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MARITAL BONDAGE: ‘TILL DEATH DO US PART’
Did everybody enjoy the consultation?
Wasn’t it lovely? Nearly as good as ‘Keep the
Clause’. Funny, it seems like only yesterday,
not a little over ten years ago, when we were
being subjected to the same vitriol and
religious bullying before the repeal of
Section 28; forbidding appropriate sex
education for gays in schools. As their
wealthy backer said: ‘We didnae ask for it;
and we’re no huvvin’ it!’ No. We certainly
didn’t. From private plebiscite to public
consultation. From homophobic national
billboards to leaflets through the door. My,
haven’t we come a long way? But don’t
worry, because if the government agrees to
give gays the same rights as our
heterosexual superiors, there’ll be another
consultation on how the Churches will
implement it! Apparently they need more
time to prepare for equality. Whoopeedoo!
Can’t wait. Book my flight outta here!
With the media - particularly the BBC -
so pro-religious, the Catholic Church has
been able to get away with wheeling out one
reactionary, right-wing wingnut after
another; each pronouncement shriller than
the last. When it came to Cardinal O’Brien’s
turn, the neighbourhood dogs could hear
how same-sex marriage was “madness” and
“a grotesque subversion of a universally
accepted human right”. It would be like
bringing back “slavery” and “shame the
United Kingdom in the eyes of the world”!
And he should know. Catholic religious
orders, Popes and clergy have all owned a
few slaves in their time. As for
“grotesque…” I think he’s got some neck,
don’t you? The very idea of an institution
lecturing us on morality - on record for
castrating gay kids without their parent’s
consent and concealing the world’s biggest
paedophile ring - is about as ‘grotesque’ as it
gets! I wonder if O’Brien practices first in
front of his mirror; twirling in his frock,
pouting and shaking his fists like Bette
Davis? We should feel sorry for the poor
darling. Most worshipping Catholics I speak
to are just embarrassed by him. Not, of
course, that he’s anybody’s darling. Unless
you want to run the risk of ending up like
that poor female British Airways steward;
taken to an employment tribunal by fellow
trolley-dolly, Rothstein Williams, who
claimed that calling him ‘darling’ was against
his religious Seventh-Day Adventist’s
‘beliefs’.
What the English media forgot as they
regurgitated O’Brien’s hate speech in the
national news was that we were already
being regularly tortured by his garbage in
the Scottish news.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s spittle had
GarryOtton
garry@scotsgay.co.uk
barely dried before the BBC cameras were
rolling again for a Catholic group, the
Knights of St Columba, a bunch of nicotine
and beer-stained old men from five churches
in Nicola Sturgeon’s constituency trotting
out another tired, bigoted objection against
those pesky gay marriages. The Caths had
run out of clerics. Nonetheless, these
shameless old buggers managed to collect
1,000 bigots’ signatures. (Beats spotting
Eddie Stobart trucks, I suppose). I’m
surprised all five churches mustered a
congregation of 1,000 between them. I’ll bet
half of the signatories were wondering what
their dad wanted their signature for. And why
they weren’t just leaving it up to the teachers
to collect signatures at their school like the
Catholic Education Service had done in
England. Challenging them on that highly
questionable and most probably illegal ruse,
Catholic Voices accused the National Secular
Society of being “sinister and illogical”. A
statement on the Catholic Voices website
warned that the NSS “have to argue that (a)
the argument in favour of gay marriage is an
argument in favour of equality; (b) those
who oppose gay marriage are therefore
against equality; (c) because schools are
committed in law to upholding equality,
therefore schools speaking against gay
marriage are breaking the law. The logic falls
at the first hurdle, because: there is no right
to same-sex marriage and therefore no
discrimination”. As the NSS smartly
responded: “They don’t seem to understand
what equalities are about. Women once had
no right to vote so according to Catholic
Voices’ argument, they were not
discriminated against. Equality means giving
a right to a group that is denied it for no
good reason”. Amen to that! I would only
add that you don’t debate or vote for
equality. It is a right.
Michael McGrath, director of the
Scottish Catholic Education Service whined:
“This understanding of the sanctity of
marriage is divinely ordained in Church
doctrine and underpins the teaching of
marriage in Catholic schools across the
world.” Another fine sounding group, The
Catholic Education Commission moaned that
the Scottish Government’s proposals would
make it impossible for teachers in sectarian
schools to teach according to church
doctrines. This was followed up by a letter
from the Scottish Catholic Church to its
supposedly 100,000 Scottish Catholic
adherents reminding them where they must
stand on this.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien was starting to
look as rough as a plumbers’ estimate. It
was time for a make-over. Now, if you listen
to BBC Radio Four and forget to turn the
alarm off at seven, you’re probably used to
being woken on a Sunday with a serious
hangover and the shrieking propaganda of
the Religious News blasting from a tannoy
near your ear. The BBC ditched smearing
Vaseline on the lens that saved Lucille Ball in
Mame and made O’Brien’s rebuke of the
coalition’s handling of the economy - calling
Prime Minister, David Cameron “immoral” -
headline news. Newsreader, Edward
Stourton sombrely suggested that this had
come at the end of a “pretty bad week for
the government” as if David Cameron would
be shaken by criticism from someone now
so universally reviled. If you have access to
the Internet, you’ll already know how
spectacularly it backfired with only the
bravest apologist saluting Cardinal O’Brien.
The NSS’s Alistair McBay took the
opportunity to question the morality of reopening
St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow
after a £4.5 million refurbishment complete
with marble, specially commissioned
artworks and 3,000 books of gold leaf in The
Scotsman. With the Catholic Church’s
planning to sell off some of its vast assets to
invest in a new media office while their flock
were being challenged by a level of poverty
not witnessed since the thirties only
reinforced the insincerity of the Cardinal’s
pronouncements.
After the Vatican’s Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith clamped down on
uppity nuns in the States for their “radical
feminist themes” and silenced liberal priests,
Father Flannery, who was ordered to stop
writing articles for a magazine he had
contributed for 14 years, go to a monastery
and “pray and reflect” on his opinions, and
Father D’Arcy, who was told he must get
prior approval to write or broadcast on
topics dealing with church doctrine, Fintan
O’Toole wrote in the Irish Times: “…When a
priest makes some mild suggestions that
women might be entitled to equality, the
church is suddenly an efficient police state
that can whip that priest into line. The
Vatican, which couldn’t read any of the
published material pointing to horrific abuse
in church-run institutions, can pore over the
Sunday World with a magnifying glass,
looking for the minutest speck of heresy”.
The Catholic Church and her cronies
were now brushing aside poverty and famine
to divert its influence, status and
considerable resources to make the lives of
lgbt people even more miserable. How bad
does it have to get before we call in the
European Court of Human Rights to ensure
we can have a bit of peace in our own
country?
There was nothing else for it… BBC’s
who managed to follow The Herald article
Reporting Scotland turned to a bunch of
with his own opinion piece in The Scotsman.
wailing Imams to back the Caths’ opposition
Each article offered him the chance to urge
to same-sex marriage. This was apparently
all his Muslim friends (and all Asians by
an “attack” on their faith. But what kind of
default) not to vote for any candidate that
attack…? Like the 15 Christians who were
supported same-sex marriage in the then
murdered by Islamists in a university theatre
forthcoming local elections. Maan’s
in Nigeria’s city of Kano? Or did they mean
intelligence didn’t stretch to the fact it was
the calls from Tunisian Muslims who want
Parliament that changed the law on equality;
the execution of Nabil Karoui because they
not local councillors who were more
didn’t like his award-winning film,
interested in the state of the roads. This was
Persepolis? Or the Sri Lankan woman in
the same Bashir Maan, a former Labour
Saudi Arabia who was facing the death
councillor and Police Board chairman who
penalty for ‘witchcraft’ after a Saudi man’s
was removed from his honorary post as
13-year-old daughter’s behaviour suddenly
chairman of an equalities charity after
changed when she went too close to the
claiming gay sex education in schools led to
woman in a shopping centre? (Saudi’s
kids “being robbed of childhood”. He’s
behead ‘sorcerers’). Of course, we don’t do
always been passionate about undermining
anything silly like that. Mild-mannered
our rights and used to threaten that if
religionists in Pittenweem, Fife just blocked
Section 28 was ever repealed, Muslims
efforts to erect a memorial to women who
would send their kids to Catholic schools.
were tortured, stoned and burnt at the stake
Upholding a strong religious tradition of
by ‘witchfinders’ in the 17 th and 18 th
hypocrisy, as a former immigrant from
centuries.
Pakistan, he opened a store selling cut-price
So here were the Muslims…,
alcohol in Glasgow. (Alcohol is forbidden to
embarrassing their trendy, secular kids;
Muslims).
bowing to Mecca dressed for a night out in
The BBC stopped short of platforming a
Karachi. Heading the mob was “respected”
different Imam every few weeks. (Jesus is
(The Herald’s word; not mine) Bashir Maan,
better connected than Allah, obviously). On
BBC Scotland’s Newsnight, John
Deighan (Caths) -v- Tom French
(Equality Network) was a spectacle
to behold, revealing Deighan’s
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opinion that all societies have
holded (sic) to the tradition of
ScotsGay
heterosexual marriage which he
seemed to suggest was
“biological”! He also revealed how
well-funded and better equipped
they were to cobble together
individuals, disparate groups,
institutions and organisations and
turn them into something more
flammable than a tanker of Tesco
four-star. Each religion would be
CONTACT:
trotted out with its own pious
cleric grandstanding on how
same-sex marriage would utterly
Martin Mann
destroy the institution. Any
explanation on what effect my gay
marriage would have on their
straight divorces wasn’t explained.
So there they were. A mostly
scotsgayadvertising elderly bunch; wrapped up against
the cold; huddled outside
Holyrood to kick up an unholy
@gmail.com
rumpus about other people being
happy. Backed by the Catholic
Bishops’ Conference of Scotland,
Display advertising only
the Christian Institute, the
For classified ads, contact: John Hein - editorial@scotsgay.co.uk Evangelical Alliance and Destiny
Churches; they united under
‘Scotland for Marriage’, (as if opposing
‘Faith in Marriage’ somehow wasn’t). With
the aid of 50,000 smackeroonies, they
revved up their mobile advertising vans and
lead their party faithful leaflet-dropping every
house in Glasgow ahead of the council
elections. Soon, Bashir, Mrs Allen, the Kirk’s
Rev Hudson and Cardinal O’Brien’s mugs
were littering the closes of every Glasgow
tenement as they begged us to “find out if
your local candidate wants to keep the true
meaning of marriage”.
Next up was Faith in Marriage, a group
of pro-gay religionists hammering on
Holyrood’s door to hand in a letter seeking
assurances from MSPs that any proposed
legislation would “protect and extend”
freedom of religion and belief by “giving
those religious and humanist bodies that do
want to conduct same-sex marriage the right
to do so”. Blink and you’d miss any mention
of the United Reformed Church, the Quakers,
the Buddhists and the Pagan Federation. Rev
Scott McKenna, a Church of Scotland
minister for Mayfield Salisbury Parish in
Edinburgh, sagely advised: “In opposing
equality, churches reinforce homophobia in
society and that can lead to pain, low selfrespect
and, in some cases, violence. In the
end this is about people who are on the
receiving end of prejudice and are suffering
because of that. The cycle needs to be
broken.”
Personally, I don’t give a toss about
marriage. Religious or otherwise. If I want
superstition, I’ll toss myself off to an
episode of Merlin. But this isn’t really about
me. Or most of us, either. It is about letting
the religious perform same-sex marriages
on, well… the religious. And then, only if
they want to. And given it’s the Humanists,
not the ailing and troubled Caths who are
doing most of the marriages these days,
perhaps they should shut up for a minute
and get some tips from the Humanists how
to do it. That was what the Anglicans did
before they tweaked, personalised and
changed their marriage and funeral
ceremonies. (Don’t worry, the irony hasn’t
escaped me!)
For decades we have haemorrhaged our
open-minded youth from a Calvinistic
Scotland to cities in the trendy South. It’s
time for a change. Gays won’t save
marriage, but we could help oil Gretna
Green’s tills and marry all the same-sex
English and Welsh couples that will be
flocking up here because they can’t marry in
any Church down there (or even shop on a
Sunday). Let’s revive our marriage
traditions; not just because it’s good for
gays: But because it’s good for Scotland!