Homophobia: Get A Grip

A self-confessed Telegraph journalist attends a rugby match and overhears another fan slagging off out referee, Nigel Owens, and using the word 'gay' as an insult.

Thus proving - and I shit you not - that 'Britain remains in the grip of homophobia'!

Bravely, and seemingly without a thought for his own safety, our valiant hack turns round and tells him off.

First they came for the gay rugby referees...

Those who use racist, homophobic or sexist language may try to brush off those who would hold them to account by crying “PC!”. But this has nothing to do with political correctness. It’s about exercising basic respect for each other and the identities none of us should feel ashamed about. At school my hair was even redder than it is now and I was teased relentlessly. I ended up peroxiding it at university and then, during my years as a BBC presenter, shaving it, influenced in part perhaps by the insults. But you can’t peroxide your sexuality [Eh?]

It may be easy if you haven’t been bullied or experienced life as a minority to fail in your empathy for those who have. But we should all aspire to live in a world where decent values aren’t just upheld by the law but by each and every one of us.

So brave.

The Telegraph is the last place you expect to read wanky 'bleedin' heart' liberal patronising guff like this.

Truly, the times they are a-changin'.

Though not necessarily for the best.

Sam Smith: April Fool

Guys I have some news... I'm straight
— SAM SMITH (@samsmithworld) April 1, 2015

April Fools always fill Fagburn with such hysterical mirth, he fears he may not able to post again today.

I mean, just look at this one. Fucking hilarious!

And in other papers; 'Jeremy Clarkson is going to do something incongruous'. LOLZ!!!

Telegraph: Th Arrival Of Same-sex Marriage On Year Ago... [sic]

I was seventeen in 1987; if I recall correctly, that was my year of chairing the local Young Conservatives. Thatcher’s conference line, and Section 28 that followed it, devastated my psychological development. I resigned from the YCs, but couldn’t, of course, spell out why. First love arrived a year later, at 18, but I fled from, and hurt, that first man who had found me in the university library, and thought me worthwhile. I couldn’t square my desire for that man with the sermon the Prime Minister and her – my – party were teaching the country...

Jesus wept.

Must be a scream at the Telegraph offices these days - even if you've sacked all your subs - say hiya to Paul and Tim!

PS Oh, hang on...

Said the gay Tory who was an MP in the Thatcher years...

The Daily Telegraph: Is Gay!

The Telegraph appear to have ditched their style guide policy; 'Gay: permissible in headlines if essential but use homosexual in text.'

Welcome to the 21st Century!

Daily Telegraph: Homophobia Taints This British Newspaper

You couldn't make it up etc etc.

Daily Telegraph: Correction

Telegraph.

Oops!

Their style guide was last updated in 2008...

Or was it 1908?

PS 'Gays' - as a noun, not an adjective - is even worse.

Pippa Middleton: A Sad Day For British Journalism

Her writing career has not exactly been her crowning glory after her debut book bombed – and now Pippa Middleton’s role as a national newspaper columnist has come to an end too.

The 30-year-old sister of the Duchess of Cambridge is believed to have been paid a significant fee to write for the Daily Telegraph. But it is claimed she failed to capture readers’ hearts.

In the Sport and Social column she wrote about a string of antics , including cycling underwater, flipping pancakes, cooking pasta and investigating whether oysters really are an aphrodisiac, which some people reportedly found “silly and boring”.

Yesterday a source said: “It’s fair to say reader reaction to Pippa’s writing wasn’t great. There were also a few issues with deciding what topics Pippa should and shouldn’t write about.”

Sunday Mirror.

Pippa, a lovely young filly who showed how far you can go purely on your own talents, also appears to have been cruelly spurned by this year's Martha Gellhorn Prize For Journalism.

Still, at least we have an online archive of her beautiful and insightful writing...

Pippa's farewell column.
'For anyone inspired to take up rowing by the 2014 University Boat Race'
Even the Telegraph have their limits.

Archbishop Of Canterbury: You Don't Understand, This Is All About Me!!!

'Saturday's Telegraph headline appears to be "Justin Welby: Why same-sex marriage is all about me, not loving couples"' @TheStevenThomas

The Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested he is powerless to provide blessings for gay marriages because to do so would split the global Anglican Church.

In an interview with The Telegraph, the Most Rev Justin Welby says that the Church had probably caused “great harm” to homosexuals in the past — but there was not always a “huge amount” that could be done now to rectify the situation.

Although indicating that he was sympathetic to calls for the Church to publicly honour gay relationships, the Archbishop says that it is “impossible” for some followers in Africa to support homosexuality. In the interview, the leader of the Anglican Church, which has 77 million followers globally [sic], speaks movingly of the persecution faced by Christians in parts of the world. He indicates that the Church must not take a step that would cut off these groups, most of them in the third world, however much this angers parts of society in Britain...

Welby claims he was misquoted when he spoke about this a fortnight ago - even though he said it in a radio interview.

Here's the Telegraph's story.

Sarah Wollaston: Great Mysteries Of Our Time

Daily Telegraph.

Why on earth, Dr Sarah? Why on earth?

There soon came a reply from Dan Hodges on Telegraph blogs...

Oh yeah, I forgot about that bit.

Breaking: Newspaper Prints Photo Of Gay Couple's Faces!

Albeit almost insufferably posh looking ones.

Brian Sewell: How Queer!

I am queer – an old-fashioned term with which I am more comfortable than gay, which seems a silly and unsuitable word for my predicament. I have always been queer – my first enlightenment when I was eight. I have never lied about it, never denied it, but I did learn to dissemble, which is why I think of it as a predicament, a menacing situation...

It goes on.

The anti-gay marriage Telegraph has not one, but two touching videos of some poshgays getting gaymarried. Exciting times!

Marriage: You (Still) Need Hands

The poll of 1,007 (presumably straight) people showed one in five British adults would not go to a gay wedding if invited – out of protest. The survey by BBC Radio 5 live also found men were nearly twice as likely to stay away as women.

Well, bully for them. There are probably millions of reasons why some Britons won't go to a gay wedding if invited: they could feel out of their comfort zone; they wouldn't know what to expect; they may cite religious reasons – and the most childish of all, straight men may worry that being surrounded by a bunch of gay men, drinking and having fun, could end up with lots of unsolicited 'offers' coming their way.

Or it may just be plain homophobia and bigotry.

Telegraph.

A much-loved classic from the gaymarriage stock photo library, here.

Strange, the Torygraph's vehement opposition to the Same-sex Marriage Bill seems to have fallen down an Orwellian memory hole.

Marriage: Goodbye To All That

The Daily Telegraph, hilariously.

And at the stroke of midnight all gay cake toppers will turn into real gay couples...

Daily Telegraph: Cake Toppers Watch

And thanks to the Telegraph who fought so valiantly to make equal marriage a reality.

'Oh, by the way I was being sarcastic.' - Homer Simpson.

PS The readers' comments are totes hilair! Mail Online readers really need to up their game...

Daily Telegraph: Silenced By The Gaystapo!

Traditional attitudes to issues such as sexuality are being shut out of debate by a new form of liberal “censoriousness” which only allows “inoffensive” opinions to be heard in public, Britain’s most senior judge has warned.

Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court, said that Britain could be becoming less diverse rather than more because once common opinions are now deemed “unacceptable”.

He likened the new form of “moral reaction” to the opposite but equally restrictive attitudes of previous generations.

The judge also warned that the children of Britain's elite will have to settle for worse jobs than their parents in coming years.

His comments came in a lecture at the House of Commons in which he spoke about improving representation of minorities including women, ethnic minorities, gay people and those from poorer backgrounds in the law and other professions...

Daily Telegraph.

Sure m'lud, just type the word 'gay' - or their preferred term 'homosexual' - into the search engine of Britain's best-selling broadsheet and see how difficult it is to get 'traditional' attitudes on sexuality heard. 

Graeme Archer: Boring

Comment to a story by the Telegraph's incredibly boring token gay, Graeme Archer.

Graeme won an Orwell Prize for his blogging on ConservativeHome.

Yes, you read that right.

An Orwell Prize for writing for ConservativeHome!

If you think about it, that's quite Orwellian.

Marriage: And You, You Won't Be Queen

Daily Telegraph.

Sadly, Telegraph readers can't leave comments about this medieval tomfoolery, that would have been META!
But great to see the return of the 'Gay couple's disembodied hands' stockphoto.

PS Lucky Telegraph readers are also treated to that classic straight newspaper gay feature cliché; Why does society stil have such a problem with camp men? Zzzzz...

Daily Telegraph: Hardcore Porn

Small print: It isn't.

Russia: Welcome To The Era Of Queer Imperialism

Have you tweeted, Facebooked, Instagrammed, YouTubed, blogged or in some other fashion publicly declared your love for gays and your loathing of Vladimir Putin? If not, why not? Everyone who’s anyone is at it. No sooner had the Winter Olympics in Sochi been declared open than Western newspapers and magazines were redesigning their mastheads to include the gay rainbow flag, Google was splashing the gay colours across its homepage, Channel 4 was running an archly camp skitfeaturing a fat man in hotpants dancing to Russian-style music, globally famous authors were penning angry letters about Putin, and virtually everyone with access to social media was making their profile pic super gay-friendly or was frantically sharing Buzzfeed’s ‘16 Most Homoerotic Photos of Vladimir Putin’. Forget curling or luge – the main event at this Winter Olympics is the mass wrestling match between gay-loving Westerners and redneck Russia...

The nodding-dog enthusiasm with which virtually every Western institution and publication has embraced Sochi as an opportunity to lambast backward Russians, and more importantly to demonstrate their own gay-friendly decency, has been extraordinary. Every day brings news of another corporation or outlet waving the gay flag, ostensibly to express fury with Putin’s recent passing of a deeply authoritarian law that forbids the promotion of homosexuality to under-18s, but really as a way of saying: ‘Look at me! I like gays! I am good!’ 

...

And now, through Sochi, the Culture Wars in general and the politicisation of gayness specifically have gone global. A West bereft of its old economic clout and lacking serious ideological beliefs now attempts to assert its moral authority in global affairs through tangential cultural issues, and most notably through being gay-friendly. So the UN is forever drawing up lists of non-gay-friendly countries, Washington has threatened to cut off aid to countries that are not gay-friendly, and Russia is today demonised not on the basis of its economic manoeuvring or ideological positioning but because of its attitude to gays. Where once the world was divided between the civilised and the savage, now it’s split between the gay-friendly and the homophobic. Welcome to the era of Queer Imperialism. How long before a Western nation goes so far as to bomb a country that is insufficiently gay-friendly?

Brendan O'Neill in Spiked gets it.

The good old days recalled at the Sochi Opening Ceremony

This''ll send the politically vacuous conformist gayists MAD!!!
Note Pink News readers predictably jump up and down, but not one actually engages with anything he wrote.
They just have lame sweary hissyfits, go for ye olde "He must be a closet case" idiotic retort, or - my favourite - "You can tell by that stare that he's a homophobe."

PS Adds obligatory; "Whilst I don't agree with everything he says..." rejoinder.

Oh Christ! The Daily Telegraph's god-bothering homophobe-in-chief Cristina Odone sums up the case for the opposition. You really could not make this up.
Bigots against Putin!

Daily Telegraph: Not Gay

The Daily Telegraph is the only British newspaper whose style guide still advises against using the word 'gay'.
So today we get a whole new word... 'non-heterosexuals'!

Can't be arsed to go through this cliché-ridden vomitorium about the gays and sport line by inane line.
But yes, the writer does use the words 'last taboo'.
And Justin Fashanu.
As ever though, the DT reader comments are an absolute hoot!

Daley didn't 'out' himself - he merely confirmed what has long been suspected. Many of the male 'athletes' in these artistic 'activities', such as diving, figure skating, etc. are homosexual, in the same way that many/most males in ballet are homosexual. In itself, this is not an issue, but when they start banging on about, then it becomes a concern. They will compete in Sochi, without hinderance on the part of the Russian authorities

Given the sexual preferences of 95% of the male population, we could call ourselves 'male lesbians', since we share the same delights and desires of our sexual partners. Does this make us more acceptable to the 'gay brigade'? atpu.

Update: "Non-heterosexuals" has now been changed to "homosexuals" - another small victory for Fagburn.

New comment; "I believe that homosexuality is wrong, un-natural & disgusting.Do not try to drown out my opinions by screaming "homophobe" at me."