Naughty Peter

The unsavoury Peter Mullen, (so sorry, the unsavoury Reverend Doctor Peter Mullen) may have been obliged to delete his blog, but the offending passage about tattooing gays can still be found in a cache. (I have ZeFrog to thank for this.) It comes as part of an attack on Matthew Parris, who very sensibly compared the three monotheistic belief systems to astrology and morris dancing. It's actually much worse than the article in Evening Standard would lead one to think. Here's an extract:

Since Parris will not dirty his hands by entering theological discussions with his readers, perhaps I might answer for religious believers in the purely utilitarian terms which even the lofty Parris is bound to engage with. We disapprove of homosexuality because it is clearly unnatural, a perversion and corruption of natural instincts and affections, and because it is a cause of fatal disease. The AIDS pandemic was originally caused by promiscuous homosexual behaviour. Such promiscuity is itself an evil because its perpetrators merely use others indiscriminately for their own gratification, treating their fellows as sex objects and as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves. I should have thought that Parris, having rejected religious belief, might want to construct his moral beliefs on this Kantian humanistic imperative. But I suspect he is not really interested in morality of any kind - except as a special plea to excuse his lust for gratification at whatever cost to human dignity and the sanctity of human life.

It is time that religious believers began to recommend specific utilitarian discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets: Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS. In addition the obscene "gay pride" parades and carnivals should be banned for they give rise to passive corruption, comparable to passive smoking. Young people forced to witness these excrescences are corrupted by them.

Let me continue the comparison with smoking which is banned in most public places. Those committing homosexual acts in public places - such behaviour being a crime in any case under the Homosexual Reform Act of 1967 - should be arrested, tried and punished. Parks, open spaces and public lavatories would at once become more wholesome places. There ought to be teaching films shown in sex education classes in all our schools. These would portray acts of sodomy and the soundtrack would reinforce the message that it is a filthy practice ending with the admonition: "We do, after all, know the importance of washing our hands after going to the lavatory."   

I love the idea of passive corruption, although presumably one could be passively cleansed later by watching Peter Mullen commit adultery with a female parishioner, something he appears to have done some years ago. And I'm fascinated by what the soundtrack might be as schoolchildren watch acts of sodomy during their sex education classes, a concept so radical that even the most fervently proselytising gay would blanch and quail at the thought. Any ideas?