Melanie Phillips: Petty Hate Machine

Melanie Phillips has gone predictably batshit this week; 'Pinch yourself! A Tory Prime Minister is upholding the idea that traditional morality is bigotry'
Eh?
"On countless occasions, David Cameron has declared that he is a tremendous fan of the institution of marriage. So big a fan, it now becomes clear, that he generously intends to bestow its status and privileges far beyond what most people consider marriage actually to be..."
The best bit?
"If still in doubt, try this thought experiment. Imagine the Government was planning to recognise polygamy and polyandry (marriage with more than one woman or man), or marriage between ‘zoophiles’ (people who have ‘loving and committed relationships with mammals’, or bestiality to you and me) and their, er, partners.
"If you think this is merely grotesque satire, you would be sadly out of date. There are now campaigns in North America to recognise the ‘equal rights’ of such people and end ‘discrimination’ against them.
"If ‘marriage’ were extended to such groups, people would rightly conclude the institution was being turned into a meaningless joke. Yet the argument — that people with different sexual lifestyles must be treated identically — is exactly the same. (And no, before the hate mail starts, I’m not suggesting gays are on a moral par with zoophiles.)"
It's strange, I've seen some gay media going predictably batshit over this column - both were by journalists who are about as radical as a wobbly pink blancmange.
Maybe they were excited about finding someone who it's okay to get angry about?
I'm not sure anymore if it's even worth commenting on or critiquing this confused, cliche-ridden and increasingly incoherent attention-seeking petty hate machine.
But please do carry on sending her hate mail.

Update: The Guardian's Michael White writes online; 'Same-sex marriage cannot be the same as heterosexual marriage'
It's a very strange piece - I can't quite figure out what his argument is.
Only straight people should be allowed to marry because marriage is about reproduction?
Eh?
But then I've never been able to figure out if Michael White is gay or not - on TV he comes across as a rather dapper old queen.
The two things may be connected - and the problem may stem from Mr White being rather mealy-mouthed here.

The Daily Mail: A Load Of Arse

''Too Much For TV: This Morning hits rock bottom as Louie Spence removes hair from men's bare buttocks live on the show'
The Daily Mail was so appalled by the spectacle of five men getting their cracks waxed by Mr Spence that today they are running five photos of the session on their online version.
Watch it here.
The fun had only just started.
That evening over on Channel 4 the first episode of The Joy Of Teen Sex showed us a girl having a vajazzle, a boy getting a prince albert put in, and young Calvin learnt how to overcome his fear of losing his anal virginity ("I want you to wrap your hand into a little anus...")
Kids today!

The Bulls: What Part Of Equality Don't You Understand?

"Much is said about 'equality and diversity' but it seems some people are more equal than others."

Hazelmary Bull, convicted bigot.
Christian Couple May Appeal Against Verdict Over Bristol Gay Couple
Interesting use of a paraphrased quotation from Animal Farm - Fagburn isn't sure that a government introducing legislation to protect citizens from discrimination sounds like "an Orwellian nightmare".

Update: "The ruling by a judge in Bristol sealed the supremacy of gay rights over Christian belief under the Sexual Orientation Regulations pushed through by Tony Blair four years ago..." The Daily Mail, natch.

Against Equality: Ban Marriage

Currently on a discussion tour in the US are contributors to Against Marriage: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage, a new book published by the Against Equality collective.
There's quite a good piece on them in Chicago's Windy City News.
"People ask, 'How can you possibly be against equality? That's like being against rainbows ... and all things good?'" Yasmin Nair is quoted as saying.
"[But] equality... What does equality mean and how has it been used and deployed over the years to signify anything good and grandiose and progressive? A lot of people say 'progressives' and 'gays' as if they mean the same thing. But what we're contending in this book is that, no, what constitutes the gay movement today is actually the gay right. It's a deeply conservative movement."
"What you get in the 1990s is a break, as it were, for the gay community. You get a rise in the professional, upper middle class of gay people. You also get, at the same time, is this breakdown in the notion of a public sexual culture; so you see Times Square being cleaned out and Disney-fied, for example. And the two things actually come together: a gay professional class and a de-sexing of queer culture (and straight life as well).
"So you get this conservatism. You get gay people who think Aids is over; in fact, it's not... What starts to happen is that there's this idea that 'gay' is a class identity. People have this stereotype: They think that [gays] are all rich and have the picket-fence lifestyle.
"And within that framework of this change, you get marriage coming in. Marriage becomes the ultimate form of respectability..."
The book should soon be available to order in the UK from AK Press.

• And, as if by magic, here are The Hidden Cameras performing 'Ban Marriage'