The Daily Mail vs The Gays...vs Cancer

I suppose in some ways I need to thank the Daily Mail. Occasionally, living in my cosy liberal bubble surrounded by people who aren't constantly-seething, hate-filled, evil morons, I sometimes think we've progressed much further than we have in reality. So it's important that occasionally I'm reminded that we still have a long way to go.


In Outrage as Tesco backs gay festival... but drops support for cancer charity event, the Mail gives us a curious glimpse into the conservative mindset. Here's the gist of the story;

Tesco has triggered outrage by ending its support for the Cancer Research ‘Race for Life’ while deciding to sponsor Britain’s largest gay festival.

Some religious commentators and groups have condemned the decision and are calling for a boycott of the supermarket chain.

Suddenly, it's time to pick a side. Which side are you on, cancer or gays? NO, YOU CAN'T CHOOSE BOTH. Tesco has made two seemingly unrelated decisions here, but the Mail is convinced that Tesco have really decided they love gays more than they want to fight cancer. Maybe that's true, maybe the gay demographic spends more than the stricken-with-cancer demographic, I don't know, I'm not in marketing.


But what is the Mail really angry about here? They're not actually angry about Tesco dropping support for Race For Life, because that happened in September, and nobody, least of all the Mail (as far as I can tell), gave a shit. Y'know, because it was just another big company making another marketing decision based on its usual set of flipcharts and whatnot. Race For Life will continue, they're looking for other sponsors, it's probably all going to be fine. You can stand down.


What the Mail are actually angry about is the gays. Mail readers don't spend their hard-earned law-abiding taxpayer two-parent family money on Tesco's Finest Yorkshire Pudding ready meals, for that money to go towards helping The Gays have a street party! The Mail helpfully illustrates how outrageous this is with an entirely representative picture of five buff dudes in sparkly red underpants.


Let's get one thing clear here; the amount of money Tesco is spending on sponsoring Pride is tiny. Toward the end of the the article, we find out that it's a mere £30k, which for a company of Tesco's size is the equivalent of listlessly tossing a White Company button at a toll both like it ain't no thang. It's a mere fraction of the £800k Pride costs to run. This would suggest that this decision is a small-scale one unrelated to the dropping of Race For Life, except in the fevered imaginations of Mail hacks. So what is the actual problem here?


Well, I don't know about you, but when I want a balanced, reasoned reflection on corporate sponsorship choices and homosexuality, I head straight for the Catholic blogosphere!

Francis Phillips, a commentator at The Catholic Herald, condemned the shift, saying: ‘Tesco is a supermarket. 

The kind of searing insight only a life dedicated to solemn religious study can bring, there. But wait! It continues!

Its remit has been to sell good-quality food and other items at very reasonable prices, and in this it has been hugely successful. 

Why has it now aligned itself with an aggressive political organisation such as Pride London?

‘Why has it given up its sponsorship of Cancer Research? Or at least…why hasn’t it taken up with another mainstream charity such as the British Legion or Age UK? 

The next person it quotes is from 'Anglican Mainstream'. Why, it's almost as if this story has been lifted wholesale from Phillips' blog! It turns out the Anglican Mainstream may not be as cuddly and mainstream as they sound;

He wrote: ‘For Tesco to sponsor a tiny homosexual minority – according to the Office for National Statistics, that amounts to little more than 1 per cent of the population – will be showing the utmost contempt for a large proportion of British society that still adheres, more or less, to the morality and values of the Ten Commandments.’ 

Seems a rather baffling stance to me. I'm not gay, but I'm really quite fine with this. Were people who didn't have cancer being discriminated against when Tesco was sponsoring cancer research? I didn't realise I was supposed to be upset when people who aren't me are acknowledged in some small way. Still, cute of this guy to imagine that British society still adheres to the Ten Commandments. I would love to see him go out on the streets of a major city of a Friday night and ask people what the Ten Commandments are, in full. I guarantee that most of them would do better listing football teams' starting line-ups. "Something about an ass? Covering an ass? Don't do that?".

Next, we are told that homosexuality is one of a number of unnamed "dubious fringe political movements". I guess we need to get rid of these dubious political movements and replace them with minority religions instead, huh? To get an idea of the extent of quite how fucked-up this article is, one quote is - and I'm not making this up - introduced thusly; "Catholic campaign website Protect the Pope said..."


Protect The Pope! Excuse me while I sick up my fucking soul for a second. So what do Tesco say?

Tesco said it was in talks with the charity to support its work in other ways and would encourage staff to continue taking part in the Race for Life.

A spokesman said the decision to drop its support ‘is not connected to our £30,000 sponsorship for Pride, which is one of hundreds of community and charitable events that we will be supporting next year’.

You...bastards. Of all the things Tesco has ever done, sponsoring this inclusive street party which aims to foster tolerance and understanding of homosexuality is easily...oh, wait, it doesn't even register, does it? As much as the Mail tries to feign mass outrage here, all it can provide is quotes from wacky Catholic bloggers. Of course, their myopic presentation of the story as TESCO WANTS GAY PEOPLE TO DANCE ON CANCER PATIENTS' GRAVES does manage to elicit some choice wingnuttery in the comments. At the time of writing, the top-rated comment is an unhinged screed about how gays should just bloody well keep quiet and act a bit more flipping STRAIGHT, from a person who calls themselves "Free Britain from the unelected EU dictators in Brussels". This is your market, Daily Mail writers! I hope you're happy.

Ooh, just received an emailed addendum to The Gay Agenda. If anyone wants me, I'll be at Tesco's....
DISCLAIMER: This blog post was not sponsored by or endorsed by Tesco. But if anyone from their marketing department is reading, I am currently too skint to afford Modern Warfare 3...

Correctness gone mad!

One of the fun aspects of the Daily Mail is that relatively minor changes in administrative procedures can seem earth-shatteringly, pants-tighteningly important. Imagine, for a second, that changing the name of a particular field on a passport application form could herald the death of thousands of years of civilisation and tradition as we know it. If your beloved, time-worn traditions are so entirely flimsy that they can be under threat by a simple choice of words, then congratulations! You have found your newspaper.

Today's Mail, then, is upset. Very upset. See, the liberals are at it again, and this time, they're coming for your mum and dad. And all because of the gays. Those meddling gays. In Goodbye, mother and father! Now Parent 1 and Parent 2 appear on PC passport form (direct link), we get a shocking insight into what the tree-hugging liberal do-gooders have gawn and done now:

For decades, passport applicants have been required to provide details of their mother and father.

But now, after pressure from the gay lobby, they will be given the option of naming ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’.

Oh my! That's disgus...oh, wait, it's fine, isn't it? It's really actually a pretty straightforward change which enables the Passport Office to get accurate data from everyone about people's legal, rather than biological, parents. Including, wait for it, those of us with a mum and dad. The Mail's story goes on to breathlessly blame all this horror on The Gay Lobby, only slightly undermining themselves with this bit:

Officials accepted that the move was made following lobbying from gay rights groups who claimed it was discriminatory.

But a spokesman for the Identity and Passport Service insisted it was necessary to incorporate same-sex parents on the form so that accurate information is collected.

Accurate information? What will these PC liberal Nazis want next? I bet they'll have to add extra lines for people who have three or more gay parents! That's what they're like, isn't it? Quick, get some rent-a-quote dickbag to denounce this travesty!

Norman Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, said: ‘Fathers and mothers are not interchangeable but have quite distinct roles to play in the care and nurture of their children.

‘To speak of “parent 1” and “parent 2” denigrates the place of both fathers and mothers.

‘Much as the equality and diversity social engineers might wish it were otherwise, it still takes a father and a mother to produce a child.’

Norman Wells, there, a man who apparently takes his cues about what he should call his parents entirely from passport application forms. Inspiring. Wells then goes on to make a point which is as self-defeating as it is joylessly bigoted;

‘It is high time ministers started to represent the interests of the country as a whole and not capitulate to every demand made by a vocal and unrepresentative minority.’

Just process that for a second. 'The country as a whole'. That's quite an interesting insight into this mindset ,there. See, what this relatively minor change does is to indeed serve the country as a whole, including people who were raised by same-sex parents, without in any way excluding the majority of people who weren't. What Wells is asking for there is instead the exclusion of a minority, in the face of a simple solution, just because of his pearl-clutching devotion to How Things Have Always Been Done. At the end of the piece, The Mail goes on to, quite bizarrely, parrot statistics about how few gay people there are in the country. The underlying message of all this, of course, being; you're gay, you're a minority, you don't count. Why should we change anything to help you?

There's very much a sense that this whole article was tossed off in a rush. Wells is surprisingly the only self-publicising loudmouth the Mail could find to back up their hell-in-a-handcart narrative. The rest, including the headline, is left to shady, unaccountable 'critics';

It has led to claims the official travel document is being turned into a ‘PC passport’.

And, in a photo caption;

Capitulating: Critics say the official travel document is being turned into a 'PC passport'

At no point are the identities of these 'critics' revealed. Perhaps they are too afraid to speak up publicly, lest Stonewall send in their big gay militia. Perhaps the critics are simply too numerous to name. Perhaps the critics are little voices nagging, nagging, nagging in the author's head that never stop talking in the night and won't go away and OH GOD MAKE THE VOICES STOP. Who knows? All we can know for sure is this; The Critics do not take too kindly to being made to be politically correct. Or, as we might more accurately call it in this case, correct.

Melanie Phillips and "normal sexual behaviour" vs the gay McCarthyites

Reading Melanie Phillips' columns holds a weird kind of fascination for me. Some people just had to watch '2 Girls 1 Cup', others graphic videos of beheadings or extreme porn. I, sadly, have the same morbid curiosity towards Melanie Phillips. I shouldn't read her pieces, I know I shouldn't. It's bad for me. No good can come of it. And yet, I can't tear myself away...

The thing that fascinates me is not so much what she talks about, as her tone. She has this dramatic, apocalyptic tone to everything she writes. The words drip with melodrama. Just look at the very title of today's: Yes, gays have often been the victims of prejudice. But they now risk becoming the new McCarthyites. Gays! The new McCarthyites!

Here’s a question ­shortly coming to an examination ­paper near you. What have mathematics, geography or science to do with homosexuality?

Nothing at all, you say? Zero marks for you, then.

For, mad as this may seem, schoolchildren are to be bombarded with homosexual references in maths, geography and ­science lessons as part of a Government-backed drive to promote the gay agenda.

The Mail has gone big on the story about terrifyingly gay maths and science lessons. I don't want to digress too much here, go read Forty Shades Of Grey for an analysis of the scaremongering bollocks involved. Again, the thing that strikes me is just the palpable fury and drama with which she writes. There aren't simply gay references in these lesson plans; kids are to be "bombarded" with them. And it's not to encourage acceptance of homosexuality, it's "a Government-backed drive to promote the gay agenda". Ah yes, the "gay agenda". No-one really knows what this is, (who can say for sure what goes on in the crazed minds of The Gays?), but what we do know is that involves brainwashing our kids.

And yes, she does actually say "brainwash":

Alas, this gay curriculum is no laughing matter. Absurd as it sounds, this is but the latest attempt to brainwash children with propaganda under the ­camouflage of ­education. It is an abuse of childhood.

The difficulty in blogging about Phillips is that her sheer absurdity makes her difficult to satirise. How can you top the claim that mentioning gay people in passing in a textbook question equates to "an abuse of childhood"? Next, we come to perhaps the most vile, hate-filled sentence in the piece:

And it’s all part of the ruthless campaign by the gay rights lobby to destroy the very ­concept of normal sexual behaviour.

That's a sentence absolutely dripping with contempt. The "gay rights lobby" isn't about gay rights, it's about "destroy[ing] the very ­concept of normal sexual behaviour". Destroying it. They want to destroy everything you hold dear. Hey, you know that sex you heterosexuals are having? That's normal! It doesn't matter if you're dressing up as Luke and Princess Leia and are shoving toy lightsabres up each other...it's all NORMAL because one of you is a dude and the other one is a chick. Go for it. I mean, as long as you're married. But still, even if you're not, it's normal for men and women to fuck, right? Two guys though? What's that all about? Two women? The world's gone mad!

Not so long ago, an epic political battle raged over teaching children that ­homosexuality was normal. The fight over Section 28, as it became known, resulted in the repeal of the legal requirement on schools not to promote homosexuality.

As the old joke has it, what was once impermissible first becomes tolerated and then becomes mandatory.

That last line is just baffling, isn't it? Can anyone please tell me when it's going to become mandatory? I don't remember being consulted. I'd just like some notice of when The Gay Lobby are going to brutally force me to change my sexuality as part of their Agenda.

The rest of the column is shot through with myopia and misrepresentation.

The bed and breakfast hoteliers Peter and Hazelmary Bull — who were recently sued for turning away two homosexuals who wished to share a bedroom — were but the latest religious believers to fall foul of the gay inquisition merely for upholding ­Christian values.

They weren't merely upholding Christian values. They turned away a couple in a civil partnership because they disapproved of their sexuality, contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the law. It's tales like that which are exactly why there still has to be a gay rights lobby. Let's hope that one day we can all be grown-up enough to treat each other equally. Until then, unfortunately we're going to have to use the law to enforce, y'know, basic fairness and human decency.

It seems that just about everything in Britain is now run according to the gay agenda.
For, in addition to the requirement for gay-friendly hotels, gay adoption and gay mathematics, now comes, apparently, gay drugs policy.

Last week, the Government announced the appointment of some new ­members to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, who included a GP by the name of Hans-Christian Raabe.

Here, Phillips launches into a perplexing rant about the appointment of Dr Raabe. You would think that his actual appointment, in spite of his homophobic views, would be evidence that perhaps not everything is "run according to the gay agenda". But no. The fact that people have complained proves that it is. Presumably, then, by the same token, the fact that Phillips is complaining about gay rights proves that the country is in the vice-like grip of the authoritarian Melanie Phillips lobby. Everything is run according to the Melanie Phillips agenda!

It was the BBC’s Home Editor Mark ­Easton who led the charge. On his BBC News blog, he announced that Dr Raabe’s views on homosexuality were causing such fury among (anonymous) members of the Advisory Council that at least one member was threatening to step down.

Well may you rub your eyes at that. Just what have his views on homosexuality got to do with illegal drugs? Well, according to Easton, more than one member of the ­council is gay or lesbian.

How extraordinary. Just imagine if the boot were on the other foot and Dr Raabe had refused to serve on the drugs council because some of its ­members were gay. He would be out on his ear within the hour.

At the end there, you get a little hint of the reasons for Phillips' beliefs. In conflict with all available evidence, she seems to believe that being gay is a belief, an opinion, a lifestyle. Refusing to work with someone because you believe they have virulently anti-gay beliefs is, to her, the same as refusing because they are gay. Phillips simply cannot see a difference here. And, of course, she singles out a fairly straightforward piece of reportage and presents it as a clarion call from Mark Easton. Because, y'know, he's from the BBC. You know what they're like.

The curious thing about it all is Phillips' claims about tolerance for free speech. She makes a big fuss about various cases where she believes people have been unfairly persecuted for expressing sincerely held, anti-gay, beliefs. Freedom of speech is important, she argues. And yet, the mere idea of mentioning gay people in a textbook is something that must be opposed, stopped, cried out against. Where's the freedom of speech for that? It doesn't matter. That is brainwashing our kids, destroying our ideas of "normal sexual behaviour", and thus it must be stopped.

Phillips finishes off by describing the "crazy, upside-down world of the equality agenda", and expressing fear of the "seemingly all-­powerful gay rights lobby". If there's one thing Melanie Phillips can never be accused of, it's understatement.