Homosexuality Is Not A Sin

If I was a gay/bi teenage liberal just coming to terms with my sexuality, reading some of the stuff posted by defenders of Tim Farron would probably be enough to send me scuttling back in to the closet.

So to them I want to be very, very clear: homosexuality is not a sin. It is a not a "condition", let alone one that requires other's compassion. It is not a "second-best" option. It is not inferior. The quality of love between two men (I can't speak for others but I'm sure it is also the same between two women) is not one iota less than that between a man and a woman.

I've seen Lib Dems suggest a Christian's distaste to homosexuality to be akin to most people's distaste for heroin users. I.e. "I believe in the right of someone to inject themselves with heroin but I think it is bad for them and I'd argue that they shouldn't". Well isn't that a beautiful message to send out to young gay and bi people? "You have the right to do what you do, but it's a sin!"

My love for my other half is NOT equivalent in anyway to the love a heroin user has for a needle. And I will not sit silently by whilst that sort of message is sent out to vulnerable young people.

Now Tim Farron hasn't said the above, thankfully, so I'm only directing about 10% of my anger at him for his failure to be clearer. I am disturbed though by those defending the concept of believing homosexuality is a sin.

Some have said "We're liberals, we should support people holding beliefs we find objectionable as long as they harm no one else". Totally agree. But I wouldn't want someone who thinks Africans are an inferior race leading a party I was a member of, regardless of the fact he supports their equality 100% in his public life.

A disturbing number of people, both heterosexual and other, seem to accept the idea that homosexuality "isn't ideal". They very much support our rights and freedoms. But in their heart of hearts they really do not accept us.

My message to LGBT young people is this... THERE IS NOTHING SINFUL ABOUT LOVING SOMEONE OF THE SAME GENDER. Nothing. Not one thing. Our love is not inferior to anybody else's . We must never forget that.

Further reading.

The Last Time Puritans Were In The Ascendant, It Didn't Go Too Well For Us Gays

I thought we'd won. The same-sex marriage debates showed the impotency of the old right-wingers, those stalwarts who opposed every happy thought and every freedom. We were free, free at last!

But the forces of conservatism come in many guises and whilst we were defeating the elderly conservative contingent, the right-on feminist contingent snuck in the back door and started agitating with "Down With This Sort Of Thing" placards.

David Cameron, that "liberal conservative" Stonewall were swooning over the other week, has reiterated his support for a "porn filter" which will filter more than just porn and should be better know as the Great Firewall of Cameron. Meanwhile Labour MPs and liberal journalists have spearheaded a campaign to get a "Report Abuse" button added to Twitter (which shall itself become a form of abuse in no time at all). And the Lose The Lad's Mags campaign has convinced the Co-Op to demand lad's mags self-censor or be dumped.

What does this have to do with an adult homosexual who isn't abusive on Twitter? Well I see such moves as preliminary movements in a general anti-sex and anti-freedom campaign. Real problems, such as rape, are being used to frown upon modern sexual freedom in general. Missing from that article were "Girls please don't drink, it leads to sin" and "Girls, stay away from parties and wait until you are married". But they pretty much went without saying.

The Nationwide Festival of Light was organised by known homophobes, such as Mary Whitehouse, as an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against "sexploitation" and violence in the media. Whitehouse later went on to sue the Gay News for publishing The Love That Dares to Speak its Name (she won). Her legacy waned with the poor leadership of Christian organisations but is renewed under new "liberal" leadership.

I'm not the only one to link Mary Whitehouse to modern campaigns.

"And, although the political assumptions underlying their quickness to take offence might be very different (the individual foot soldiers of this latter-day green biro brigade would certainly be alarmed to look in the mirror and see those familiar horn-rimmed glasses staring back at them), are the mobs of angry Tweeters who patrol our cultural landscape in search of a word said or written out of turn really anything other than Whitehouse’s digital inheritors?"

So I look with concern at any moves backwards towards a time when women had to cover up and everyone had to watch what they said. Gay men didn't fair too well under such regimes.

Not only was our poetry found unsuitable, but our book shops were raided and the number of men we had sex with at any one time was policed. Do you think "magazine shields" won't be used against depictions of gay relationships? Don't you remember how past internet filters had a bias against LGBT websites (naughty or nice!)?

It is time to prepare ourselves for the puritan's next steps. We won't be too far down the list, although our old allies like the trans folk and sex workers will probably still get it in the neck well before we do. Then it'll be our turn. Our Tumblr posts, our tweets, our magazines, our sexual habits. They'll be demanding we all wait until marriage for sex (now the same-sex marriage bill has passed), and give us disapproving looks if we lust after hotties. It is already happening, talk of eating disorders caused by representations of muscular men and the like.

Sigh. There I was planning for the rest of the decade and suddenly I'm right back in the 80s. Damn it!

 

Sleeping With Someone Of The Same Sex Isn't Gay!

Own up, who clicked though thinking the title doesn't make sense? I'm here to tell you it does. Homosexuals aren't the only people who sleep with someone of the same sex. Not only do you get those "situational homosexuals" in same-sex environments (most infamously in prisons) but there are also those, oft-thought mythical, people known as bisexuals. 


"Bierasure" is something I've seen mentioned a lot, mainly thanks to the close eye I keep on opposition to Stonewall. Stonewall are rather infamous for ignoring bisexuals. It's really opened my mind to the concept and sometimes I'm left rather blown away by the examples I find online. 


But today there is a story which has really shown just how deep "bierasure" is embedded into our culture. An inquest has ruled that man killed himself after having sex with another man. His parents are upset about this as they feel it was not consensual sex, and that there is a cover-up going on at the RAF. I make no comment on that matter as I'm in no position to question the results of the inquest or the events it looked into. 


However, take a look at some of the things his parents say:

“My son was living the dream. He was happy and engaged to be married. He was due to go out to the Falklands and had signed up for Afghanistan.  

“There is no way my son was gay and we believe something terrible happened to Robert that night that he couldn’t live with.

And then:

“He had had lots of girlfriends in the past and had been engaged twice. 

“It doesn’t make sense that he would be gay for one night, then regret it so much that he would kill himself. 

“We are not anti-gay, far from it. We have a lot of gay friends and if it was something Robert wanted to do he would not kill himself.

It seems to be completely beyond them that someone could have lots of girlfriends and still want to sleep with a man. It's quite possible for someone to be bisexual. As society becomes more accepting of same-sex relationships, they are increasingly seeing sexuality as an either/or scenario. Either, in some people's minds, someone is straight or they are gay. Marriage equality, though obviously something I welcome, is not going to make it easier to educate people that sexuality isn't black or white but far more broad, fluid and remarkable than many give it credit for. 


It doesn't help, of course, that a lot of people dismiss bisexuals as "closet cases". Just last week we had claims Jessie J wasn't bisexual but was instead a lesbian who was trapped in the closet to keep her career going. Generally I find this is because bisexuality doesn't fit that person's particular agenda (be it political or personal). 


Let's start opening our minds a little more to the fact people don't easily fall into the boxes we want to put them in. Hell, bisexuality is a word that doesn't really give justice to variety of different types of "bisexuality" there are. We need to realise each person is individual and their sexuality is just as complex and individual as their personality. 


Some people are bisexual. There's no getting over it, just get used to it!

If you feel benevolent and particularly generous, this writer always appreciates things bought for him from his wishlist