Alan Turing: Fuzzy Logic

"I have no intention of obstructing this Bill but I think as it continues on its journey towards the statute book there is something that should be said.
"As we know Alan Turing committed and was convicted of an act that would not be a crime today. Many other crimes have been committed similarly, but I hope this Bill will not be used as a precedent.
"Even more, I hope we will never seek to extend the logic of this Bill to posthumously convict men of crimes for acts which, when they were committed, were not criminal but would be if they were committed today.
"There is a dangerous precedent within this Bill."

Norman Tebbit speaking in the Lords, as the Alan Turing (Statutory Pardon) Bill cleared the upper house.

Bizarre as ever, no-one but the Lord Of Barking has suggested posthumously convicting "men" (Only men? And only dead men?) under newly-made laws.
I'm not sure what he's got in mind anyway; not wearing a seatbelt in 1974?

However, like many gay men I can't see any point in singling out Turing for a pardon - a bit of posturing feel-good gesture politics.
Unless perhaps, seeing as Normal Norman has now raised the issue, it was used as a precedent to pardon all the thousands of men convicted for now legal "homosexual offences" in the UK.

Though their lives can not be saved or rebuilt with an official "Sorry" note, either.

Norman Tebbit: More Tea, Vicar?

"It seems to me that ever since the day that Roy Jenkins said the permissive society is the civilized society, society has got less civilized. Most of what has happened in becoming a more permissive society has featured alongside a society which has become much less agreeable." Probably not if you are black, or in a mixed-race relationship, I suggest – and it certainly wasn't safer back then if you were gay. "Well, particularly if they flaunted themselves as such," Tebbit mutters coldly. But heterosexuals can flaunt their sexuality without being beaten up – and what is marriage, if not a public flaunting of one's sexual identity? And so, inevitably, we come to gay marriage.

He contends that because a same-sex marriage can't biologically produce children, it would be illogical for it to exclude incestuous couples. "I think that you have to say, 'Look, we're going to deal with this on the basis of looking at where the law is discriminatory, and we're going to eliminate discrimination.' Be very careful of that argument, is all I'm saying. If you start basing your argument on non-discrimination, you land in some funny places.
"How about polygamy? Should we legislate to legalise it? What's the argument against it? I'm a polygamist, you see, and I'm discriminated against because I'm not allowed to marry several women. Don't I have a case to say that's discriminatory?" But what is the parallel with homosexuality? "Well, the argument is that we are discriminating against homosexuals by excluding them from marriage. We are discriminating, therefore against a polygamist."

Tebbit can't see why gay people are being discriminated against anyway. "I simply take the view that there is at the moment no difference between my rights and a homosexual man's. It's just that he wants to do something which I don't want to do." But he wants to be married to the person he loves, and cannot, whereas Tebbit can. "OK, he doesn't want to marry a woman, that's fine. I don't want to marry a man, and I can't. It is precisely the same position. I mean, some people want to drive at 120mph on the motorway, but we don't let them." Yes, because it's dangerous. "Well, perhaps deconstructing marriage would be a dangerous and harmful thing to society." Why would allowing more people to marry weaken the institution of marriage? "I just think, why don't they go and do something else?"
He opposed civil partnerships. "I confess I was probably wrong about that." But he can't accept calling a gay relationship a marriage, and quotes from the same-sex marriage bill's guidance notes, which state that a man married to a man could be called a wife.

"I'm a wordsmith by profession. I love words. I pick up words from a big pile and put them into a pattern that is pleasing. But when I pick up the word 'wife' and find it can include a man married to a man, I say, 'Hey! Who's doing this to our language?'" But language is evolving all the time. "Yes, but come, come! This is a bit extreme!"
"But do you remember," his wife intervenes, "the two men who were obviously – I mean they were terribly nice … " "Oh, you mean from whom we bought the house in Islington?"
"Yes. I mean, he was definitely, you just knew, the wife." Well, there we are, I say – they felt that the word accurately described the man's family position. Tebbit looks unimpressed. "Do you think it's time for a cup of tea?" asks Margaret.

I ask if he would consider himself a homophobe. "Well, it's interesting that it's allowed for one group of people to insult and shout names at another group without any restriction, but if I were to shout names at that group they would immediately say I was committing a hate crime. No, I'm not a homophobe."
Most people today would say that if you don't want gay people to "flaunt" their sexuality, or express their love in public, you are probably homophobic. "Well, it doesn't mean you hate them. It doesn't mean you're in fear of them. It means you'd rather they didn't do that." But why? He pauses. "Because that's not the way human beings are constructed."

I ask if he is familiar with psychological studies that have tested heterosexual men's response to gay pornography. As I explain to him that electrodes attached to the penis measure sexual arousal, the temperature in the room plummets. The funny thing is, I go on, heterosexual men with relaxed attitudes to homosexuals are unmoved by gay porn – whereas those hostile to homosexuals exhibit sexual arousal. Why does he think that might be? By now Tebbit is looking ill, and his wife has turned white.
"I think there's something weird about people who want to go and have electrodes attached to their penises and watch pornography," he says brusquely, getting to his feet. "I don't think they're a representative group. Margaret, would you like your tea?"

Norman Tebbit, profiled in The Guardian.
Bit of a classic.

Keep on digging, dude!

Thought For The Day: Frankie Boyle

I only have two reservations about gay marriage. Firstly, it’s against the holy teachings of our Lord. Secondly, it could fundamentally undermine ratios at wife-swapping parties.
Of course, the official Catholic position is against. As opposed to the unofficial Catholic position — bent over the font biting down hard on a hymn book.
Plans for gay marriage have been approved by MPs despite opposition from nearly half the Tories. They’re worried their rent boys will propose.
One chief opponent is Tory MP Peter Bone.
A little rich as I’m sure I saw his name on the credits of Dishonorable Members 2... I won’t go into details but let’s just say afterwards they had to take a nail brush to the mace.
Lord Tebbit says new legislation could allow him to marry his son to escape inheritance tax.
His son must be devastated that his dad only wants to marry him for his own money.
Tebbit made his anti-gay comments in an interview with homeless newspaper The Big Issue, a publication he actually helped start by being part of Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet.
I suspect his dislike is at a deeper level. He may have seen gay men stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat, and subconsciously thought they might be mining coal.
Tebbit insists he doesn’t necessarily object to seeing a gay couple together at the altar. So long as it’s in boxes following a shame-induced suicide pact.
He raised the possibility of a lesbian queen. She’d be a lot like the normal queen, but with fewer corgis and more cats.
Apparently, in private, Tebbit confesses he’d be happy to attend a gay church wedding. As he could cover his body in gold paint in order to leap down from the crucifix at the crucial moment and shout: “Not on my watch, ladymen!”

Frankie Boyle in The Sun.

PS Frankie Boyle - a huge Chomsky fan - has it written into his contract that they can't change a single word in his mighty column.

Gay Marriage: A Teaching Guide

The Guardian online has a handy cut-and-out keep guide to "News and teaching resources to help you teach your students about same-sex marriage".
Teaching about gay issues in schools and colleges is still a controversial subject for some, so thankfully The Guardian offer a word of warning... 

PS If you teach media studies, you might also like to ask students why they think even The Guardian always illustrate stories about gay marriage with photos of disembodied hands or frigging cake toppers, like the crappy one above.

Norman Tebbit: And Why Not?

"I said to a minister I know: have you thought this through? Because you’re doing the law of succession, too.
“When we have a queen who is a lesbian and she marries another lady and then decides she would like to have a child and someone donates sperm and she gives birth to a child, is that child heir to the throne?
“It’s like one of my colleagues said: we’ve got to make these same sex marriages available to all.
“It would lift my worries about inheritance tax because maybe I’d be allowed to marry my son. Why not?"

Norman Tebbit speaking to the Big Issue.
He also uses a four-letter word - too disgusting to be mentioned on a family-orientated blog - the evil potty-mouthed cunt.

PS For the record, despite the yawnsome hoo-ha, it's not clear here if the "marry my son" line is by Stormin' Norman or his colleague.

Norman Tebbit: Tales From The Crypt

'I doubt if Mr Cameron's new-found enthusiasm for “gay marriage” will make it any more likely that he will lead the Conservative Party to a majority in 2015 or add greatly to the sum total of happiness and contentment in our society. I wonder just when the implications of it was discussed in detail by a Cabinet Committee? Why cannot we have some rather better staff work before great policy initiatives are announced?'

Norman Tebbit writes for The Daily Telegraph on why 'Gay Marriage Won't Win David Cameron The Next Election'.
In what's for him a relatively restrained piece, Lord Tebbit of Chingford, blames Lib Dem "contagion" and warns of voters defecting to UKIP en masse.
"Within the can of worms that Mr Cameron is determined to open there are several nests of snakes,"  claims the Conservative's former viper in chief.

Norman Tebbit: The Last Roar Of The Dinosaur

"I still do not know where, apart from to a Big Society gay wedding in Westminster Abbey, the Prime Minister really wants to go. Surely he does not need a pollster to tell him."

Norman Tebbit, blogging for The Daily Telegraph.
Un/fortunately that's all he says about The Gays.
Fagburn can't make head nor tail of the rest of it but trusts Lord Tebbit of Arsehole had a very good lunch.