Spark In Darkness

February in the UK is LGBT history month. Now, as I’ve said before I have a lot of problems with various history months (and do let’s insert the snark about “shortest month” here), but one thing I don’t regret is the portrayal of LGBT people in education. Kids need to see we have worth, that we exist that we’re not aberrations or sins or diseased. And that’s doubly so for LGBT kids.

So, one of the best things that is happening during this month are lessons that have an LGBT slant. Lessons with LGBT themes, lessons so our kids can see people like themselves once in a very great while.

And of course the haters got to hate. The haters and the bigots cannot possibly allow any attempt to tell our children they have value or worth, cannot allow any attempt to try and reduce their pain or the appalling suicide rate that takes so many of our youth.

First we have homophobic conservative (oh I suppose the “homophobic” is redundant since I’ve already identified the Tory) MP Craig Whittaker who believes all these silly attempts to stop internalised homophobia, homophobic bullying and gay suicide are just “nonsense” And it would seem that Tory MP Richard Drax is not only a homophobe who agrees with such bigotry, but is also a coward since he instantly edited them away when it was noticed and tweeted Ah Tories, still trying to convince me you’ve changed?

And we have this poisonous bigot, Melanie Phillips from the Daily Mail – and do we really expect better from the paper of Jan Moir and her evil venom?

She is afraid that us gays have a “ruthless agenda” to destroy “normal sexuality” because you see we’re not normal. We’re freaks and diseased and other and corrupting the precious, proper, real straight people and their pure real sexuality. And of course telling them that gay people exist is an “abuse.”

See, telling a gay kid that they’re ok being gay and there’s nothing wrong with them? That’s an abuse. That’s child abuse apparently. Far better to wait until eh commit suicide – the Daily Mail and Melanie Phillips would much prefer that

Of course she thinks including non-sexual references to gay people in education is absurd. Absurd? Our existence is absurd?

No, do you know what is absurd? Her implication that being gay will become mandatory. That is beyond absurd. Seriously? Mandatory homosexuality? Everyone will have to become gay?

Really I can’t comment on the article, I cna’t. Reading it is nauseating, it is that bad – easily as bad as the evil flowing from Jan Moir

The Daily Mail is pushing new limits of hatred with this one.

Words cannot express how every little attempt to stop the suffering of GBLT people, especially our young, is met by such vehement opposition. It’s sadistic, it’s cruel and it’s evil

We know that the PCC won’t do anything after the Jan Moir debacle, we know the PCC supports and encourages homophobia. However, as in the previous trainwreck from this paper of hate, we can talk to the advertisers

Are all advertising on this page. This is what their products are associating with – and they are places where my money will not go while they continue to support this evil

So a couple of university students have got married for art, one of them is a gay man.

Now, personally my thoughts are more “what, he can marry a woman for the sake of ‘art’ but he couldn’t marry another man for the sake of love?” and get rather seethingly pissed to be honest. Because it reminds me for all the prating from the straight world about how uber precious marriage is and it just can’t be sullied by our gay selves, the fact remains that a male/female couple is already quite capable of doing just about anything in, to or for marriage and absolutely no-one gives a damn

But the Daily Mail (ugh) interviewed someone who took a different view – see it was an act to denigrate marriage and of course it was done by a gay man – because after all that’s what we exist for. Because they couldn’t just comment on the marriage, they couldn’t just comment on the art, they couldn’t express whether they disagree or not – no it has to be the malicious gays!
This expert? Yes it’s Stephen bloody Green again bloody hellfire, who moved the rock and let this guy out? When did he become to go-to guy for all British media whenever discussing a gay person?

STOP talking to this man, stop interviewing him, stop treating him like an expert, stop deciding that this straight bigot is an expert on all gay issues ever. I am past sick of seeing a hate group continually interviewed to comment on everything we say, everything we do and everything we are.

Elton John and David Furnish have a baby. In general, this isn’t something that’s top of my “do not care” pile so I noted the news, shrugged and moved on.

Then I saw the reporting…
I think a prize has to go to the BBC for this obscenity

See, the BBC decided that to report on Elton John and David Furnish having a child they needed to interview Stephen Green of Christian Voice.

Stephen Green, for those who don’t know, is a rabid homophobe who despises our very existence and spoke out in favour of the proposed genocidal Ugandan law to have gay people executed. He is one of the most virulent anti-gay bigots in Britain. I will not link to his site, I don’t gave hate groups page views.
Note that the BBC didn’t for one second note what kind of man Stephen Green was, why he was being interviewed or his history. They didn’t mention his virulent history of homophobia, picketing pride parades, comparing a gay singer to Jeffrey Dahmer, referring to battles against anti-gay bullying as “promoting sodomy in school children” Gods I could go on for hours. The BBC didn’t go on for minutes on this man’s bigoted history. Like Channel 4 before them they treated this bigot as an expert and an authority – while completely glossing over his history and the extremity of his views.

The BBC’s belated excuse for this? It’s necessary to interview a bigot when talking about Elton John and David Furnish’s family in the interest of…. balance

Really? BALANCE? I’m sorry, I didn’t think the existence of gay families had to be balanced by interviewing someone who wants us dead? Shall we apply this to other celebrity couples? Next time a famous straight couple have a child shall we interview someone who thinks those parents should be executed? Will this be “balance?”
Hey didn’t Jamie Oliver have a child in 2010? I seem to recall he did. But I’m pretty certain no-one felt the need to interview people who wanted him and his wife dead. Let me check the BBC… hmmm… no, no need to interview people wanting the death opf Jamie Oliver specifically or straight people in general. Why, it seem that no children of straight people ever required the interviewing of bigots in response. Now, why do we think that is, I wonder?

But with gay couples having children we have to interview an extremist, a bigot, a man who wants us dead, in order to “have a debate”?

I am sick of this. I am sick of such virulent hatred being presented as reasonable. I am sick of people who advocate genocide of us being treated as rational, serious people. I am sick of our lives and our families being shit on by some of the most respected institutions in the country.

But hey, at least they have company in the homophobia front:
We have the New York Post deciding that David Furnish is Elton’s “wife”

And we have this… thing from a Taiwanese news programme… I have not the words

Gods above I hate the straight-lead world sometimes. (Ha, sometimes?)

Ok, the ONS has released statistics on most popular baby names in the UK. They do it every year, presumably because they’re so damned bored they have nothing better to do.

And they found that one of the most common names for boys was, apparently, Mohammed. *Shrug* Frankly I’m rather more disturbed by how “Oliver” and variations are becoming popular. Oliver? Really people, really?

Predictably the usual suspects are having the screaming meemies. The Daily Mail paused in their eternal quest to divide all the world’s substances into “things that cause cancer” and “things that cure cancer” to thoroughly lose their shit (I’m always amazed that the Daily Mail can completely lose their shit on a weekly basis, yet you open the paper and behold, there’s still a monumental amount of shit left) followed by the Torygraph running around with their hair on fire because ZOMG TEH MUSLIMS ARE TAKING OVER!

Right, some things to address here:

Firstly, as said extremely well here the methodology the usual suspects are basing their panic on is flawed in the extreme

But also, as touched on, let’s consider the name. It is an extremely popular name in the Muslim community, people have said that it’s traditional to name your first son that – I don’t know how true that is, but it’s certainly true that it is an extremely popular cultural name

Right, now try to think of an extremely popular traditional “British” name (ugh, as if Mohammed were somehow less British). I’m guessing most people instantly thought of something laughably outdated like “Henry” or “Albert.” There are some names that survive the test of time like James and Paul and Peter and Jack and Michael and Richard and – apparently, George and Oliver (really. Oliver. Oliver, people? George was bad enough – but Oliver?) but those names also have the rider of being considered “dull.”

In fact, dull seems to be something desperately avoided by many a new parent. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if we’re playing name-scrabble and seeing who can manage the most points with a treble word score if you manage to squeeze a “y” and a “k” into the name. Occasionally we’ll also get odd fashions that burn for a year or 2 then fall out quickly (there was a celtic name one recently – you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a Rhys – or Reese, Reece, Rhyes, evena  Rice at one time)

And I’m not saying this out of contempt or disapproval for these names (well, except Oliver. Really? Oliver? What were you thinking?) and I have nothing against little Ember Starsurge Mykynzie (vowels are so last century) Sparkletoes – but what I am saying is we’re dealing with 2 different trends with names.

One of which highlights and emphasises a traditional and highly respected name and uses it repeatedly – causing it to appear often (and this is by no means limited to Muslims, when visiting Portugal I was surprised to find whole villages that seemed to have 6 names repeated over and over and made heavy use of nicknames to differentiate)
And the other of which seeks “unique” names and will, inherently, avoid repetition of common, cultural or trend names.

Or, to put it another way – the number of kids named “Mohammed” in the country means sweet bugger all.

And really – this whole panic? Very unseemly to say the least. The desperate terror of the Muslims taking over is sickening to watch and, frankly, embarrassing. Yes, there are Muslims in the country. Deal with it – because this hair-on-fire Islamaphobia (and, let’s face it, racism – because you know they’re not picturing white people when they think of Muslims) is nauseating.

I sadly have some catching up on the news. As ever, quite a lot of depressing things that should not be forgotten – here we look at some media fails

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