Saturday, October 06, 2007

You couldn't make it up

Yesterday's Daily Mail had what might be the most bizarre Richard Littlejohn column to date where the tired old rant-machine managed to combine a by-numbers piece about how homophobia is illegal (which he made to sound like it was both true and a bad thing) with a surprising degree of intimacy with Tom Robinson's Glad To Be Gay:

The last line of Tom Robinson's 1978 anthem Glad To Be Gay goes: "The buggers are legal now, what more are they after?"

It was supposed to be ironic. Back then, even though homosexuality was no longer a criminal offence for consenting adults, gays faced prejudice and persecution.

I can remember singing along with Tom. Though homosexuality wasn't exactly my idea of a night out, I thought it outrageous that gays were subjected to discrimination in areas such as employment, housing and pensions.

Really, Richard? You sang along with Glad To Be Gay and thought it was about council housing and pension rights? Rather than being a song that was more concerned with the pressing matters of entrapment and queerbashing and - here's a funny thing - journalists in the popular press describing gays as corrupting and disgusting and perverted?


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hate to give you a wake-up call, but being homsexual is a perversion.

per·ver·sion /pərˈvɜrʒən, -ʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[per-vur-zhuhn, -shuhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. the act of perverting.
2. the state of being perverted.
3. a perverted form of something.
4. any of various means of obtaining sexual gratification that are generally regarded as being abnormal.
5. Pathology. a change to what is unnatural or abnormal: a perversion of function or structure.


Homsexuality clearly fits definitions 4 and 5.

Chris Brown said...

"Homsexuality"? Is that something to do with woks?

No, on second thoughts don't answer that.

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

Anonymous: You're attempting to prove that being gay is wrong by using a dictionary definition of perversion?

Well, it makes a change from someone waving Leviticus about, I suppose.

Much as I don't wish to engage with your tired homophobia - homphobia, probably - but people having sex with people of the same gender isn't "generally regarded as being abnormal" and it's also not "unnatural" seeing as how it occurs in many species besides humans.

And, even if it was "unnatural" then, erm... what? Baking bread is unnatural, driving in a jeep is unnatural, and I'm pretty certain posting reactionary homophobic rubbish to the internet doesn't occur naturally in other species, so... what exactly is your point?

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

By the way, Chris... it brings a whole new meaning to Ken Hom's Hot Wok, doesn't it?

Anonymous said...

Richard Littlejohn's idiocy doesn't end there, folks. His latest column continues his war for homophobia. Though that may be a bit harsh as he does offer his support for 'sensible gays with a sense of humour'.

Read my response here

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