Spark In Darkness

UKIP councillor  David Silvester has decided that all the flooding around the UK this year has been caused by… marriage equality. Yes, us gay folk be causing natural disasters again. (UKIP again comes forth with the excuse that though they don’t support equality and their elected members are rabid bigots who they happily embrace that totally doesn’t mean the party is homophobic, honest)

We’ve heard it before haven’t we? Earthquakes – gay people did that. Floods? Gay folks. Hurricane? Yep, that’s the gay people. Fukushima, Katrina, the Boxing Day Tsunami, the death of bees and birds and endangered species and serial killers and gun massacres – gays gay gays, gays have done all of that! We’re the ultimate scourge of humanity - like the 7 plagues, all the signs of the apocalypse and the Kardashians’ continued career all in one.

And no, even though we make a joke about it, it’s not harmless – this kind of demonization does dehumanise and does encourage persecution. It is the extreme end of a constant meme –we’re sinners, we’re wicked, we’re evil and we have to be stopped. It also shows a lot about our media and culture that hate speech this extreme is not really considered all that outrageous.

But I’ve said all that before and likely will again. Today I’ve been thinking about just what this says about the god David Silvester and his ilk worship and praise. Because this is a god who, apparently, has looked at history – looked at slavery, torture, murder, massacres, genocide, abuse, cruelty and all kinds of evil that lurk there – and decided to not do a damn thing.

But the minute gay people’s rights are recognise then your god is shifting his arse off that cloud and getting in some smiting? Really? This is his priorities? Because I kind of think if gay marriage is worth some bad flooding then the slave trade had to be worth wiping out a substantial portion of the map.

This is something I just cannot understand with these bigoted Christians. Why would anyone worship their god? Even if you believed in this capricious, cruel, sadistic monster, why would you ever worship it? Why would you support something so patently evil?

I cannot understand loving such a being, supporting such a being and praising such a being. In fact, I'm deeply disturbed that someone would believe in a deity so lacking in priorities and so capable of evil - and then praise it. 

 It’s basically a place where religious people can make videos assuring GBLT people that they’re not raging bigots.

 Uh-huh. My eyes are rolling so much they’re getting friction burns.

 Firstly, I do not think we need to broadcast this message because we already hear it over and over and over again. You cannot criticise any element of bigotry from organised religion without veritable flocks of apologists zooming in to wrong their hands about us being so mean to worldwide forces of bigotry singing, first and foremost, that “we’re not all like that.” (The only reason you won’t get it on this post is because I have so little patience for such arguments that I’ve slapped them down and hard). And then the conversation (if any) about how organised religion is supporting bigotry derails into flocking round hurt religious fee-fees because the organisations they are supporting and affiliating with continue to oppose human rights.

 Because that is what “we’re not all like that” inevitably means – not supporting GBLT people who have to deal with worldwide religions that loathe our existence – but playing PR for those religions so they can dismiss their own bigotry. Or providing a sop for the conscience of people who are supporting bigoted religions but still want to think of themselves as one of the “good ones”.

 It’s the same motivation as that behind the dishonest attempt to present GBLT people as unjustly attacking religions – rather than the reality of us fighting for survival against forces that quite literally want us removed from the planet. It’s all part of misrepresenting the religious bigotry GBLT people face and trying to downplay the hatred the religions support and spread.

 I don’t want to hear “we’re not all like that” because we already spend more than enough time focusing on the exceptions to the RULE of religious homophobia rather than actually challenging religious homophobia or seeing it as acceptable.

And, frankly, I’m not sure I believe you. Ok, maybe you’re “not all like that”, but most of you? Yeah, I think most of you ARE like that or, at very least, quite happy to tolerate “that.” How many billions of you support bigoted churches with your presence and your resources? How many of you say “we’re not all like that” then attend a Catholic mass or put money in an Othodox collection plate or tithe to the LDS or tick “Anglican” on the census form? How many of you say “we’re not all like that” and attend a synagogue condemning marriage equality or a mosque participating in an event inviting speakers who think gay people should be thrown off a mountain?

 How many of you declare “we’re not all like that” but are quite willing to support people and organisations that are? How many of you sit in the pews and ignore the policy of your churches? How many of you close your ears to the hatred? How many of you decide it’s not that important?

How many of you actually DO anything to show “you’re not all like that” other than make a crappy youtube video – if that?

And don’t give me the “we’re changing it from within” bullshit – because we’ve seen no examples of that oh-so-special change you’ve been working on for so long. In fact, we’re so inured to religious bigotry, so accepting of it, so willing to make excuses for it that vast numbers of people were PRAISING Pope Frances for his dodgy PR speech. How many of you PRAISE the Anglican church for being liberal despite it fighting every last fight for GBLT equality in the UK and having its fingers behind many genocidal anti-gay laws that it can barely bring itself to criticise?

 This, this pathetic writhing to pretend the bigotry their perpetuating isn’t happening has been going on for DECADES – in fact, it’s actually one of the reasons why I hate the Westboro Baptist church (beyond the obvious). Because their hateful trolling is so ridiculous, it gives all these “we’re not all like that” people a perfect scapegoat to point to and claim how wonderful they are in comparison.

 
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Why is it dishonest? Because it completely misses the context of this “war”. And, I’ll agree, there is a war being fought.

There is a war being fought because Christians (and other religious groups) are constantly attacking us. There are multi-million pound Christian groups created with destroying our rights as one of their express purposes. Politicians get up and speak against every right we fight for while waving Bibles in the air. The head of the biggest Christian denomination in the world spouts hate speech every bit as hateful as the Westboro Baptist church. In my country the Anglican church weasels its way around desperately fighting against our rights every time they’ve come up for a vote – and because they are an established church they actually, sickening, have a vote to make their bigotry law. The Christian Orthodox church in Russia is up to its neck in Russian anti-gay laws and other branches of the Orthodox church can be found championing bigotry throughout the Balkans. The Catholic church around the world can be relied upon for the most hateful homophobic rhetoric and the most powerful opposition to every and any right we fight for.

Quite literally BILLIONS of Christians support these homophobic denominations.

And the gay equivalent…

See, we’re not fighting to have Christians executed. We’re not fighting to have Christians arrested. We’re not fighting to have forceful conversion of Christians. We’re not fighting to have Christians fired. We’re not fighting to break up Christian marriages. We’re not fighting to have anti-Christian bigotry championed in schools. We’re not fighting to have Christian kids bullied to the point of suicide. We’re not fighting to get anything FROM Christians or to do anything TO Christians. We have no vested interest in fighting Christianity – only in defending ourselves AGAINST it.

This is a war – but it isn’t two sides attacking each other. It’s one side constantly attacking and the other side constantly defending.

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Royal assent is a rubber stamp, even though there’s a petition from the homophobes to try and encourage Her Maj not to sign it – that’s just ridiculous. Even I, at my most paranoid and cynical (which is very very paranoid indeed and cynical beyond measure) don’t believe for a second that royal assent isn’t going to happen.

David Burrowes, the eternal homophobe, was the last one to try and derail this and he failed. It has been an exhausting and soul destroying fight. The homophobes in the media, on the net, in parliament, in daily life and most certainly from the churches have been overwhelmingly vicious. It has been a trial these last few months while the bigots did everything they could to hurt us, to attack us, to say grossly unacceptable things about us, to do everything they possibly could to stop our rights advancing.

Their fight shows that our fight cannot stop- there are still so many battles to fight, we still have to battle for our place in society, our place as full members and our place as people due respect and even safety. We also have to expect that they will push back against us, they will launch their stealth attacks, their exceptions, their loopholes for bigotry – and they will certainly try to claim that homophobia has disappeared.

Remember how ridiculous that claim is. Full legal equality (which we don’t actually have due to some holes) does not mean prejudice and persecution dies, nor does it mean we’re going to live in a country that fully respects us as people. In truth, full legal equality merely brings us to the same place that other persecuted minorities already occupy in the UK – and only the most privileged, delusional or bigoted (Daily Mail readers) would claim that sexism, racism et al have disappeared and there’s no problems left in the country.

We still have to fight – but this battle? This battle we won. I can still scarcely believe it, at every stage I expected one of the innumerable attacks to succeed in derailing us… but we got there.

We’ve taken a step forward – but there’s a long way yet to come. But I’m going to stand on this step and feel the joy for a while.

We will be able to get married in summer 2014, most likely. I don’t think it will truly sink in or I will be able to relax until it actually reaches then – but we’ve passed the hurdles.

And people have celebrated and even praised them for it and seen it even as a sign of softening on homophobia.

Hah! All this means is the rat has left the sinking ship.

See, The Anglican church is, in many ways, far more sensible than the Catholic Church. The Catholic church will cling to their vocal, open hatred to the very end. The weasels in the Anglican church know how to twist. They’ve always been much bigger fans of making pretty speeches of how nice and friendly they are really – while their attack dogs spew hate speech and they put their power, influence and resources into fight every attempt we have ever made to be part of society.

They try to sound nice about it, they try to gild their hatred, try to polish their turds. They’re apologetic bigots – but they’re still bigot.

And having fought viciously against us for the duration of this push for equality, they've finally read the writing on the wall and are jumping ship and trying to clean themselves up again

This is also not a church that has ever stood by anything resembling principles. Welby and his rats said they were going to abstain for the vote – but he and his ilk all voted for Lord Dear’s wrecking amendment. So don’t expect this pretty speech to mean anything – Welby and the Anglican rats do not feel truth is something that matters or ever has. This should come as no surprise, in the run up to the marriage equality battle, lying Anglicans were claiming that the church wasn’t bigots because they supported civil partnerships! Of course that is a ridiculous claim because supporting a half measure doesn’t make you one bit less bigoted; but that’s moot. Because it wasn’t true – it was a complete lie and the Anglicans ferociously fought against civil partnerships as well.

What, you expect honesty from these people? Truth? Morals? Ethics? They’re the Anglican church, the rats don’t have principles, they only pretend to.

Of course the “not opposing” the law means they’re now concerned with… exemptions for bigots. Not bigoted churches – but personal bigots. So that means more attempts to enshrine homophobia in the law and give homophobia a pass in our schools, businesses and public life. So the campaign of hate goes on.

The cruel bigotry of the Anglicans has not gone away, nor has it changed. Justin Welby and his rats and followers remain our dedicated enemies, implacably fighting whenever they can against us – they’re just better at choosing their battles. But now’s the time to watch them – because they’re shifting their PR and ready to re-write history

I’ve been absent over Easter, that’s pretty much been intentional on my part. Not just because I like to do my own ceremonies in private, but also because this is not a holiday I enjoy and certainly not a holiday I feel comfortable sticking my head over the trenches for.

 Like many religious holidays, this is one where you can guarantee that the media is going to stick some microphones in front of a priest/vicar/bishop/other holy bloke and then repeat/reprint his words for the entire nation

 The holy words of holy blokes are generally pretty hateful. The organised churches of this country (and the vast majority of the world) have made no secret of the fact they’d rather I drop dead tomorrow and never miss a chance to launch another attack against us whenever more publicity comes their way. Whatever messages apply to whatever holidays, the one that is repeated on all of them is that their god loathes GBLT people.

 After years of hateful holy rhetoric that has only intensified as we fight for legal equality, I’m running on empty. Faced with a holiday of trying to play dodge-the-Christian on TV, the internet and more I decided to opt out of all of them as much as I am able and had a few days of silence, not answering the phone and not speaking to people. I particularly clung to Saturday where I went all day seeing and speaking to only GBLT people – I had knots untense in my muscles I never even knew I had.

 The problem I’ve found is, especially in the people around me and in my family, that Easter is one of those holidays where nominal Christians suddenly remember Christianity and put on 8 new layers of temporary religious gestures – and end up saying, supporting and doing shit that offends, angers, worries or scares me.

And, the sad thing is, overt displays of Abrahamic religions already worry and frighten me; I often regard them the same way I would bright colourful markings on a snake or hornet – be warned, here lies something that wants to fuck you up most royally. It’s become a reflexive flinch and doesn’t make for a quiet or easy time of life when there are religious holidays about and someone’s dug Lord Carey from the pit, AGAIN. C’mon isn’t there a limit to how many times you can raise the same zombie? Someone check the Monster Manual.

 So, I stayed in, I battened down the hatches and I relaxxxxxxxxxxxxxed. It reminds me how many months it’s been since I last had peace, I may have to do this more often.

So Cardinal O’Brien, while viciously and nastily attacking GBLT people and gay rights turns out to have been industriously having it away with any priest he could get his hands on – and several have complained about his sexual harassment and molestation. After trying the Catholic church’s usual tactic in these situations (cover up and intimidation), O’Brien has confessed and stepped down (uh-huh, because that’s the end of the matter? I suppose when it comes to the Catholic church this is harsh treatment of a sex offender).

 Much as I pity his victims, I also have to acknowledge that this can only help reduce the power and the influence of the Catholic church and help curb the effect of its constant bigotry against us. Having the viper’s fangs blunted, even a little, is something I am always going to be happy about.

 But, and I know I’ve said this before, please can we not play the whole “look, homophobes are gay!” game? It’s tiresome, it’s not helpful, it’s ignorant and it’s migraine-inducing.

 Homophobia is, I say again, a product of a straight world, a straight ruled world, a straight dominated world and a world where straight people have repeatedly tried to destroy us and have succeeded in driving most of us into hiding until hiding became the norm and the act of NOT hiding became a major life event. Think about that for a second and let the enormity of it sink in.

 So even with this Cardinal being gay or bisexual – just as any other homophobe so revealed – they are not representative of all homophobes or even anything more than a tiny minority of the bigots. It is not closeted gay people who have created this heterosexist and homophobic society. And, ultimately, it is straight people and straight society that forced these people not just into the closet but into the depths of self-loathing as well.

 We are not responsible for our own oppression – don’t play that game and don’t let other people play it, it’s only going to come back and bite us on the arse.

And, besides, some of the commentary is outright homophobic  - and positively relishing in calling someone they hate “gay”. Frankly, it’s never comfortable seeing people jumping up and down on the opportunity to use gay as an insult – and worse when you take the excuse to use slurs. No, really, no.

The new Archbigot of Canterbury’s first act upon becoming Archbigot?

Denouncing equal marriage of course

Here’s the new boss, same as the old boss. Justin Welby is no better than the homophobic Rowan Williams was. Yet people who are part of and support the CofE constantly pretend they’re not supporting homophobic bigotry.

And you’ve got to be impressed by Archbigot Sentamu’s comments: “amid an age of seemingly unprecedented selfishness – in a society obsessed with individualism and rights.” Oh and people are “marginalising religion.”

Yeah, that’s not coded language at all. But then, this is the man who couldn’t bring himself to denounce violence against gay people.

I suspect our ongoing battle of marriage equality is going to cause more headaches so I suspect this may be the first of many posts until it’s a done deal – and then some. So let’s hit some more tomfoolery

 First of all, homophobes, pointing out the ridiculous, archaic elements of our marriage law does not make for a good argument against changing them. I’m bewildered as to why you’d think this was so. Specifically the laws on consummation and adultery.

 On consummation – yes, if you do not have the penis in the vagina sex after you are married it is not consummated and can be annulled. Yes, consummation becomes difficult to impossible for most gay couples.

 And this is ridiculous. Because the whole concept of consummation, what counts as consummation and what counts as sex is ridiculous, heterosexist and archaic. Defining consummation this way is akin to those purity ringed fools over in the US having anal sex and calling themselves virgins.

 Additionally – do we really want to go there? Do you really really link marriage with a single sex act? Do you really want to invalidate or devalue the marriages of those who don’t engage in this sex act? Who don’t want to? Who can’t? Because I’m pretty sure you don’t want to go there and you’re throwing a whole lot of people under the bus in an attempt to attack us.

 On adultery – which is defined as, SURPRISE, penis in the vagina sex! If your spouse engages in any other kind of sex act with someone else, it’s not adultery (you can still get a divorce under the rather nebulous category of “unreasonable behaviour” however – so why adultery needs to be singled out as a separate unreasonable behaviour is beyond me except for archaic law).

 Yeah, I call bullshit archaic law which needs changing or scrapping AND I think that the people using this argument agree with me. No, really. Why do I think this? Ok, say you are married, it’s not an open marriage, you’re monogamous and you expect your spouse to be faithful and have no nookie except with you.

 Now that spouse comes to you and says “hey, I’ve been seeing someone else. I gave them a handjob, we engaged in mutual oral sex and then had anal sex.” Do you think “they’re cheating on me?!” or do you think “Phew, they didn’t have penis-in-the-vagina sex so at least it’s not adultery”? Would you be ok with them doing this? Do you think they are cheating any less? Do you think it makes them more faithful?

 These laws not fitting with marriage equality isn’t because marriage equality is wrong, it’s because these laws are laughably narrow and archaic.

So the first steps in marriage equality are finally being taken and it’s looking like we may get some action next year, here’s hoping. The Official response to the consultation is in and they’re currently batting it around Parliament. We do have a provision to allow religions to marry people if they so choose so finally actual religious freedom is guaranteed.

 Reports point to 100-130 Tory MPs opposing. Labour, for some bemusing reason, has U-Turned and is now holding a free vote along with the Tories rather than a whipped vote they previously promised. Gods forbid our rights be taken as the severe issues they are (and can we stop with this talk of “morality” and “conscience” being a bigot is neither moral nor conscionable). Still, there is likely to be considerably less no votes among Labour than the Tories so, along with the Lib Dems, we have a good chance of seeing this pass through the commons. ETA The Lib Dems have also u-turned and decided not to whip this vote. Fuck the lot of them. No party will be whipping this vote, our human rights aren't important enough.

 The Lords is going to be more tricky, I feel. Both because of the Lords Spiritual and the Lords, in general, just being less progressive than the Commons. But in theory there should be enough Labour and Lib Dem lords along with what Tory supporters there are among the Lords to pill it through.

 There’s a liveblog on the whole issue here: Be warned: there are a large number of Tories saying some rather vile things as can be expected.

 I’m getting really irritated at all the prating of religious freedom for the precious bigoted church – especially considering there was so much condemnation of their bigotry not that long ago.

I am bemused why, with the guarantee that bigoted churches can still be bigoted, there is any need to BAN the Church of England from performing same-sex marriages. They don't want to, they don't intend to - so why ban them? Why not leave them with the same opt-out as every other church? All this does is mean that, should at some point ion the future the Anglican church and its supporters decide that GBLTQ people are actually people worthy of respect, there'll be an extra barrier towards changing their bigotry.

 The government’s official response to the consultation can be found here. It’s clear that the vast majority of the opposition was religious in nature, confirming again that the majority organised churches of Great Britain are grossly homophobic and we need to continue to view them as enemies of our humanity, our rights and of justice for the foreseeable future.

 On annulment – we will not be able to “annul” our marriages due to non-consummation simply because the whole concept of consummation is ridiculously heterosexist and revolves around a very limited definition of sex. Faced with this, the government has just ticked a big “not applicable” box and, to be honest, I don’t blame them – though I would have preferred it if “non-consumation” were just struck from the law entirely as the archaic relic it is.

 I do NOT approve of leaving the adultery law where it is. Adultery only counts, again, when penis-in-vagina-sex occurs. Sure you can still get a divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour, but deciding only het-sex counts for adultery is insulting and insufficient. To be honest, just scrapping adultery entirely and going with “unreasonable behaviour” for all would suit me better

 The inequality of pensions is also not something I approve of – wives and widows will still have greater access to their partner’s pension benefits than husbands and widowers. We have some nebulous assurance of that changing – but it is still nebulous. Similarly, homophobic discrimination in occupational pensions is not being retroactively corrected so will continue as it is. The idea that this would create “retroactive costs” is failing to acknowledge that it would correct old injustice

 Similarly, I am irritated by the protection for teacher’s “beliefs”. It is not a teacher’s place to teach their beliefs to children, their job is to teach how things are. And how things will be is marriage will be legal – we don’t need to protect a teacher’s editorialising by adding “of course this is wrong and sinful.” Or at least, not if the same teachers aren’t also protected from saying “but it may not be recognised by archaic, bigoted and immoral institutions that insist on dehumanising humanity that continues to cause so much pain and suffering”

 Yes, I am beyond irritated that 52% of the respondents to the consultation were straight. I feel, again, that my rights and humanity has been put into straight people’s hands and had to be validated by straight folks before they could be acknowledged.

 At this stage I almost don’t dare to hope. There’s still so much that could derail the process and the opposition is very fierce, very unreasonable and stunning in how hateful it is. But there’s a path now – it’s not going to be pleasant to walk, the religious groups and Tory homophobes are screaming utter venom, but they have been for a months If not years. Still we’re on the path and maybe, just maybe the end is in sight.