The Times: They Have A-Changed Etc Etc

This weekend, in the car with the children, I was playing Sing if You’re Glad to be Gay by the Tom Robinson Band. It’s just been re-released and I hadn’t heard the original version for quite a long time. I’d almost forgotten how good it was — direct and brave and true. At the end of the song comes the singer’s revelation that he is gay. Sing if you’re glad to be gay, sing if you’re happy this way. And the children wanted to know why he sang it.
You see, for them being gay is something so natural that the assertion seemed pointless, a “so what?” moment. It was the weekend of Pride, the parade to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. And it was being sponsored by Ernst & Young and RBS and Barclays. Gay rights, being gay, is safe to them and conventional and obvious. Come to think of it, they probably think it’s more edgy to work for Barclays or RBS. You wouldn’t lose your knighthood for being gay.

A post-prandial Pride piece in The Times. by executive editor and ex-Tory party worker, Daniel Finkelstein

In summary; everything's just fine and dandy here now and England swings like a pendulum do.
We're a bit let down by all these funny foreigners in those loser countries, though.
Especially Iran and Russia, who really don't play by our rules.
Much of the usual liberal hand-wringing in covert defence of Western neo-imperialism etc etc.
Oh, and did I mention I've got kids?

Readers' comments predictably descended into the usual vacuous bunfight, but it's always good to see one of the old solid-gold classics getting another airing.

"I have a very simple solution to the problems of the so-called "gay" lobby. If people, in general, simply kept their sexual preferences to themselves (and obviously their sexual partners), nobody would be persecuted because nobody else would know about it. Personally I have no interest in anybody else's sex life unless it involves me. What does upset me is the way that homosexuals flaunt themselves as though they have found a better way of life."