Pink News: Epic Fail

Pink News has now become its own parody site.

Sake.

Only right-wing people care...

David Cameron: White Saviour Complex

From the ever fawning LGBTory fanzine that is Gay Star News.

And a big shout-out to the greatest self-appointed White Saviour of them all!

PS Apparently leading sorcerer, Pope Francis, could wave his holy papal magic wand and solve all this, too!

Bless.

Commonwealth: Where The Sin Never Sets

... Astonishingly, some form of “right to matrimonial rape” is still in force in most Commonwealth countries. It exists alongside other archaic laws, many aimed at gay people, which have a draconian effect on intimate relationships. Gay men are the most frequent targets but the stigma affects lesbians as well, even in jurisdictions where sexual relations between women are not specifically prohibited. 

David Cameron has promised to raise the issue at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Malta next weekend, armed with a report from the Human Dignity Trust on the effects of discriminatory laws on LGBT people.

In the past few years, the situation has got worse. India decriminalised same-sex relationships between consenting adults in 2009, but this was reversed by the Supreme Court in 2013. New laws in countries such as Uganda, which last year increased sentences for people found guilty of same-sex relationships, are sometimes used to suggest that prejudice is rooted in local culture. But it’s also a legacy of colonialism, and its legal framework based on traditional English law that treats gay people and women as second-class citizens.

This is rarely acknowledged when right-wing historians talk wistfully about the British empire. Most Commonwealth states retain laws that reflect punitive Victorian (and earlier) attitudes: gay sex is illegal in 40 out of 53 countries, while almost half fail to recognise that men can be raped too.

Think about this country, before homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967, when gay people had to conceal relationships and live in fear of blackmail; that’s the situation in one Commonwealth country after another. Except that it’s worse: effective HIV education is next to impossible where homosexuality is stigmatised; Commonwealth states account for 30 per cent of the world’s population but have more than 60 per cent of HIV cases... 

Joan Smith, Independent On Sunday.

Yes, of course anti-gay laws will hinder efforts to fight Aids, but your piece raises a few obvious questions, Joan...

How often are these laws enforced; systematically, regularly, erratically, never? [Please break this down by country].

If the anti-gay laws are to blame then how come; 'the stigma affects lesbians as well, even in jurisdictions where sexual relations between women are not specifically prohibited.'

Colonial laws were written a century ago, and the end of the British Empire began generations ago, are you sure we can carry on blaming everything on these?

Doesn't David Cameron telling them to change reveal a neo-colonial mindset, too?

How do you think the respective countries' leaders being bossed around by 'Greater Britain' will go down with their subjects/citizens? And therefore, do you think their politicians will welcome this or denounce it?

Can you explain the high incidence of HIV in Sub-Saharan African countries that aren't members of the Commonwealth?

Thanks.

List Of The Day: Commonwealth People

David Cameron was under increasing pressure today to speak out against homophobia ahead of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Of the 53 countries in the Commonwealth, 42 criminalise homosexuality and campaigners are demanding that the British Government uses the Games to tackle the issue...

The Independent - who end the article with the following handy and informative list...

Erm, only Nigeria and Uganda are in the Commonwealth, dear.

Still, thanks for the pic of Saint Peter.

PS I won't bore you again with my usual spiel asking which countries actually enforce their laws.

David Starkey: A Gay Right-Wing Racist Speaks Out On How Black People Don't Play By Our Rules

"How appropriate is it to hold the Commonwealth conference? I mean, here we are picking on Sri Lanka as a particularly bad example of human rights.* If I remember correctly it's almost half the members of the Commonwealth more-or-less outlaw homosexuality. In other words, this is an organisation where apart from a handful of members of the old WHITE Commonwealth, they don't do things as we do - it's simple as that."

David Starkey, Any Questions.

Astonishing he got away with this loathsome racist shit - though Dr Starkey appears to be making a career out of being a loathsome racist shit - but this neo-imperial narrative about how homophobia is a product of countries that are - unlike our fantastic selves - "backwards", "uncivilised" etc has now become "common sense".

* Estimated Tamil deaths in Sri Lankan civil war 40,000-70,000. Caring David Cameron left the Commonwealth summit to sell more arms to Gulf State despots...

Commonwealth: Telling Lies For A Living

Homosexuality is illegal in 41 out of the 53 Commonwealth countries, a report released on Monday reveals.

Despite this, the forthcoming Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Sri Lanka has elected not to discuss the issue of anti-gay discrimination.

Commissioned by the Kaleidoscope Trust and compiled by LGBT activists throughout the Commonwealth, the report calls for Commonwealth countries to repeal anti-gay legislation, with an immediate moratorium on enforcement.

“If you look at the world as a whole, around about 40% of nations have state-sponsored homophobia,” said Kaleidoscope’s spokesman, Douglas Pretsell.

“Half of those – about 54% – are in the Commonwealth. If you look at the rest of the world not inside the Commonwealth, it’s only 24.5% – so the Commonwealth has a big problem.

“These are laws that make it illegal to be gay.”

The Guardian.

As Fagburn has said before these laws are meaningless when they are not applied.

Tell me how many men are imprisoned in these countries just for being gay?

Or for buggery?
On a scale of one to nothing?

There is an economy of gay campaigning - you make money by pretending things are far worse than they are.
Just as there is an economy of gay journalism - where you accentuate the negative.

ie By bare-faced lying.

PS The Economist on Europe, asylum and "benign criminalisation".

Patrick Smugtwit: Imagine If She Hadn't Said That About Black People!

It began as a Sunday morning much like any other.
I was "chilling out" by playing my violin, only stopping occasionally to send tweets about myself. 
Then I thought I'd better go and check if there was anything about me in the papers.
Imagine my surprise when in the newsagents I saw the front page of the Mail On Sunday!
'QUEEN FIGHTS FOR GAY RIGHTS'.
My heart quickened somewhat!
Well fancy that! 
Prominent gay rights campaigners like me now have a new straight ally; Her Majesty, the supreme governor of the Church of England, the head of the Commonwealth, the Queen of more than a dozen countries, no less. 
Normally I - Patrick Smugtwit, one-man scourge of homophobia - would not give the Mail my money, but I thought this was such brilliant news that I made an exception.
So imagine my dismay when I got home and read the bloody thing. 
All was not as it seems and the detail was, as it so often is, in the devil. 
Here are the actual facts:
Queen Elizabeth is signing a Commonwealth charter that says;

"We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds."

Hang on a ruddy moment, I thought to myself, this does not actually mention the gays.
The Mail On Sunday's headline was not really true!!!
Imagine if she had not mentioned black people!!!! 
This, I thought with my brilliant mind, was... HOMOPHOBIA!
Why oh why has no-one else noticed this??
I immediately took to Twitter to alert the world. 
"I, Patrick Smugtwit, will not celebrate silence!" I tweeted to my millions of fans. "I will not join those cheering this supposed historic nod in our direction!"
(Due to my legendary modesty I don't usually like to mention this, but I know some people on Twitter who are quite famous, so its true impact can only be guessed at). 
Ha! I bet the Queen is feeling pretty stupid now.
Exhausted, after single-handedly saving the world once more, I returned to my violin. 
Later, while absent-mindedly gazing into the mirror and imagining the deep gratitude of my brothers and sisters in the Commonwealth, yet another of my devastatingly original and profound thoughts struck me.
Perhaps you can't believe everything you read in the papers?