Friday, March 04, 2005
Stephen Green, head of (and I'm starting to suspect sole corporeal member of) charmless bigots Christian Voice, had a busy night last night, given platforms on the BBC from both Newsnight and the new satirical BBC4 show The Late Edition, to talk about how Jerry Springer - The Opera ruins his faith and how he has no regrets about forcing a cancer charity that looks after sick and dying people to refuse money from it, he's obviously from the Mother Theresa school of Christianity where it's all about the suffering and the agony.
Newsnight mentioned in passing that John Cryer had tabled an Early Day Motion about them, I found this and this.
The charmless bigots also, of course, don't like the queer community. I'm not hugely cheered by the news the government plans to make homophobic abuse a criminal offense. I am lucky, it's never been a huge problem for me and it's on that scale from annoying to life-threatening, but legislating against verbal offense seems dodgy to me, obviously, to use the religious offense angle, Nick Griffin isn't open to a reasoned debate on his views about Muslims, there is no-one that could persuade him to change his views, but he will quite happily go to court and be prosecuted when that law comes in. It's a law that allows the Government to pretend they are addressing the problem because it's a longer struggle and more effort to address the underlying social problems that lead to rascist or homophobic behaviour. This will do nothing to stop the jerk who stops me in the street.
In better news, Government puts off ID cards scheme until next Parliament. Lack of time plus big anti-ID Card Conservative majority in the Lords apparently. So the House of Lords is in favour of personal freedom unless you wish to express that by getting jiggy with someone of the same sex.
Now, what is Ken Livingstone doing, has someone been spiking his food with extra testosterone or something? Livingstone tries to defuse row with the Board of Deputies and other self-appointed moral guardians by renewing claims that Ariel Sharon is a 'war criminal' and the state of Israel engages in 'ethnic cleansing'. It's as though he is out to offend the Jewish community by whatever means necessary and after only the usual suspects like Melanie Phillips or Henry Grunwald rose to his bait last time he's raising the bar. What's next, throwing pigs out of a plane flying over Golders Green?
A whole can of 'what the fuck?!' has been opened in Pakistan. Boy gets sodomised. Sister gets charged with 'contempt' for not accepting how the village council deals with it and is sentenced to be gang-raped by six men. She manages to take them to court and they get sentenced to death. Now five of them go free on appeal. I'm not saying they should be executed but this is fucked up...
Newsnight mentioned in passing that John Cryer had tabled an Early Day Motion about them, I found this and this.
The charmless bigots also, of course, don't like the queer community. I'm not hugely cheered by the news the government plans to make homophobic abuse a criminal offense. I am lucky, it's never been a huge problem for me and it's on that scale from annoying to life-threatening, but legislating against verbal offense seems dodgy to me, obviously, to use the religious offense angle, Nick Griffin isn't open to a reasoned debate on his views about Muslims, there is no-one that could persuade him to change his views, but he will quite happily go to court and be prosecuted when that law comes in. It's a law that allows the Government to pretend they are addressing the problem because it's a longer struggle and more effort to address the underlying social problems that lead to rascist or homophobic behaviour. This will do nothing to stop the jerk who stops me in the street.
In better news, Government puts off ID cards scheme until next Parliament. Lack of time plus big anti-ID Card Conservative majority in the Lords apparently. So the House of Lords is in favour of personal freedom unless you wish to express that by getting jiggy with someone of the same sex.
Now, what is Ken Livingstone doing, has someone been spiking his food with extra testosterone or something? Livingstone tries to defuse row with the Board of Deputies and other self-appointed moral guardians by renewing claims that Ariel Sharon is a 'war criminal' and the state of Israel engages in 'ethnic cleansing'. It's as though he is out to offend the Jewish community by whatever means necessary and after only the usual suspects like Melanie Phillips or Henry Grunwald rose to his bait last time he's raising the bar. What's next, throwing pigs out of a plane flying over Golders Green?
A whole can of 'what the fuck?!' has been opened in Pakistan. Boy gets sodomised. Sister gets charged with 'contempt' for not accepting how the village council deals with it and is sentenced to be gang-raped by six men. She manages to take them to court and they get sentenced to death. Now five of them go free on appeal. I'm not saying they should be executed but this is fucked up...
