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?

Fellatio kills

According to the Rev Peter Mullen (click here for more info and a picture), gay people should have government health warnings tattooed on them in the appropriate place. He wrote on his blog:

"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."

I'd have thought that by the time you'd exposed the lucky chap's backside and were in a position to read what it said, the effectiveness of the warning would be substantially reduced by the allure of the backside itself. And you'd really need to have eyes in your testicles to benefit from the other one, which is a shade too Pan's Labyrinth for my taste. 

Still, I can see all kinds of openings (sorry) for creative tattooists. Think of the range of fonts, and colours. Personally, I'd choose something classical, like Bodoni in black, which goes with everything (as if that weren't the problem). But there must be a market for FELLATIO KILLS in rainbow hued italics. Or why not Comic Sans? And why stop there? Why not adorn the inner thighs with INTERCRURAL INTERCOURSE CAN RUB THE SKIN OFF YOUR GLANS. You didn't want to know that, did you? But what are warnings for?

Mullen, who also thinks gay pride marches are 'obscene', is chaplain to the City of London (so he obviously has lots of free time), as well as being a dead ringer for Francis Bacon's lover. The way Francis Bacon painted him. 

Arsehole strikes again

Anne Berkeley's alerted me to an excellent blog dealing with Nigeria and, in particular, to a post about the hideously repressive legislation being introduced there against homosexuality. Not yet passed, it's already being applied with typically religious zeal. Even worse, if that's the appropriate word, the term is used so loosely that a yearning glance across a crowded room is practically as culpable as full-on sodomy. I've spoken about the situation of gay people in Nigeria before, and wondered about the faith system of all those middle American Anglicans who prefer to be under the episcopal wing of the spittle-frothing homophobe Bishop Arsehole, rather than our own sweetly well-meaning beardie, the A of C. Still cool about it? Hmm. It will also be interesting to see how Europe reacts when gay Nigerians begin to seek asylum on our own more liberal shores.

The blog is called Naijablog and you can find it here. It's well worth a read, and not only for this post, entitled God also loves gay people. Scroll down until you find it.

Thank you, Anne.

Sharia hits fan

Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has created a brouhaha after suggesting on Radio 4 that the acceptance, or 'accommodation', in the UK of some aspects of Sharia law might be ‘unavoidable’. This is already the case, apparently, with Sharia courts in Britain dealing with thousands of cases involving marital or financial disputes, without a whiff of fundamentalist alarm. So Williams’ possibly slightly regretful recognition of the fact is a bland enough position to hold and wholly in line with the Anglican church’s take on the world as something you can’t do very much about, so why not rub along with it. Accommodation is all.

For the tabloids, though, his comments were tantamount to endorsing mutilation in public squares, mass infibulation and obligatory burkhas for all Page Three models. In their Talibanesque way, they want his head, his blood, and any other essential organs going, though what constitutes essential for an archbishop is material for theologians rather than lay thinkers. They accuse him of wanting to destroy Britain, a place they happily execrate, day in day out, for its appalling youth, corrupt government, filthy manners and fondness for employing Polish plumbers and paying them under the table.

Yet what on earth should someone like Williams say? Hang the infidels? Re-impose tithes? Make everyone sing Kumbaya with a cheesy smile, wearing Cliff Richard tee-shirts? He’s a major religious figure, after all, so it’s part of his remit to believe that state legislation should represent ethical choices. He’s also, by all accounts, an ecumenical type, so can hardly pretend that the only valid ethical choices are Anglican. Ergo, he’s shafted.

Perhaps all this fuss will persuade people that no religious belief of any kind should be allowed to interfere with the law, which represents and defends all members of a society regardless of their household gods, and which should have no truck with the kind of nonsense religious leaders - invariably old, invariably male, all too frequently celibate - spout with such punitive abandon.

If this is true for lapidation and the chopping off of hands, it’s equally true for the malicious interference of, for example, the catholic church in the business of countries like Spain and Italy. Let’s face facts. If you let one bossy old know-all into the legislating chamber, you open the door to the whole damn gang.

At last...

...a charitable way to waste your time, and improve your vocabulary. Click here.

As you can see, the labels below are quite irrelevant and are merely attached to this post to draw in the unwary and allow them to do something useful for a few moments.

News from the Very Dark Caves

According to an article in today's Guardian, the Church of England feels that 'intelligent design' could become part of the science curriculum in state schools. Well, not exactly part of the science curriculum, but as a suitable subject for discussion 'within the context of lessons exploring how our understanding of science has developed historically'. In other words, it's being recognised as 'a way of looking at the evidence'. As in, with your eyes closed.

Intelligent design is literal creationism veiled. It has no part in the history of science, nor in our understanding of how science has developed. It's a Trojan horse invented by American fundamentalists to downgrade and subvert the centrality of reason in favour of hogwash. How many times, and in how many ways, does this need to be said?

Archbishop Arsehole stays mum over corruption

Amid claims of Nigeria's presidential elections being conducted in the same climate of anarchy and corruption (see this report in today's Independent) that marked last week's general elections, you'd have expected the moral fulcrum of the nation, Archbishop Arsehole, to have a word or two of reproach and guidance.

But no. He's got other things on his mind. Like an anti-homosexuality bill imposing five-year sentences on people accused of deviant behaviour (like, er, sharing a table in a restaurant).

Maybe the dozen or so churches in Virginia whose congregants voted to join Arsehole's archdiocese in December (you don't believe me? Read this) are immune to the moral dilemma of electoral corruption. They know from their own experience that a dangling chad is a small price to pay to keep the nation pure.

Archbishop Arsehole strikes again

A New York Times editorial had this to say on 8 March:

Denying Rights in Nigeria

A poisonous piece of legislation is quickly making its way through the Nigerian National Assembly. Billed as an anti-gay-marriage act, it is a far-reaching assault on basic rights of association, assembly and expression. Chillingly, the legislation — proposed last year by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo — has the full and enthusiastic support of the leader of Nigeria’s powerful Anglican church. Unless the international community speaks out quickly and forcefully against the bill, it is almost certain to become law.

Homosexual acts between consenting adults are already illegal in Nigeria under a penal code that dates to the colonial period. This new legislation would impose five-year sentences on same-sex couples who have wedding ceremonies — as well as on those who perform such services and on all who attend. The bill’s vague and dangerous prohibition on any public or private show of a “same sex amorous relationship” — which could be construed to cover having dinner with someone of the same sex — would open any known or suspected gay man or lesbian to the threat of arrest at almost any time.

The bill also criminalizes all political organizing on behalf of gay rights. And in a country with a dauntingly high rate of H.I.V. and AIDS, the ban on holding any meetings related to gay rights could make it impossible for medical workers to counsel homosexuals on safe sex practices.

Efforts to pass the bill last year stalled in part because of strong condemnation from the United States and the European Union. Now its backers are again trying to rush it through, and Washington and Brussels need to speak out against it. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and one of the most politically influential. If it passes a law that says human rights are not for every citizen, it will set a treacherous example for the region and the world.

This is the Anglican church that the Archbishop of Canterbury recently favoured over the US Episcopalians (see my post: A question of priorities). I hope he's proud of himself.