I’ve banged on rather a lot about equal marriage. About the importance of having the right to use that word, of having the right to stand up before your friends and family – and God, if you believe – and affirm your love to Mr or Mrs Right, whoever you are. But it’s about more than that. This is the real story of why equal marriage matters.
Last week I wrote about the speeches given by various MPs during the equal marriage debate. I said I had never felt as proud of UK MPs as I did that day, and I meant that. Genuinely. But there’s one MP I am not proud of – my own MP, Derek Twigg; one of only 22 Labour MPs to vote against equal marriage.
Yesterday was a bit of a write-off for me. The UK House of Commons was discussing the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill from 12.30pm right up to the vote at 7pm. I followed the entire thing as it happened. (more…)
I was out in Manchester on Saturday, for the first time since Pride. God, I love the Village. It reminds me of my godforsaken youth, of three magic years when I lived there and going out was essentially my life. I’m a scene queen, I admit it. And despite so, so much of it that has changed – since I lived there, since I was last there – so much of it is the same. I met old friends and new, I went to some of my favourite haunts from the bad ole days and I went to bars and clubs that have been rebranded, reopened a dozen times or more since I called that place home.
But some things never change. The attitude of some of the men there to women, for a start.
Hands up who’s bored of the equal marriage debates rumbling through virtually every country in the west at the moment? It seems every other US state is currently having a referendum on the matter – with some voting for, and some against – the UK bill just hit parliament, and Paris was invaded by hoards marching both for and against. SCOTUS briefs are currently being filed in advance of the hearing on DOMA. (more…)
The leader of an ‘ex-gay’ Kansas City prayer group, has just been named as a suspect in the alleged murder of his wife. According to ex-members of the group – part of the virulently anti-gay International House of Prayer “charismatic movement” – he feared that his wife was about to report the systematic abuse that she had been subject to under the guise of ‘spiritual experience’. One of the claims was that she was drugged with anti-psychotics while he engaged in sexual activity with the male members of the group. (more…)
I’m talking gay stereotypes. The bulldyke, the screaming queen. You know them, I know them. Heaven forbid anyone should write about them. Because, y’know, they’re stereotypical. Most gay people aren’t like that. Most gay people hate to be associated with people like that. Most gay people are ordinary men and women just like you and me who feel no particular urge to fill their lives with glitter and sparkles.
How dull for them.