I was on Oscar's side in his dispute with the Marquess of Queensberry because of the latter's unintellectual boorishness.
Mine is a minor blog in the scheme of things, a mere blip on the radar and it's going to become even more marginal after this post.
Principles are the last resort of a rogue, sometimes more important to people than justice, decency and common sense. Occasionally though, principles force their way into one's consciousness and that dreaded position looms up before one - taking a stand.
I must now take a stand, which of course can only lead to my being swept off my little perch. So be it.
This blogger stated yesterday that he hadn't thought much about gays per se, except in oblique references to the gay mafia. My dealings with such people has been friendly and I count gays among friends. I don't know whether there are degrees of "gayness" and whether one is a bit that way or wholly so.
I do know that as a child, I was molested by family friends who were men and not just once. I never told about it because I was ashamed. I also know it affects people in different ways and am well aware of the vampire principle - that one can become one.
I hope I haven't done that but I certainly react with horror if a man even attempts to pat my shoulder or do a standard European embrace. I know I have to go through with it but it's nauseating to me to touch or be touched by another man and I hope I haven't over-compensated with women. As for girls - there used to be an inbuilt societal mechanism which protected them and long live this mechanism, I say.
By the way, that's precisely what is now being broken down by the corrosive moral degeneracy being pushed so hard by my implacable enemy in schools, film, music, upbringing and so on today. Girls of twelve no longer have any protection, are out roaming around freely and I'm wondering where the hell the parents are - are they living in zombie land or pretending it's not happening? Do they think that conferring such freedom on their daughters is leading the daughter to self-discipline?
I have news - things are happening with daughters and my source is big girls who now look back and tell.
Back to gays. This particular "thing" is not normal. Normal is being brought up with an emerging sexuality in cotton wool, well protected by two older generations of caring family, where teachers accept their responsibility to teach right from wrong and then after a hell of a lot of flirting and petting, partners are chosen and they marry. [Yes, I know - the railway cuttings blooming with wildflowers, the bobby on his beat and all well with the world.]
Yet this has been the pattern of interpersonal realtions in the majority of societies over time except for Caligula type aberrances and it protects children and keeps society sane. To point to societies which have gone soft and descended into this, such as ours now but to seize on it as historical justification is utter tosh and cynically ignores that socieites go through stages, just as ours is doing now.
I am dead against "gay bashing" or in fact "anyone bashing" and reject utterly being lumped in with the boors, the bourgeoisie and the intolerant by shrill overreaction to the tone of this article. I'm especially against intolerance of gays, if the participants are adult, so let me spell out what this blog is actually dead against:
1. the calling of aberrant behaviour an equal alternative and introducing the erroneous term "orientation" into the discussion;
2. the calling of this drive "moving on", as in "I'd hoped we'd moved on from this", when what it really means is "descending to oblivion";
2. the gay mafia driving the legislative process outlawing anyone who would call a spade a spade;
3. the hijacking of language, such as the word "spade" and rendering it unusable. I deliberately used the term now in its historic idiomatic sense and will continue to do so. I'll use "gay" to mean lighthearted, frivolous, happy; I'll use "rainbow" to mean that thing you see in the sky.
Monty Python, who had an answer for just about everything and pricked [another of those words] the bubble of pomposity and folly, summed up the whole Thought Police mindset in the stoning scene in Brian. "Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah!" called out the unrepentant. Labelling the mindset of the religious elite and mob "Christian" shows either a very shaky or a deeply cynical grasp of theological history and a desire to lay the blame for human excess onto what is, after all, a quite pure set of criteria for living together.
Where does this leave gays? It leaves them with their partners, unharrassed, living the life they want and continuing to enrich the cultural and social history of nations and contributing to understanding and intellect, as opposed to boorishness and priggishness. It leaves the vast majority to get on with their own normal lives. The two meet at parties and are friends. Many readers of this blog who are gay are more than welcome because I don't judge you on your gayness but on your intelligence level.
But to call gayness or "bi-ness" normal and to try to drive public policy and get in to schools and spread this dangerous twaddle; to outlaw anyone who tries to oppose it and to lead campaigns of vilification against them - this is purely and simply wrong and as such, I simply won't be intimidated.
Now what are they going to do - press for my incarceration or something worse to punish me for having the temerity to speak sanity, thereby revealing their true selves? Are they going to ostracize me by never visiting my blog again and trying to prevent others doing so? In this increasingly convoluted society of today - I'd bet that's exactly what some would like to do.
However, to end on a positive note, I also hope there'd be those who would take it in the spirit in which it was given - a plea for sanity to return to our society before it's too late.
Graham Chapman - great example of the very long list of gay people who have enriched our cultural heritage