Category: Equalities

IDAHOT Day 2014

IDAHOTTo help promote and support today’s IDAHOT Day 2014, the marvellous people behind OUT140 invite you to write your own coming out story in 140 characters or less.  Simply tweet your tale to @OUT140, or use the hashtag . You never know, it could end up on stage.

You can also follow OUT140 on Faceache, and check out their website here.

This is something I prepared earlier….

OUT140_text_mediumThe Little Book of Coming Out Stories

Bearded Men in Dresses

Conchita Wurst’s hair-raising victory at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest was historic for two reasons:

  1. A country not associated with the Balkans, Baltic and/or the former Soviet Union actually won for a change; and
  2. She was a he in a frock and whiskers (just in case you hadn’t noticed).

Naturally, the Russian Orthodox Church (among other right wing reactionaries) is outraged by the swirling cesspit of sodomites that the contest has become. After all, real bearded men don’t wear dresses do they?

Men in Frocks

Conchita Rocks

Eurovision

 

“This night is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom.” Conchita Wurst

Can’t argue with that.

Eurovision – And the Band Played On

Eurovision 2014The Eurovision Song Contest is like herpes. There is no cure. The overblown glittery bandwagon pulls into Copenhagen this year, no doubt costing the Danish economy more than the Nazi occupation. Reduced to back-slapping bonhomie between neighbours and century-old foes, the songfest has been given an extra political frisson this year by the nasty homophobic laws in Russia and Tsar Putin’s annexation/repatriation (delete according to taste) of the Crimea; continued unrest in eastern Ukraine might earn Kiev a few sympathy votes from other former Soviet Republics and old Warsaw Pact nations. In a strange twist of fate, the people of Crimea can vote for Russia because the telephone service hasn’t yet switched sides, so it could be douze points from Ukraine. They may be the only points Russia gets. We can only hope.

Last year, Turkey threw a hissy fit and withdrew from the competition. It hasn’t entered this year either but nobody’s noticed, well apart from Liam who is terribly upset. In any case, Prime Minister Erdoğan’s probably banned the extravaganza along with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Alan Carr’s Chatty Man. Britain’s entry is Children of the Universe sung by Molly Smitten-Downes. No, me neither. We could enter the Teletubbies for all the difference it would make. Our money’s on the Austrian drag queen if only to get up the noses of our more reactionary cousins east of the Oder-Neisse Line.

The lead up to the show always causes a flurry of excited emails between Europhiles and Eurosceptics. This year was no different in the Scott-Brennan household. Here’s a small selection:

“Talking of Eurovision, your thoughts on Molly’s effort? We like Sweden, and there are a few anti-Russian efforts which should add to the event. I’m sure the TV sets in Moscow will go blank when the first bars of Austria’s entry wail in. We can only hope. Really looking forward to the annual camp-fest. Oh, I’m such a cliché.”

“Actually, we’re not quite in the Euro groove yet – we’re fashionably late this year with our research. Yes, we have heard the Brit entry- bit of a screamer who’ll probably sing flat on the night. They always do, you know. So what’s the Russian entry this year? Orthodox nuns with Kalashnikovs trying to reclaim the Kattegat?”

“For the record, my votes go to the Albanian diva and the Austrian drag queen. Not that I’m gay or anything. And I haven’t got a clue why the awful Armenian dirge is hot favourite. Especially looking forward to the Irish muscles boys and their out-of-sync diddly-diddly dancing, the Latvians on how to bake a cake and possibly the worst song ever presented to Eurovision, a misguided torch song massacred by a fat Belgian. It’s gonna be a corker.”

And the band played on.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

I took up pole position outside Pret a Manger on Haymarket to sip my usual tipple, rest my gym-tortured limbs and people-watch. It was a bumper crop. School’s out and the Easter break delivered bus-loads of bumpkins and charabancs of tourists to sup, shop and promenade along Norwich’s cobbled streets. Dutch lowlanders mingled with landed gentry and the children of the corn while Chinese happy snappers brought up the rear. As I gazed into the crowd, I spotted two middle aged men wandering past the crooning busker outside Top Shop. The pair sported the neo-clone whiskers that are all the rage right now. They were also holding hands so I guessed they were more than just good friends. My, how things have changed since the secret encounters of my wonderfully misspent youth.

Haymarket Down the Years

St Peter Mancroft

With thanks to the late George Plunkett and his marvellous photos of old Norwich.

I Do

Same Sex Marriage PictureToday‘s the day that same sex marriage was legalised in England and Wales. Scotland follows suit in October and it can only be a matter of time before Northern Ireland falls into line. Both England and Wales have now joined a select group of civilised nations that believe in marriage equality for all. I awoke to find my world just as I left it. We have not been smitten by a vengeful God, the sun still shines and this green and pleasant land is still green and pleasant. My advice to those who oppose same sex marriage: don’t marry someone of the same sex.

The Last Taboo

Norwich Pride Lions
Out and Proud Lion at Norwich City Hall – Image courtesy of Norwich Pride on Facebook

The twilight world of the homosexual has emerged from the dark alleys of my fumbling pretty-boy years and gone very high street. Talented lesbians and gay men from every mince of life have broken out of the ghetto and now muck about in the mainstream without hiding their sexuality under a bushel or running scared of the sleazy Sunday scandal rags. No one cares what you do between the sheets – well, not in Britain anyway – and it just doesn’t sell copy anymore, not even in the Sunday Mail. No, hypocrisy is the sin that pisses people off the most these days. Even in the macho world of sport there are tentative signs that the love that dares not speak its name is whispering in the showers without causing a stir in the scrum or a tirade from the terraces.

All of this should cheer up the war-weary. Nobody ever won their rights by asking nicely and saying please and it’s taken hand-to-hand combat with the hard of hearing to get this far. Long decades of agitation have finally paid off.  There’s no room for complacency of course. There were 5,000 reported homophobic attacks last year and we must all guard against a moral backlash – think the Russian descent into religious conservatism as an example. But now that gay people have become so ordinary and everyday, what’s the point to an entire sub-culture dedicated to difference and enforced separation? Who needs a gay bar when you’ll get a hearty welcome down your local even when you’ve got your arm around the boyf?

Or will you?

This post briefly went out as a ‘ghost post’ a few weeks ago when I inadvertently pressed the wrong key and suffered a bad case of premature publication. Hence some of the comments. Oops!

Pantigate

Homophobia, like racism and other types of irrational prejudice, takes many forms – from the subtle to the violent, the barely perceptible to the deadly. It’s all around us and we are all guilty of it to a lesser or greater extent. But, it becomes farcical when those who never have and never will experience homophobia get to decide what it is and how it affects those who are its victims. I can think of no better rebuttal of this nonsense than the one delivered by Panti Bliss, an Irish drag queen following her controversial appearance on RTE, the Irish TV broadcaster. It’ caused quite a ruckus – deliciously called ‘Pantigate’. It’s no bad thing to get the bigots running scared. Here’s what the eminently sensible, gloriously eloquent Panti Bliss had to say on the subject:

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Sochi 2014

As the Winter Olympics kick off in Sochi (the most expensive Winter Olympics of all time),  a timely reminder of Tsar Putin’s nasty little law.

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Jack Scott's avatarPerking the Pansies

Putin

With the introduction of a vaguely worded law in Russia banning the promotion of homosexuality to minors (i.e. the very mention of it will attract a sliding scale of fines and repeated violations may result in a stint in the clink), the chattering classes have called for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi on Russia’s Black Sea Coast. The idea is to give Tsar Putin and his Russian Orthodox cabal a good kick up the arse. I can’t see it amounting to much. After all, the soccer World Cup circus will be coming to town in Qatar in 2022, a gulf state with a less than sparkling record on human rights of any kind and we seem happy to do brisk business with a host of nasty little regimes around the globe. Let not conscience get in the way of the beautiful game or making a few…

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The Great Flood

Flood 2014

As a card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool, bleeding heart pinko liberal (though not in the party political sense), I don’t have much time for the UK Independence Party. To me, it looks like a motley crew of disaffected Tories, the swivel-eyed variety, bible-thumping zealots, little England xenophobes and closet and not-so-closet fascists – not the kind of people I’d give my last Rolo to. Just sit back and watch as they trip themselves up with their own silly rhetoric, something that happens with embarrassing regularity. Cue the nice UKIP town councillor from Henley-on-Thames, David Silvester. Mr Silvester raised a few eyebrows when he wrote a letter to his local rag, the Henley Standard. In it, he claimed that the floods which recently beset these soggy islands were divine retribution for the legalisation of gay marriage. He wrote:

“The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters.”

Mr Silvester was once a Conservative councillor (nuff said) but defected to UKIP because of the Government’s policy on marriage equality. I wonder how the wise councillor explains the Great North Sea Flood of 1953, the very year of the Coronation. It was a time when England was still largely the God-fearing, church-going, gay-jailing, warm-beer drinking, class-ridden, women-know-their-place, whites only earthly paradise that, presumably, Mr Silvester pines after. The flood claimed the lives of 300 souls in England alone (with more in Scotland, and the Low Countries), badly damaged over 24,000 buildings and forced 30,000 people to flee their homes. God really does work in mysterious ways.

Mr Silvester’s words unleashed a firestorm of ridicule on social media. So much so, that he’s now considered too extreme even for UKIP, who have since suspended him from the party.  The delicious furore has even spawned some spoof news items. My personal favourites are:

The UKIP Shipping Forecast

Married Gays to Tour Drought-hit Countries

Liam is packing our saddle bags as I write but we think the Sahara might be a challenge, even for these two unrepentant sinners.

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