With around 110 singers on the night, come on down to the Grand Opera House and let’s give the London Gay Men’s Chorus a fantastic Belfast welcome!

If you are interested in Quire then they can be reached through their website or facebook/twitter link below

 www.facebook.com/QuireBelfast   www.twitter.com/quirebelfast

Whatever about intellectuals like Hari, the large lads in Red Lion Square were not engaging in dialogue.  Admittedly, neither were some participants in the conference who looked as if they wanted a fight.  The police decided to keep the EDL in the park.  My perception of the EDL is even less benign than it was prior to this encounter.  At the event the warmth of feeling with which Farooq Murad (MCB – Muslim Conference of Britain, General Secretary) spoke of the LGBT community struck me.  Name-checking is the done thing at such gatherings, but this sort of sincerity can’t really be faked.  I have noticed this in other Muslim speakers.  Possibly it is because queers will turn out against the EDL and the rest almost automatically.  Possibly it is because they are decent human beings.  (Mr Murad didn’t actually have to mention LGBT people.)

Leroy Rosenior and Paul Mortimer, Show Racism the Red Card Ambassadors talked about homophobia in the sports – particularly soccer – field.  Paul mentioned that when Justin Fashanu signed up to his team most other players refused to share the communal bath with Justin.  He was not fussed, he wasn’t asking for applause for this – it was at the opening open session.  He said that Justin was physically beautiful, he had a very ‘athletic body’.

An afternoon Workshop was Pushing back hatred: Racism, Islamophobia and Homophobia.  This was held in a serio-comically small room, which took some time to locate, and had very few chairs.  (In hindsight, was it an example of what Thierry Schaffauser complained about regarding Morning Star‘s 31/03/12 conference?  A bit of tokenism?)

We gathered-in chairs and eventually got started.  Salman Farsi Media Officer, East London Mosque Trust was there accompanied by an extremely handsome, slightly nervous-looking, man with chin beard.  I thought at first that they were ‘family’.  And was disappointed to find they were not.  Salman, a very attractive young man, is pretty relaxed about queers men and women.  He knew some of the other speakers, Denis Fernando of One Society Many Cultures (and Rainbow Tower Hamlets) has been to have tea in the mosque.  There wasn’t much to say at this Workshop, apart from the time in getting set up nearly everyone was agreed about the connection between homophobia and Islamophobia.  It might have been useful if we had touched on the ‘racism’ element in the discussion.  The carrying of the rainbow flag in EDL demonstrations was dismissed as significant or even window-dressing.

But Chas Newkey-Burden, a (Gay) pop journalist vastly different from Hari is frantically Islamophobic.  Apparently there are a billion Muslims determined to inflict Sharia Law (that great fiction) on the ‘West’.  Which is why we ought to allow ourselves the right to invade their lands and kill lots of them. That they might attempt to strike back gives us the excuse needed to kill even more of them).  There are more lurking in the media, the specialised press, local papers and radio stations.  This is the intellectual sub-soil out of which EDL and such-like groups spring.

My own contribution to this was to defend the Pope (sort of – Denis, like myself is a ‘collapsed Catholic’ a young man said he was ‘a recovering Catholic’ – but didn’t say what that meant.  He was complaining about the Pope – allegedly – denouncing queers, again.  My problem is that the British media has not been specially scrupulous in regard to Popes.  (John Paul 2 was ‘hailed’ as a great anti-Communist – until it became apparent that he wasn’t fond of capitalism either.)  He rather poignantly said he wished he’d told his (Irish) mother before her death about his sexuality.  A sister had told him that owning up would have had no effect on her love for him.  I made a pitch for LAGNA (the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive), now in Bishopsgate Institute and the Hall-Carpenter Archive, LSE – in relation to material about East End Pride.  Colin Wilson an ‘organiser’ of the Pride noted this.  Phyllis Opoku-Gyimah PCS Head of Equalities was not able to show, her place was taken by a startlingly beautiful young Anglo-African woman.

Returning to the main hall a number of people ‘addressed’ us – so far as I recall only Martin Smith of Love Music Hate Racism mentioned LGBTs.  He could be accused of being from the ‘airy-fairy’ end of the movement, but his speech was eminently sensible.  A European survey claimed that Britain’s ‘fascist problem’ has diminished almost to nothing.  He was quite surprised to read that but then remembered that the BNP (British National Party) – riding high less than a year prior to this conference was in tatters.  A tiny pup called the British Freedom Party has emerged out of it, and some militants have moved over to the EDL (though whether the disgruntled ‘white van men’ will be able to rub along with right wing ideologues is problematical).

Nobody really put the tooth to it, but Islamophobia is quite respectable – and it is a form of racism – white European Muslims are either those handy villains’ ‘asylum seekers’ or Brits who should know better.  It has taken the place of homophobia in Sun, Star and the rest.

Secretary’s Report 1984

(edited)

For Gay people in this region, 1984 was more interesting for general themes, rather that specific incidents, one specific incident must be mentioned, the death in Bristol of Graham Carter a former President of the Association.

One major theme of the year was the desire on the part of NIGRA to unite the Gay movement throughout these islands on the questions of law reform and the rights of Gay women and men to a livelihood.  This culminated in the [Inter-Insular] Conference held in the Carpenter premises in early November.  We feel that this event will be seen in the future as at the very least a useful exercise and possibly a turning point for the movement in these islands.

The Conference led to a misunderstanding with one of our most powerful allies, the NI Public Service Alliance; this will, we hope, be cleared up shortly.

Another ‘theme’ early in the year was the rather large number of ‘stories’ in the local – especially Sunday press – about Gay matters.  Some of these stories were absurd, and on in particular, about the plans of the Gay Christian Fellowship, actually damaging.  These stories, no matter how absurd they were, did actually inform the general public, and isolated Gay women and men, about a number of facilities.  Our various organisations were able to use the letters columns to good effect.  In many ways the early pat of the year was quite fruitful as getting Gay people’s perspectives into print.

The latter part of the year has been less useful.  But the papers have to some extent redeemed themselves by publishing a fair number of letters of relevance to Gay people.  Those on the judgement handed down in Downpatrick Crown Court on a number of young men from Kilkeel, for example.

This leads to another theme of the year — AIDS.  Nobody has yet contacted this condition in Ulster.  We have been able to head-off incipient hysteria by organising a discussion on the matter (organised by Cara-Friend and NIGRA) addressed by doctors from the main Genito-Urinary clinic, and from the Blood Transfusion Service.  While hardly a happy occasion, it indicated that the local medical establishment is going to co-operate with the Gay community and is willing to take advice on ‘community’ matters.  The press locally have not — yet — indulged in horror ‘AIDS’ stories.  Should they do so, we urge people to write, in a personal capacity, as well as in their capacities as officers of their various organisations.  The receipt of even relatively small numbers of letters impresses most newspapers and magazines.  Such letters need not be masterpieces of literature, to convey their point.

1984 was a good and useful year, we suggest that the implications of the drive for unity [among Gay groups] by co-ordinating our responses to the flood of mendacity about AIDS in the Fleet Street press.  The hysteria being whipped up would be comical if it were not for the tragic implications, for Gay men in particular.  The situation being created by the gutter press has bad implications for the employment prospects of Gay women as well as men.  One of our major organisations could be entrusted with the handling of press relations on this matter, with consultation with other groups being by telephone, rather than by letter.

During the year social connections were kept up with groups and individuals in the Republic, in particular by way of the weekend away in Mullingar.  We attended such social, events, as the tenth anniversary commemorations for Cara-Fiend, and for Dublin’s Tel-a-Friend.  The Inter-Insular Conference in November was partly a social event.

There were two other, different but important, events in the course of the year.  In January, we brought two members (Eric Presland and Norman ?) of the Consenting Adults theatre group to Belfast.  It resulted in a very large and uncensorious write-up in the main local daily (the Belfast Telegraph) – and a good audience for the performance.  Terry McFarlane did a magnificent job in turning a collection of books and journals into a functioning and efficient library.

Needless to say, Kincora was with us still.  With a modicum of good luck the Hughes Inquiry will kill the ‘scandal’ for good.

Written on Thursday, February 7th 1985, a ferial day.

Seán McGouran

Stonewall’s Ben Summerskill chaired, he was sardonic and quite funny, skeptical and at various points offered Boris and the Green, Jenny Jones, printouts of what they and their parties had and had not said.  The Green admittedly only had one.  It was from a statement from Peter Tatchell to the effect that more and more precise laws mentioning LGBT people were unnecessary.  Jenny Jones rejected this on the grounds that this precision was Party policy, was useful – and more difficult to rescind.  The latter point is very well made.

They each gave a five-minute spiel and then took questions.  Paddick was rather dull.  He was probably very good and conscientious giving evidence in court – but he’s not going to set the electorate alight.  His ‘pitch’ related to his being a Gay man and a policeman for 20 years.  He did make a pleasant jest about how tiresome his being ‘the’ Gay policeman, had been and he did not relish being ‘the’ Gay mayor.  The Jenny Jones seemed slightly scatty. Though, like Paddick and Ken Livingstone, claimed that her programme was closely ‘costed’.  Some matters were interesting, and as she said, of interest to all people in London – air quality, getting traffic off the roads, and improving public transport.  Boris Johnson’s approach was exemplified when he simply said Ken Livingstone’s programme was not ‘costed’ – but brought forward no evidence to back his bluster.

Paddick and the Green were followed by Livingstone, who looks rather worn he wasn’t playing to the gallery – addressing a Gay / LGBT audience he hardly had to.  Ken sponsored the setting up of a London Gay Centre in defiance of the Thatcher Government’s homophobia.  He also went out of his way to help LGBT’s in other ways too, and had the whole of ‘Fleet Street’ at his throat.  The Guardian and the Morning Star cheered him on. But their joint circulation figures would make Rupert Murdoch laugh (or possibly cry).  Ken recounted a tale told by a Conservative MP, (he got it from a Daily Mail… journalist) that he, (Ken) had been buggered, in a Gay club, by six (leather-clad) men in a row!  He, like Paddick and the Green, Jenny Jones, wanted more police on the streets.  The Coalition government is to decimate the police in England and Wales.

Paddick has the problem that his Party is part of the Government.  He was asked in the Q&A session about the LibDems having dumped most of their policies (and principles) on entering Government.  He (rather noticeably) did not defend the LibDems in Parliament.  He said he would stick to what he was offering the public.  In effect, then, he is standing as an independent – using what is left of the LibDem infrastructure (it’s an open secret that party-members are resigning in droves).  I don’t think he won many votes at this gathering, though he is clearly an honourable and decent person.

BoJo’s mojo

Boris Johnson (‘BoJo’) was the most — engaging — speaker.  He is not as scatty as he pretends.  And is not so much a homophobe as, (despite his own relatively exotic origins), disdainful of minorities.  He has managed to insult a fair few of them lately, including the Irish.  He described a £200-a-plate St Patrick’s Day charity banquet as a ‘Provo fund-raiser’ which cost the public £20,000.  The fact that he, as an honoured guest, got fed buckshee did not meant that the others at the hooley got in for nothing.  No doubt he won’t be asked again, even if he wins the mayoral election.  His accusation about the St. Pat’s Day feast is fairly typical of BoJo’s ‘style’.  Throwing the totally unwarranted ‘mud’ of accusation that helpfully sticks to the accused.  (And he’s pretending not to realise that ‘the Provos’ are in Government in Northern Ireland, but he must meet some of them fairly regularly).  A BoJo win is on the cards.  The ‘yuppie’ element has been colonising former working class areas for decades now, and they sign up to vote.  The plebes being offered Hell or Essex (the latter place is where what’s left of London’s industry has gone).

On the other hand the Irish and most Muslim communities also sign up to vote.  After the last General Election an East End newspaper had a strange article complaining that the Bengali community was signed up in the electoral register to the tune of 80+%.  The rest of the (read ‘white’) electorate was only signed up to the tune of about 60%.  I have some experience of East End politics.  The Irish still vote, and some Bengali’s don’t.  Canvassing I encountered a lovely Anglo-Bengali man whose eyes – literally – glazed over when asked who he was voting for (OK then, ‘for whom he was voting…’).

The person who wrote the article was called Kevin D’Arcy – a Fermanagh name.  A century ago D’Arcy would have been the object of suspicion – the Irish (and their co-conspirators, the Jews) were ‘taking over’ (from the Liberals, largely,) by way of a new political Party — Labour.  (In the course of the same General Election people in Fermanagh practically had to fight to vote.)

BoJo’s budget

BoJo got a lot of laughs – not all of them sought-for.  He is not a friend of LGBTs.  Summerskill asked about his withdrawal from Stonewall’s kite mark (for Gay-friendly enterprises).  BoJo threw out the assertion that it was money saving effort on his part – all of £2000.  Summerskill practically whispered (he knows how to use a microphone) that the ‘kite mark’ is free.  BoJo had just told us his budget is £15 billion!  He didn’t really impress the audience.  He claimed – rightly – that he had walked ‘all the way – and it was a long way’ on Pride parades.  A problem is that – for me, at least – this was another irritant.  Last year’s (London – it still likes to think of itself as the UK ‘national’) Pride was dedicated to GLF (Gay Liberation Front) veterans.  He was either blandly unaware of that, or was trying to steal their thunder, for his own purposes.  (There is a very big, politically motivated, LGBT community in London.  A 300-odd turnout at 10.00 am on a Saturday, for a political event is not standard in this blasé burg.  We vote, and are prepared to ‘float’ / shop around – though, of course, many queer people are political party-animals.  Quite often small, even micro-parties.)

The Q&A session wasn’t very ‘Gay’ so to speak.  A man from GLADD (the doctors’ and dentists’ group) asked about health.  He mentioned HIV / AIDS but said that the LGBT community (particularly men, I assume) have many other health problems.  They mostly have to do with other STDs and misuse of alcohol and other drugs.  Livingstone seemed to have done (some) homework on this, nobody else, (including Paddick), had.  Another asked about ‘LGBT arts’ – BoJo boggled at the very notion.  Livingstone said that when he was head of the GLC (Greater London Council – upstart) help had been given to all sorts of ignored minority arts, including LGBT.  He had the LISO (London Irish Symphony Orchestra – drawn from students at the various music schools), in the glass ‘testicle’  – the City Hall – some years ago.

He did not mention it. But it was part of the overall attack on him and the GLC that money was being ‘wasted’ on queers and coons (it could be quite as crude as that.  I’m a volunteer in LAGNA, the Lesbian & Gay Newsmedia Archive, and stuff from well into the 1990s would make one’s hair curl – if one had any hair).  Livingstone may be partly responsible for London becoming a major hub for dance / ballet.  I’m not suggesting they are particularly ‘queer’ – but London dancewise (I wish I hadn’t written that…) is no longer just the Royal Ballet.

BNP ^lite?

A young woman with a decidedly ‘posh’ accent rose and said she was a member of UKIP (the United Kingdom Independence Party) and that Livingstone had recently visited the Finsbury Mosque.  He had said while there that he would try to make Islam better understood by Londoners (for most of us a laudable policy).  The young UKIP person seemed to think it was self-evidently outrageous – and presumably came to an LGBT meeting on the assumption that we had glib views about Islam and Muslims.  Ken said that he was and would remain an atheist.  But he quoted Mohamed’s benign, humanistic, ‘last sermon’.  She was not impressed and mock-clapped every time Ken spoke for the rest of the meeting.  She did not do herself or UKIP any favours.  If she is representative it deserves the scornful label ‘BNP-lite’.

(‘Finsbury Mosque’ got a bad ‘rap’ for ‘radicalism’ in the early noughties.  It may possibly have been deserved. It’s now a standard politically moderate Mosque.  Mosques are social centres.  The notion that non-religious things happen in them is accurate.  They are the products of Muslim people’s sweat.  It’s their business what goes on in them.  The ‘notorious’ Finsbury Mosque should properly be called ‘the Hornsey mosque’, as there is a rather plebeian one just beside Finsbury Park rail and underground station.  The people who attend Finsbury Mosque appear to be quite middle class.)

It is probably fairly obvious who I am going to vote for (cough – ‘for whom I am going to vote…’) come the election.  But Livingstone may not win.  He jibed at BoJo allegedly avoiding paying taxes, and then himself was caught out avoiding taxes, while BoJo was (apparently) innocent.  Livingstone circulated a manifesto specific to LGBT people.  It is claimed that the Labour Party in London is not really backing him.  Unite the [very wealthy] Union most definitely is backing Ken.  The ‘Labour Party in London’ is as undernourished as are the LibDems.  Milliband (Labour’s ‘leader’) appears to be committed to the current economic orthodoxy — despite the blatantly obvious fact that we are all in the (non-revolutionary) red because the bankers played one smart game too many.

Seán McGouran

PS

The helpfulness of the BFI, and Stonewall’s, largely young (and lovely – as in courteous and physically comely) staff should be noted.

The Morning Star, the publication of the mainstream Communist Party of Britain (its Scottish affiliates were hived-off in anticipation of Scottish self government) organised a conference People’s Britain or Bankers’ Britain.  It was held, in Bishopsgate Institute,

Rip-off Britain

on Saturday 31, March.  Starting at the civilised hour of 11.00 am (to ensure that attendees from outside London got there without being frazzled by their journey) the first session was speechifying by a number of important people.  They did not say anything particularly memorable.  The freshest voices were Megan Dobney SERTUC (South East Region Trade Union Committee) Secretary, and the baby-faced Owen Jones, author of Chavs, the Demonisation of the Working Class.

(It is debatable whether or not there is a ‘British working class’ anymore, it was dissolved, by Prime Ministers Thatcher, Major and Blair during their periods in office.  There are no signs that any major party wants to re-industrialise the UK, so ‘working class’ may be history.  Blair seemed to be happy to create a US-style ‘underclass’ existing on ‘Welfare’ and descending into nihilistic apathy.  Last summer’s riots may be an indication that this part of his legacy is as poisonous as his foreign policy.)  Anita Halpin who presided was brisk, to the point and interesting.  Her affiliation was PPPS (People’s Press Publishing Society – the ‘official’ publishers of MS) Management Committee.

This was followed by Workshops, which (as seems to be the case now, did not report back to a ‘Plenary’ session.  Discussion of the various issues would have been interesting.  One was Fighting for LGBTQ Rights, with Thierry Schaffauser (SERTUC LGBT Network).  We convened, around a table, in the Bishopsgate Library (a real one, and it’s free to join and use the archives).  Thierry, beautifully cross-dressed in a classic ‘little black number’ (that emphasised his lovely long legs) and superbly made up, chaired.  He was irritated by the fact that he was billed in the large MS advertisement (in a number of editions) as ‘a speaker’.  That implied to him, (and to me), that he would be on the platform.  Though the half-page feature (Wed 28/03/12) had him as a workshop convenor.  He suggested it was typical Leftist tokenism.  I could not help thinking that Thierry doesn’t look like the typical attendee at CPB functions.  Most (biological) women in those environs tend to the frumpy — ’politics is serious’ — beautiful, elegantly cross-dressed, young men are not the sort of thing they are used to.

I happened across Civil disobedience: innovative action & safety moderated by Daniel Garvin of UK UnCut.  As none of the audience appeared to have any knowledge of non-violent civil disobedience he did more than just ‘moderate’.  He was very taken with my suggestion, from NI ‘Civil Rights’ days about hyper-’civil obedience’.  Meaning gumming up the bureaucratic works by insisting that every rule and regulation be obeyed.  He appeared never to have come across the notion.  Another good deed for the day!   The ‘safety’ in the title was a reference to whether or not the police or security personnel at events disrupted or occupied would be inclined to violence.  Apparently the London Metropolitan Police can be quite volatile.

The second and last Plenary consisted of more speeches.  The two MP’s, Michael Meacher and Kelvin Hopkins made essentially the same speech (this is not a complaint about them, the organisers must have realised they’d say much the same thing).  Augusto Praca of the Portuguese CGT spoke.  He may have said something interesting.  He had trouble with the microphone and had a very strong accent.  Bob Crow made a fine, fighting speech and said his wee group would be fighting the local elections – this is despite the fact that George Galloway’s victory in Bradford haunted the meeting.  George, who writes a monthly column in MS sent a message of solidarity.  He was busy that day gloating, sorry, — celebrating — his victory with a very old-fashioned rally in a local park.

A ‘whip round’ for MS produced £4,000.  A lot of well-paid ‘union leaders’ present (?).  (There was an implication we might not be allowed out…).  A ‘Socialist choir’ gave us The International and The Red Flag (helpfully reproduced in a smart handout – presumably a subtle advertisement for the PPPS.  The choir Strawberry Thieves consisted of eight women and one middle-aged man.  ‘Socialist choir’ used to mean scores of Welsh miners. Strawberry Thieves, it should be said, were excellent.   Thompsons Solicitors, provided (ver good) vino, the promised photo exhibition remained mostly on the floor.  Ian Townson, a fellow-QUACer (Queer[s] Against the Cuts) was a bit disappointed, saying it was a prolonged ‘plug’ for the Morning Star.  It was, but it had effectively been billed as such.  Sheets asking for our impression of the event were handed out.  Among other matters, I complained about the queer speaker (Thierry) not being on the platform.

Seán McGouran

GLYNI (Gay and Lesbian Youth NI) organised this debate for the Thursday (29th July) of Belfast LGBT Pride week. It is also responsible for the playful title. Mark Browne of GLYNI introduced the event, held in the large cabaret area (former venue for a very short-lived Gay disco) of the Europa Hotel, donated to Belfast LGBT Pride, for this and a number of other purposes by the Hastings Hotels group. (There were about twenty tables seating about a dozen people each, and all were full — a substantial turnout by any standards — such a discussion in London would have had a tiny audience). The Reverend David McIlveen of Sandown Free Presbyterian Church, organiser of the protests against the Pride Dander since 1991, had ‘cried off’ the discussion. After sixty-two other potential speakers were asked, Dermot O’Callaghan, a Church of Ireland lay reader volunteered to take Mr. McIlveen’s place.

The other speaker in the ‘anti-’ corner (for want of a more positive label, I’m sure neither would define themselves as anti-Gay) was Dr. Mike Davidson. He runs Core Issues, a ‘reparative therapy’ course for those who do not want to be ‘practising’ homosexuals. He described himself as ‘conflicted’ about his own sexuality. He made a decision not to be Gay and is married with children. He is interested in debate and says the Church has failed to understand young people. His audience was largely LGBT and ranged from teens to tottering (I include myself in the latter category).

Dermot O’Callaghan said he had a simple orthodox Christian view of the matter in hand. He rejected the notion that people are ‘born Gay’, it was not like left-handedness or skin tint. He claimed that there was an element of choice in becoming Gay (one agrees to a (very) small degree. But for reasons at variance with Dermot’s). Dermot instanced the fact that ‘black’ parents have ‘black’ children. They don’t always, and ‘white’ parents have ‘black’ children. There was at least one example of a white couple having, much to their consternation, an almost entirely ‘Bantu’ child — in the days of Apartheid in South Africa. The authorities hemmed and hawed for some years and then decided that the we’an was white. It was patent nonsense but the system had to be kept intact and ‘demoting’ Euro-South Africans simply couldn’t be considered.

African-American families have produced entirely ‘Euro’ children, the response has been, largely, somewhat puzzled charm – and delight in the child. Dermot also adverted to ‘twin studies’. Since the death of Sir Cyril Burt in the early 1970s, and the discovery that he invented all of his data, this aspect of ‘scientific’ investigation has been rendered dubious. (That is not to say that actual twin-studies would be useless, but it will be quite some time before anyone attempts such a thing. The results probably won’t be as neat as Burt’s appeared to be.)

In the nature of this debate transgender issues did not really arise, it is difficult to guess where the speakers stood on such issues. There is a Biblical (Old Testament) prohibition on wearing clothes identified with the other gender, though obviously medico-surgical gender reassignment did not arise.

The other speakers were Chris Hudson and Pádraig Ó Tuama. Chris Hudson has been a campaigner all his life in the trade unions, for divorce, for social justice and for the rights of LGBT – and other people, mostly in the Republic. He was involved in the ‘Peace Train’ movement. He pointed out that the elements in Leviticus used to put down Gay people also include elements supporting chattel slavery (mostly of African people in recent centuries) and the oppression of women – many churches still refuse to ordain women. He attacked “selective literalism” in regard to aspects of Leviticus and reading the Bible as if one were living 2,000 years ago. He said that the New Testament is anyway the New Covenant. Chris is now the Minister of All Souls Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church, Elmwood Avenue, Belfast.

Pádraig Ó Tuama (according to my notes, anyway) has no formal organisational background. He reproached (rather than attacked) the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy’s notion that homosexuality was a moral (and quasi-medical) ‘disorder’. It is an aspect of love – the alleged foundation of Christianity – the (RC) Church is not entirely bad, but it does not speak for God – implicitly he feels the Church should speak to God occasionally (again, this is my ‘spin’ – SMG).

Pádraig and Dermot engaged in a discussion on Biblical interpretation, which I found somewhat confusing and probably have dud notes on. Dermot asked (presumably rhetorically); ‘why did God choose the Jews?’ All of Jesus’s first followers were sociologically Jews and they rejected many aspects of Judaism. Christians ingest blood and ‘do’ blood transfusions. Jesus rejected the Mosaic Law, and Gentiles were welcome into the Church. And women we allowed to worship in the same fashion as men. What was necessary was an acceptance of the Holy Spirit, an orthodox position, accepted by all Christian traditions. But, according to Dermot’s view, this somehow does not include Gay (or LGB) people. It is difficult to understand why not. All Christian traditions regard the whole human race as consisting of sinners and all of us are entitled to God’s free grace and forgiveness for those sins. (Roman Catholics really have to work at being sinful — you have to really mean to be bad.) Even if homosexuality is a perversion why is it more wicked than, say, gluttony? What we now call homosexuality, or bisexuality, or (stretching a point) transsexualism or transgenderism, are only very glancingly and ambiguously mentioned in the Old Testament and not at all in the New.

(But gluttony is condemned frequently in the Bible. And ‘gluttony’ must surely include grabbing more of the good things of the earth than we are entitled to. Just walk around any supermarket or shopping mall. We (happy consumers, in the Anglosphere, in particular) can buy cheap food, drink and clothing from every point of the compass. Many of those who produce these good things go hungry to bed every night in life. Of course, this terrible injustice does exercise the minds, hearts and consciences of millions of Christians around the planet. But many other millions are be able to live with this, and concentrate their righteous indignation on Gay women and men, the ‘Christian Right’ in the USA comes to mind. It pours billions of money into Africa to stop the advancement of human rights for LGBT people. It ignores the injustice of starvation, disease and ignorance.)

Pádraig Ó Tuama said that being Gay is more than simple engaging in particular sex acts. A lot of anti-Gay feeling has to do with division, with separating people in general and Christians’ in particular from each other for largely unChristian reasons. How did Dermot O’Callaghan, and persons of a similar mind, deal with other interpretations of Scripture? This was not dealt with. The discussion rather fizzled out.

But the interventions from the floor were interesting. One unfortunate young man had been thrown out by his Fundamentalist (Pentecostalist – I think) family when he told them he was homosexual. He’d been a very devout member of his church and was still an ardent believer, and has found a loving partner who shares his religious views. A woman said she had approached a Roman Catholic priest asking him to baptise the child she and her partner had had in vitro. He almost literally threw her out of his house. But another priest was quite amenable and did what they wanted – the inclusion of their child in the family of the faith. A man intervened to say that if they became atheists they would save themselves a lot of pain. That sort of intellectual arrogance is one of the reasons why a lot of people avoid the label. The intervention was, crass, silly and probably meant to be hurtful. It’s a pity in some ways that a non-believer should be so at variance with the mood of this event.

Seán McGouran

Arab Culture and Homosexuality

The Arabic word for homosexual activity is ‘Liwat’ and for a person who performs such acts (luti) derives from the city of Lut (biblical Lot).

Despite the disapproval of religious authority, the formal segregation of men in Muslim societies and the emphasis on male virility means that Arab males and unmarried young men need to seek sexual outlets, and this usually means ‘boys’ younger than themselves.  This is accepted (in quiet) as long as they are the penetrators and their partners are boys, or in some cases effeminate men.

Nur Sati writes that many Arab men make a distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘emotional attachment’ Bruce Dunne, author of an article Power and Sexuality in the Middle East, believes that sexual relations in the Middle East are about power.  He writes: “Sexual relations in Middle Eastern societies have historically articulated social hierarchies, that is, dominant and subordinate social positions: adult men on top, women, boys and slaves below…Both dominant/subordinate and heterosexual/homosexual categorizations are structures of power.”

Marcus, who was born in Europe, is studying Arabic in Jordan and on interview said ‘Having sex (discreetly) is alright and sometimes even seen as an exploit. It is therefore justified.’  He said he felt comfortable in approaching a man in Jordan with frankness about his desires.

So having put the situation in context, I would now like to introduce Abdellah Taia.  He is Moroccan, born in the 1980s, and by his own admission he was an effeminate little boy.  Because of his demeanor he was a ‘boy to be sacrificed’.  He was a “zamel”.

All of his family basically shunned him, and it is through his own inner strength of character that he survived an horrific situation.  He suppressed his feeling, his character and reinvented himself until he was able to leave Morocco for France and here through his writing he has been able to rediscover part of that which he has hidden for so long.

I urge you to read the article in the New York Times Sunday Review, link shown below, and also I urge you to remember that there are many honest, hopeful Arabs in the world who need our support during these turbulent times.
1.  See (Wikipedia – Islam and sexual orientation)

2.  Arab Living (1998) – Equivocal Lifestyles

3.  Mideast Youth – Homosexuality in the Arab world:  Interview with gay rights activist

4.   The New York Times Sunday Review – A Boy to Be Sacrificed

5.   Gay Arab Culture – Tighter than a closet!

It is common in Arabic poetry to glorify homosexuality, take their famous poet Abu Nuwas:

O the joy of sodomy!
So now be sodomites, you Arabs.
Turn not away from it–
therein is wondrous pleasure.
Take some coy lad with kiss-curls
twisting on his temple
and ride as he stands like some gazelle
standing to her mate.
A lad whom all can see girt with sword
and belt not like your whore who has
to go veiled.
Make for smooth-faced boys and do your
very best to mount them, for women are
the mounts of the devils

Teh Attorney General John Larkin QC argued in the High Court that the status quo should remain in place until the Stormont Assembly decides otherwise.  He was responding on behalf of the Department for Health to the legal challenge brought by the N Ireland Human Rights Commission.

Mr Larkin said, “Adoption in N Ireland exists for the welfare of children, not to satisfy the wishes of adults”.

He further told the court that the current policy was believed to be in the best interests of the child.

The hearing continues, and we will watch with interest to see the final outcome.

See also Belfast Telegraph ‘Ban over gay adoption should stay, court told‘ dated March 23 2012

Previous article in upstart publishing with further reading:

upstart 21 Feb:- http://upstartpublishing.com/841/northern-ireland-should-adopt-equal-laws-on-gay-adoption