and its importance for family life and for bringing up children".

*Deep breath*. Protecting children from “inappropriate material” by stressing a heterosexual-only institution. My oh fucking my, isn’t this language bloody familiar?

Current guidelines stress committed relationships – NOT heterosexual-only marriage. They will be changed to reflect the new heterosexist rules that erase our existence to protect the precious kiddies from knowing about the dreaded gay
And the clause number of this guideline? The section of the rule that erases GBLT people and puts straight relationships on a great big shining pedestal as the one true way for all children.
28
It's clause 28.
Clause 28. No, really. Clause 28. The Tories are bringing in CLAUSE 28 that emphasises to kids in school how right and good being straight is while omitting to mention GBLT people exist
The Tories are “protecting children” from us by erasing our existence in schools under Clause 28

There is no way this can possibly be a coincidence. There is NO BLOODY WAY the Tories could have brought in this rule to keep the dreaded gay out of schools and called it Clause 28 without MEANING to invoke section 28.** This simply cannot be an accident. Gove must have intended this.

Words cannot describe my rage right now. I’ve invented entirely new profanity since reading this.

Someone call Boy George. This song is freaking relevant again

**For those who don’t know section 28 (and because we need a pause while all British GBLT people start swearing and cursing and sticking pins in little Tory poppets) that would be this little law here. Section 28 of the local government act that basically prevented any government body, including schools, from saying anything positive about GBLT people or acknowledging we existed. It did not help the education system – nor the lives of us GBLT kids at school at the time going through 9 kinds of hell. It was a law that was so vile that, after the inevitable happened and it had to be repealed, Cameron was forced to apologise for it (after supporting it for years) just to try and claw the PR back.