Of course, there is so much more in The Observer today than La Burchill's hate-filled bigotry-by-numbers.
Columnist Nick Cohen is wondering out loud;
Why This Obsession With What Gay People Do In Bed?
Nick, you're getting paid a lot for this - how about you telling us?
If nothing else, the arguments about homosexual emancipation have taught
us that the penis stands tall in the conservative imagination. Like the
dark tower of Mordor, it looms over all else: filling the mind and
blotting out the light. Those who attempt to pretend otherwise always
stumble over their own flat feet...
Good intro, Nick.
But can he keep it up?
Cohen argues;
"Many homophobes, who make a great show of their disgust at "unnatural
practices", imitate the old man. In 1965, 1st Viscount Montgomery of
Alamein tried to stop the repeal of criminal penalties on homosexuals by
bellowing that "one may just as well condone the devil and all his
works" as allow gay sex. True to form, Nigel Hamilton, his biographer,
revealed that Monty had passionate,
if unconsummated, relationships with young men"
An overly simplistic and reductive cliche this may be - but always fun for winding up rabid anti-gayers, nonetheless.
Next he quotes that great hoary old quote from his old chum Christopher Hitchens...
Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland
banging on about the evils of sodomy, I mentally enter his name in my
notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner, rather than later, he
will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some
dreary motel or latrine.*
Warming to his admittedly half-baked theme, Nick Cohen then strikes a note of caution.
But 'yah boo sucks, you're really gay' is not an adequate response to
prejudice, however true it may be in individual cases... hatred flows from many sources.
Who knew!!?
Apart from you, for half this article, Nick?
Well, you've well and truly buggered that straw man.
I doubt he'll ever walk again.
And in conclusion, sir?
I've no doubt it is satisfying for gays and lesbians to say tu
quoque but noli me tangere is the more conclusive
response.
And that's your actual Latin - offered in The Observer without translation, natch.
What do you mean you don't know what it means?
Bloody pleb!
* Nick shows how totally down he is with The Gays by writing about a "gay massage parlour". Anyone ever heard of one of these? Nope, me neither.
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