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."

Ann Widdecombe: Oh Do Shut Up!

'Ministers Cave In To Political Correctness'
"...Homosexual rights already trump those of religious conscience and now apparently prevail even over truthful academic analysis.
"This intolerant minority of homosexuals must be squashed and the people to administer that much-needed lesson – in the absence of a Government with any moral backbone – is the sensible majority who are embarrassed by the antics of their fellow homosexuals."

Ann Widdecombe, former Conservative politician, in her column in The Daily Express today.

"I start with history for three reasons. The first is that while some argue that gay rights has been an onrushing tide, brooking little opposition, insisting that “we” bow to political correctness dictated by “them”, the truth is that progress has been very slow; that decades have passed between the recognition of injustice and its correction.
The second is that the history of the suffering of gay people — of jailing, of police intimidation, of discrimination, of street violence against them — and the story of the long and difficult struggle for gay rights illustrates that this is for us in this country the great civil rights cause of our lifetime.
And finally, I start with history because I fear that it shows that the role of Conservatives in advancing this civil rights cause has not been glorious..."

Daniel Finkelstein, former Conservative politician, in his column in The Times today.