Richard Quest does not need your permission to be happy

A marriage is a marriage

I did not read of this development until I saw the Facebook posting on a “Friend’s” page that castigated and excoriated it, the comments that followed maintained the same theme. Yes, Richard Quest of CNN had tied the knot in a same-sex marriage ceremony with his long-time partner.

Apart from the Instagram message Richard posted, I do not think it made the news anywhere else except in a sensationalist stance on African newswires in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. What is surprising is how little people know about Richard Quest, not that it matters, but he is a gay man, he has spoken about his sexuality a few times, and he has made no secret of his, as it were, proclivities. [Instagram: Questinny]

That is a wrong choice of word, proclivities, but it is a sop to the ne’er-do-wells who cannot countenance the idea of difference in the lives of others. For whilst many may not understand sexualities different from heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality has always been in humanity since long before history was recordable.

It never hindered him

However, this is not the space to argue that, despite and in spite of his sexuality Richard Quest has a high global profile as a news anchor and presenter, his quirks and expression is uniquely individual, entertaining and enlightening, what is not to like about Richard Quest as a professional?

In the aid of full disclosure, I am also a gay man, I have always been a gay man, I did not change from one thing to another and never have I had any interest in the opposite sex, that is just my nature and I make no apology for it. I am engaged to be married to my partner Brian, and once the cloud of this pandemic is lifted, that will be done.

As if you matter

Back to the issue itself, Richard Quest does not need the permission of anyone to be happy, he finds his happiness and fulfilment in the companion he has chosen to spend his life with, who just happens to be male, as much as the person could have been female. It is neither here nor there.

Richard Quest has lived a rich eventful and highly achieving life that he would be proud of and many would aspire to and I celebrate him for having found the kind of exemplary balance in life as in his profession and gone ahead with living his full life.

His gain, your loss

If out of this, some now decide they will no more entertain the views of Richard Quest as he enters our homes on CNN screens globally, that would be your loss because there is no one else that does what he does in such an engaging and interesting way that has brought his global following. What we must agree to disagree on is this, his sexuality is more your problem than it is his.

I wish Richard Quest and Chris Pepesterny a very happy married life, may they grow old together and be beacons of light and hope to many who find it still too difficult to live their best lives. It reminds me of William Haines who forsook a burgeoning acting career in Hollywood in the 1920s for his gay relationship that Joan Crawford was reputed to say, they were “the happiest married couple in Hollywood.”

Now, if you cannot be happy for a happy event in another life because of your prejudices, that, my friend, is entirely your problem, your burden, your whatever it is, but definitely, it is not good.

Blog - Opinion: When William Haines decided against a sham marriage

This thing called love

A mystery I live

This thing called love I cannot really explain, as I feel it in my heart, an emotion but not in the singular of thoughts and feelings that occupy my mind. All my senses are focused on the object of my desire, a desire that transcends every concept of what I can perceive with my senses. I think of him and I am in another universe of bliss and beauty that no words can describe and no talent in an artist can capture on canvas.

The capacity that in ourselves has for the reciprocity of feeling, passion, expression and love is written in poetry and sonnet, heard in song and music, yet is so uniquely individual and personal, the experience of another only partly describes the relationships of others.

The one who matters

You wonder how in the ocean of literally unlimited choice, one and just one becomes the one you find the unity of heart and life with. Notwithstanding that some one time lovers do drift apart for all sorts of reasons, we do not start the journey of love on the premise of its ending, we seek that it goes on forever.

That fact that we cannot see the future is a good thing, because we take what we have today, infuse it with hopes for the future and launch out on a journey of uncertainty with the view that the growing bond of strength predicated on an affinity that makes us glow from inside out in the presence and the arms of each other would see us through the storms and sustain us within the joys.

Love is a wonder

Not only that, but it is also how we draw strength from each other, knowing that we no more face the world alone but with an unimaginably formidable force of unity, in purpose, in direction, in attainment, in achievement, in success, in life and much more. The mystery of love and how it empowers lovers in the face of everything is still a wonder to behold.

I fell in love almost suddenly, and I know that this means so much more than I have ever felt with anyone else that we will get married and celebrate it to ourselves and anyone who will join us in this amazing thing. I love you, Brian, that is all that matters.

Opinion: Finding Against The Gospel of NOT - That EHRC Judgement

The rise of religious politics

Each time I think about the ministry of Jesus Christ when he trod the lands of Judea and Samaria as depicted in the gospels I am at times wont to channel Mahatma Gandhi when he was purported to say, “I like your Christ but dislike your Christians.”

Over the last few decades or so, a brand of this religion has emerged which looks very much like modern-day expressions of other Abrahamic faiths, political Judaism with its cauldron in Israel has held the world to ransom with Gentile guilt for the Holocaust and other pogroms that go back centuries, political Islam first expressed in Saudi Arabia, then radicalised in Iran before it was hijacked to be become a potent terrorist movement once spearheaded that the Al Qaeda crusade and political Christianity.

This, I dare say is more widespread and finds expression in social issues that polarise, attempt to ostracise and in terms can be quite discriminatory in a world that is tending more towards secularity than the Dark Ages of moralising sententiousness.

The Christian right and wrongs

In America, it started with the abortion wars, then the issue of homosexuality, gay marriage and stem cell research. God or at least the Christian God is inserted into every debate of the right to have slaves then to prayer, to bear arms, to limit opportunity where a majority of Americans are not by any stretch of the imagination native to the land they have colonised corralling the Native Americans into reservations with money-making casinos and attendant mental issues.

In Africa, they have not rallied round the cross Jesus so succinctly said they should bear and follow him but around an obsession with homosexuality as observed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and a gullible flock of bees feasting on the narcotic pollen of the prosperity gospel.

The activist Christian

In Europe, homosexuality and gay marriage and aggression secularism taking hold in our societies have become the gospel of Not as preached by the Holy Padre in the Vatican, who without much distraction cannot have been oblivious of the clergy who have said mass in the name of the Catholic Church whilst satisfying their lascivious tendencies with the innocence of the small – much prosecuted for redress and justice in North America and Europe but no one has lifted the lid on possible heinous deeds in Africa, Latin America or Asia.

The issue of women having titular roles in the Anglican Church is as engaging as it is disheartening much as gay marriage, abortion issues, reverse missionary journeys – where Africans are coming to Europe to open churches along with pervasive issues of financial impropriety or excess – our televisions have become the means of intruding on our lives without necessarily affecting our lives.

It isn’t Christians in the love for humanity

The most compassionate of our humanity campaigning against grinding poverty, debilitating disease, bad governance or war are hardly religious, they are pop stars and billionaires who openly shame the many followers who have long departed from the ideals of the founders of their systems of faith and have become activists portraying a sense of being under siege from the world around them and being discriminated against.

That many have conflated persecution which comes from adherence to faith with discrimination which is borne of taking social positions against secular norms that allows for diverse strands of humanity to live in some semblance of communal bliss is most interesting and it is exemplified in symbols and beliefs that seek to discriminate and differentiate, ostracising those who in a secular setting have a right to service denied them by those paid in public service to be professional about their vocations.

The cross and the belief

Four Christians having exhausted all legal process in the UK when to Europe to seek redress and a judgement on the matter was pronounced on Tuesday.

Two of them were challenging the decision of their employers to exclude and sanction them for wearing crosses and the other two working for social service organisations put their beliefs before the interests of people who presumably have lifestyles they disagree with.

I am glad that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) proffered arguments that came out in support of one and against the other three.

Christian identity most morose

On the matter of wearing a cross, whilst it might well be symbolic of Christian faith, it is not mandated as an expression by law or doctrine that practitioners of the faith should wear a cross to portray what some have called a Christian identity.

Christian identity in my view is political-speak and if what that means is wearing jewellery moulded as a cross and a representation of the amazing gospel of the man that walked the roads of Judea and Galilee two millennia ago, then we are much poorer for what it really represents apart from the fact that it has patently lost its power to affect people’s lives.

Christianity is supposed to be a light and lamp, a light to gain perspective of beauty and a lamp to show the path when one walks in the dark. That same light when shone brightly into the eye for all the goodness and pleasure it bring to sight and vision, risks blinding the person – In other words, it should never be in-your-face whilst at the same time efficacious.

Reasonableness always wins

I can very when agree that it is reasonable to wear a cross in the workplace as long as there are no requirements for sterility in a controlled environment like a hospital. It would be trite to bring up the matter of whether cross wearers do sterilise their crosses and that is beside the point that there are many who wear crosses that are hardly Christian in belief or in practice.

In the case of the other two, one with professional duties of conducting marriages on behalf of the state and the other trained to provide relationship counselling, in a society comprised of diverse belief systems and governed by a compromise of secularity that seeks to get everyone to co-exist, it is antithetical to professional conduct to refuse to despatch services you paid to provide because of a sentiment.

Our secularity is paramount

The need to separate church and state cannot be more pertinent than to have individuals arrogate to themselves rights that conflict with community in order to prove a religious point – we do not live a theocracy and we do not believe the same.

It goes without saying that I am of the opinion that if such people intend to place their beliefs above secular co-existence, they should seek employment where only their beliefs are paramount.

The moment we engage with the public we become subject to the norms that promote societal cohesion as is necessary for the compromise of secularity we have adopted in our somewhat mature civilisations that confers the freedom to religion but not that right to use it to discriminate and contemn the lives of other members of our diverse humanity.

Where I stand

I take no positions on any of the matters I have raised apart from these reasonable views, we should protect our children from sexual exploitation and pursue to the ends of the earth anyone who have abused and violated children for any ends.

The matter of abortion should be between the woman, her doctor and her conscience, if health issues are of significance, then the law should support the safety of the female over the consequences for the unborn.

That the Israeli-Palestinian issue should be brought to a resolution that allows Israel to exist safely whilst restoring a greater sense of dignity to the Palestinians in their land with all that rightfully belongs to them.

To reason to all

That the separation of religion and state must be inviolable, Christians do not own the institution of marriage and whilst their beliefs are widespread their views cannot be allowed to denigrate the beliefs and lives of others – we need to reach an accommodation and that is mostly on the side of religionists than on the side of secularists.

I applaud the judgement of the ECHR, there was no discrimination in the case of the three that lost; they tried to assume victim status to excuse their unprofessional obstinacy that many including the judges saw through.

The Gospel of Not has lost against the fight to live and let live – long may it be so.

Thought Picnic: As Touching Gay Marriage

They matter

A few days ago, President Barack Obama expressed his support for Same-Sex Marriage, stating that, “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Whilst I have never been an activist for Same-Sex Marriage, I have not been able to see the reason why those opposed to it have any just cause because their arguments have in my view been counterintuitive.

I know many people in same-sex relationships who are loving, committed and exemplary, there is no reason why such people who having devoted their lives to each other should not also have that relationship recognised by the state and have full spousal benefits cognisant of that relationship.

You have issues if it affects you

Years ago in 2005, I penned a blog – Does Gay Marriage Affect Your Marriage? I think it remains a valid question to those who are vehemently against gay rights which in my view is the next battle in recognition of basic human rights over the centuries from feudalism, slavery, democracy, women’s rights, miscegenation, racism, disability and now this.

I tweeted this - Gay marriage is hardly about values, if the marriage of homosexuals affects your heterosexual relationship, you have issues.

As it fed into my Facebook status, I found myself having to write a longer comment supporting my view of gay marriage.

The function of the state in marriage

Marriage existed before religion was established and it is blessed by the different cultural underpinnings which might or might not be religious - not every wedding happens in a religious setting and in most cases a marriage must be registered in a registry to be valid than being conducted in a church.

For the purposes of correction, [This is in relation to an erroneous comment I was responding to] the bible says what God has joined together, let no man put asunder, but that again is a Christian perspective it is different from Islam which allows polygamy and even until the advent of the church the patriarchs and many of the personalities of the old testament were polygamous.

Marriage is about love and commitment regardless

In these times, the issue of marriage is one of commitment and love regardless of the pairing and that is what secular society has taken to consider regardless of religious persuasion, what the state is doing is refusing that one religious persuasion exercise undue influence over the persuasion of others - in other words, the state is standing up for all faiths or lack of faiths than just for the usually predominant Christian view of marriage.

In that context, my statement is quite valid because the issue of marriage is one of rights of partners within a relationship being recognised by the state, it is of no import to any religious persuasion and it should not be is the state is exercising a secular oversight of the people it governs who are not of the same religious persuasion and even if they are of the same persuasion they do not in terms exercise equal beliefs and influences of faith.

Example is better than antagonism

If the church thinks the institution of marriage is weakened by the state allowing for gay marriage, you have to wonder what they think about marriages of other religions, pagans or atheists because none of these follow the apparent sacraments that the fundamentalists so constantly abuse in not making the case for marriage stronger in their conduct and use of it – gay marriage is a red herring for the failings of religion to ensure that marriages work and last.

The presence or absence of gay marriage will not change the divorce rates nor will it reduce the apparent existence of sexual sin amongst the clergy or adherents of any of the faiths, the issues are just mutually exclusive.

Whilst many will not be able to tolerate the idea, I believe that if homosexual couples have a spiritual life and what to see their union blessed in a religious service and find ministers who are sympathetic to the idea – they should go for it even if it includes a bridal-gown and bespoke vows – I will applaud rather than be appalled.

This is where we have reached in the battle for human rights just as religions have jettisoned the many customs I listed before, which religionists once found support for in their holy books.

Christians failing like Lot

As for the matter of Sodom and Gomorrah which is used to condemn homosexuality, there is a deeper lesson involved, I will have you know that before those cities were destroyed Abraham had pleaded to have those cities spared if just 10 righteous persons were found in the cities – in the end, only 4 were found – Lot, his wife who looked back and turned into a pillar of salt and his two daughters.

Christians, if they do care at all can carry the mercy of God for any city and become the love of God to people who they think are not on the right path – however, with all this activism, Christians are not emulating Abraham by any stretch of the imagination, it is as if they are urging on the destruction of the cities in which they reside, in the process, their lack of Christian compassion for others will leave them running for cover from destruction with nothing but the clothes they have on; just being saved by the skin of their teeth.

Gay marriage is not the issue if the gospel is concentrated on, the example of Christ is what we should strive to show to others.

Luke 15:1-2 (NLT) is an interesting reference to the kind of people who sought to keep company with Jesus - ¹Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. ² This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!

I do not see a good deal of the message and activism of Christians getting notorious sinners to come round and listen – Pause and think.

Im-Palin-g McCain's picket

Cultivating relationships

I have made many acquaintances but have very few friends, in fact, the people I call my friends, I have known for at least 15 years, putting that in the time frame of my last long-term partner, beyond that, it goes back 24 years.

Some 22 years ago, when I was made the class representative and a good representative I was, we were a noisy class and when someone challenged me about being the ring-leader of the noise-makers, I had to say if I did not represent my class in noise-making I would not be representing them effectively.

The real context of this is I left that school with 3 good friends, one of whom I have lost contact with in Russia, one with whom I have little contact in Nigeria and the other with whom I talk to quite frequently in London.

These along with the other friends are people I can trust with a lot, talk to about much and expect to act in my behalf just as if I were there without any fear for their judgement and whilst being assured of the quality of their person and integrity.

I am proud to say that where I have recommended these people on my own recognisance they have been accepted in my person and proved to be just as recommended and better.

I have also entered into business dealings with people through having first known them, known their judgement, their values and realised how we can work together for a common good, I do not take these issues lightly at all.

My congratulations to Sarah Palin

It is on this note that I first congratulate Sarah Palin [1] on being selected by John McCain as his vice-Presidential running mate. Until she was selected, I did not know anything about this governor of a backwater state called Alaska [2] apart from the bridge to nowhere [3] which has since been abandoned [4] by her and the indictments [5] of Ted Stevens [6], the longest serving GOP Senator.

What we read about Sarah Palin is interesting, a mother of 5 children, the last being born only in April 2008 with Down’s Syndrome, she is a devout Christian, pro-life and pro-gun politician who seems to be working at cleaning up Alaskan politics.

She has been governor for less than 2 years and might be implicated [7] in trying to obtain the sacking of her ex-brother-in-law who was undergoing a messy divorce and child custody batter with her sister as a serious abuse of power.

Gay abortions of gun marriage

On the issues that excite the conservatives about her candidacy, I find myself more pragmatic than fundamentalist and agree more with Senator Obama’s views on abortion, gun-control and gay marriage as he articulated in his acceptance speech [8].

The need to work on preventing unwanted pregnancies than jostling with the issue of abortion could mean condoms and contraceptives have a place in society, if we are less emotive about presumed societal decay. People would always have sex, it is probably better we ensure they have it safely and avoid regrettable situations.

Being painted as an Annie, Get Your Gun figure does nothing for me, it fact that gun use in the country differs from what guns get used for in the inner cities; there is a need for balance in enacting laws with due respect to the 2^nd Amendment to protect rights as well as protect lives.

If people have a right to love regardless of gender pairing, that love-relationship constitutes their family unit for those concerned such that sharing, caring and privileges should by rights and fairness accrue to that relationship.

I still contend that it is only those whose heterosexual marriages and relationships are weak that think gay marriage would impact on marriage as an institution. If same-sex couples had basic rights conferred on their partnerships, there would be no need for the marriage debate, but the absence of such partnership rights makes many want to go the whole hog and I see nothing really wrong with that.

Time for the United States of Americans

America within itself needs conciliation through pragmatic analysis of social issues not the promotion of political figures that accentuate the wedge issues that divide the people, polarise the nation and try to make traitors of people who disagree about these things.

We need the vision of a new president who brings together the whole country in the unity of purpose looking to change and grasping unto the edifying message of hope than one who dwells on the divisions that has turned America into one of the most divided countries on social issues.

Conservatives and liberals alike have to recognise that they are all American first and the politics of being disagreeable because of the difference of opinion has to stop – I must contend the Obama offers the healing balm of reason that John McCain cannot deign to offer to his most beloved country.

This is no great thing

Nevertheless, I am not excited by any stretch of the imagination about McCain’s choice of vice-President. It is amazing that after so many years in Washington, his numbered years and the need to buttress areas where he is weak, he has chosen to lay such a responsibility on someone he has only met once before, with whom he has no particular affinity.

Nobody can convince me that this selection is borne of some deliberate and considered thinking that binds people who have developed a relationship of mutual aims, goals and vision.

The fellowship of minds

I have just started a new job today, the company has in the past employed the best consultants money could buy to solve intractable problems with solutions that sound amazing but yield none of the expected results.

The team has now regrouped into one that seeks shared experiences with others who they have worked with before to address the problems with the fellowship of minds that are geared to succeed rather than push a particular solution provider’s agenda which just accumulates hours of expensive waffle.

I find myself amongst people who I have worked with in different companies over the last 5 years, who I know, who I respect, who have a shared vision and acknowledging each others expertise and who have gathered together to be a winning team – we know we would crack those problems because we have developed a relationship of peers and expertise.

After an exemplary life

The choice that John McCain has made is the most cynical ploy to emotively use gender sympathies and religious adherence to befuddle voters into a false sense of thinking sameness brings comfort, it offers the opportunity for a complacency that imagines things would be done the way we believe we would do things. How further from the truth can we be about judgement and the assessment of character?

It is a presidency not a bishopric that is at stake, it is about human government not church government. I would be fearful of an ultra-religious person who dreams dreams, sees visions and reckons that God commands them to take some action without considering all the consequences for the basis of secular government.

America has been too divided along wedge issues to tolerate more of the same again for 4 more years.

I am surprised that no one sees that after 72 years of a rather distinguished and exemplary life John McCain could find no friend, colleague, confidant, mentor or protégé in his long political, social, business or military life and career to join him in the most important quest of his life but a stranger.

No judgment no story

This man has no judgment; he fails woefully at what should have been the culmination of relationships with other men and women he has met in all walks of life; this should have had a history and story that fills us with awe, but he picks someone he met only six months ago.

He is both a maverick and breathtakingly reckless; the levers of world government must never be within his grasp.

There is no greater poverty of spirit and goodwill than to share your greatest stage with strangers rather than with friends, with people you hardly know, in order to prove you are different.

This is exactly what makes John McCain unworthy of the calling to which he aspires, he has made vain a lifetime of experiences to hug the limelight alone and he has dangled a juicy bait that has everyone whooping too distractedly to realise that they are being patronised by a consummate denier of his legacy and his original platforms for the want of power.

A picket not a ticket

It has left the Economist asking Bring back the real McCain [9] in their leader this week, just as John Kerry compared and contrasted Senator McCain with Candidate McCain in his speech [10] at the Democratic National Convention last week.

The selection of Sarah Palin does not present us with a McCain-Palin ticket, rather it is an appalling McCain picket; it is not revolutionary but reactionary, it not inspired but desperate, it is not conciliatory but anarchist, it not cultured but vulgar, it is not considered but rash, it is maverick in its context and reckless to the extreme.

For a man of John McCain’s stature to impose on a nursing mother he hardly knows regardless of her abilities and suitability a responsibility so large as to create the most exacting pressures on her needs to satisfy motherhood and the call of office is in the least irresponsible and at the most heartless.

If the 3:00AM advertisement [11] would ever question the ability of anyone to meet the demands of a great crisis, just imagine accommodating that under the stress of nursing a child that most definitely needs that extra bit of care and having another child away in harm’s way in a war that should never have been started.

I am sorry, this selection is not gentlemanly at all and it proves once and for all that Senator John McCain is probably better a senator and definitely not material for a president by any stretch of the imagination.

The man is just not the man we used to know.

Sources

[1] Sarah Palin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Alaska - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] The Bridge to Nowhere: A National Embarrassment

[4] 'Bridge to nowhere' abandoned - CNN.com

[5] Nation & World | Ted Stevens indicted, longest-serving GOP senator | Seattle Times Newspaper

[6] Ted Stevens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[7] Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[8] Obama: We are better than these last eight years - CNN.com

[9] The presidential race | Bring back the real McCain | Economist.com

[10] Transcript: Sen. John Kerry On Foreign Policy : NPR

[11] Hillary Clinton, 3am commercial White House Ad - Truveo Video Search

Seriously obsessed with gays

Obsessed about gays

The archbishop beat me to it, but one cannot help but notice the all-pervasive obsession with homosexuality amongst seemingly heterosexual macho men or fertile women all around the world. I do have time for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a perceptive, practical, conciliatory world figure who I do respect.

The Church in its various guises has split over so many issues, in this day, it would have been more edifying if they were split on how best to handle to the scourge of HIV/AIDS - by missionary work or sending aid - maybe Darfur - by finding ways of isolating the government of Sudan or finding ways of safely getting medical and food aid to the refugees - or global poverty.

This is where the Church may be seen as relevant and responding to the needs of people, it also helps the work of evangelism as people see the work of Christ exhibited selflessly by fellow human-beings.

Galvanised on the negative

Unfortunately, the church cannot seem to galvanise itself on the work of compassion and love, their energies are being expended on the sexual preferences of people who would rarely visit church.

Those who visit and decide to fellowship in the communion are castigated and ostracised; they become the objects of pontifical proclamations of evil such that those barely interested in church do not bother themselves with the matter any more.

There may indeed be chapter and verse of fork-lifted scripture to condone and encourage animosity against homosexuals, but I cannot recall the Gospel being preached in that manner or tone - basically, you cannot get religion into people if religion would not first accept them as they are and then teach them how to live and grow in the tenets or doctrines of the same.

The gates are closed and slammed shut, long before the people who probably need church have had time to walk down the road that leads to the parish.

One would not be remiss at noticing that the church has definitely lost its way, the message of charity and compassion has been lost in the cacophony of conservative activism and some moral debate which in no way addresses fundamental human suffering as we see in the world today.

A right-wing ambush of shame

Move to Moscow last weekend and a peaceful protest to ask the Mayor of Moscow to allow a gay march, something that freely happens in most Western capitals is overrun by right-wing yobs throwing Nazi salutes for the purity of Russia.

It makes you wonder, if the spread of right-wing intolerance is the better image for a country or the simple acceptance of the fact that a minority people can be different and they too just have as much rights as any other citizen of that great country.

The question then becomes - what is it about homosexuality that agitates heterosexuals so radically?

Definitely, something deep down in heterosexual psyche is in need of psychoanalysis because I have never seen homosexuals get agitated about the gathering of homosexuals, they all probably grew up amongst that lot and have had to live with bigotry, intolerance and violence that comes at them every day.

That old rope

Many would say, I have heard that before, even the just recently deceased Reverend Jerry Falwell subjected himself to abject ridicule when he suggested that Tinky-Winky in the Children's TV show - Teletubbies was homosexual because of the purple colour of the body suit and his handbag.

No doubt it does look a bit suggestive; a spokesperson for children's rights in Poland picks up this dirty rag 8 years on. Ewa Sowinska first thought the character was female then thought male; asexual did not occur to her, fair enough.

She wants a psychological evaluation of Tinky-Winky to be done to determine if Teletubbies is suitable viewing for Polish children.

Now, I have seen how enthralled little children get with watching Teletubbies, it would be like snatching milk from the mouth of babies in order to protect them from - you tell me.

How do we get people like this to express such dastardly opinions in public and still appear sane? We are all obsessed with homosexuality - the sooner we own up the better we would feel about ourselves and the self-loathing that exacerbates the externalisation of unwarranted anger against harmless people who just want to get on with their lives.

That last question I asked 18 months ago lingers - Does gay marriage affect the relationship between you and your partner? If Yes; Why? If No; What is the problem?

Her wife and his husband in South Africa

Signed and sealed with a kiss – same-sex relationships are now legally recognized in South Africa, we can probably wait a century for that emancipation proclamation to travel north of those borders into other areas of Africa.

I wrote about the animosity same sex marriage was getting in Nigeria in April and someone commented and on it just 2 weeks ago.

His comment - So Mr. West (My new name) are you gay? It is the usual thing isn't it, it is acceptable in the West so it must be acceptable everywhere else, the rest of the world is ignorant, crude etc etc. Do you ask why it is now acceptable in the West only because of the break down of morality you may not like it but that is the truth.

He might have a point there, we think what is acceptable in the West must be accepted everywhere else.

However, the breakdown of morality thing does get to me, are non-Westerners adherents of better morals or prisoners of religious strictures that subscribe to the doctrine of “Do as I say?” – Well, that is debatable, read as rhetorical.

However, if we look at this issue from a perspective of justice, fairness, freedom of choice and association without the fear of persecution, then the civil law must not be used to impose moral values on a people.

What is even more interesting is where people are so up on morals but having nothing on ethical conduct, the abuse of women, the abuse of power, the abuse of influence, the abuse of children and the prevalence of disease, poverty, war and deprivation goes on as the leaders of our moral race dine and wine with impunity.

Morally bankrupt would need some redefining in the light of these issues.

From His Disgrace to Her Grace

The trap of gay marriage

Just in the month of November 2006, 2 notable religious people captured our imagination with one overtaking the headlines as the US elections came upon us.

At the centre was the issue of gay marriage; one supported the notion in the church and the other spat hail and brimstone from the pulpit excoriating every thought of that idea.

As we know, the issue of gay marriage was supposedly used to swing the votes in undecided states in favour of the President George Bush’s re-election in 2004 and the same thing is being mooted for the election that is currently taking place today.

The party of sins

The received wisdom is if this juxtaposed against Republican or Democratic candidate, the gush of liberalism that has been used to tarnish the Democrats would lead religious conservatives, namely, evangelicals to vote for Republicans who have arrogated to themselves the seeming moniker of the “Party of God”.

If anything, it now appears the Republican Party has become the party of sinners from lobbying misdeeds (Abramoff), fundraising indictments (De Lay) or inactivity to sexual predation (Foley), just to mention a few.

Against gay marriage but for divorce

The gay marriage issue which I have written about a few times is quite a hot-button issue in America, but the more interesting part is that it has no relationship to the protection of traditional marriages.

Massachusetts, the only state to legalise gay marriage has the lowest divorce rate in the United States, whilst the highest divorce rates can be found in the Bible belt where they are implacably against gay marriage as research reveals.

It is like a case of they cannot keep together and would not allow others to get together, bizarre but true.

Daytime saint and night time sinner

However, lightening struck when a gay escort went public accusing a leading evangelical leader of having a sex relationship lasting 3 years and abusing drugs. In what is outrageous cant and brazen shameless hypocrisy, he was having homosexual pleasures privately and condemning gay marriage publicly – that is just not on.

So, he resigned his appointment and he was, as it were, defrocked, just about the same time, someone else was taking on the frock.

A woman attended her investiture as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States.

Not only have we moved beyond the ordination of women, she supported the consecration of a gay bishop which is causing schism in the church she has not taken a negative stance against gay marriage.

Obviously, the police do have to go back to investigate the peddling of drugs by the gay escort amongst other possible misdemeanours, but that is not news, in the midst of what is a religious earthquake.

In one week, we move from His Disgrace to Her Grace, the way of religion is sometimes unsearchable.

References

US Divorce rates

Episcopal Church elects female leader

Church forces out Haggard for 'sexually immoral conduct'

First Woman Elected as Leader of US Episcopal Church

Katharine Jefferts Schori

Keeping moral convictions out of the US Constitution

The props are falling in the wind

This is a time when one could be tempted to feel sorry for Mr Bush, but then that would be utterly feeble-minded.

The architect in the person of Mr. Karl Rove would sure find something to assuage the pain and galvanise the troops for the November elections.

This empathetic irrational rush comes from ideas that got scuttled in the House and the Senate yesterday.

I had written about 6 weeks ago about the divisive and galvanising issues that the President has recently be using as a ploy to manipulate moral convictions into constitutional law.

The three issues are as I stated then

1. Outlaw all stem cell research (ambivalent support)

2. Constitutionally outlaw abortion (supported but can split the less fundamental conservatives)

3. Constitutionally ban gay marriage (widespread support)

The Legislature defies the Executive

Yesterday the Senate approved stem cell research although with 4 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto. The President might well exercise the veto and if reason does prevail in the Senate, they might just muster more than the 4 votes needed to close this issue once and for all.

In the same day, the House of Representatives rejected the constitutional amendment which would have banned gay marriage, also with a majority 47 votes short of two-thirds – however, this debate would for a while no more see congressional rancour.

Interestingly, when the Senate voted on this issue, just over 5 weeks ago, it was a knife-edge vote of 49-48 against constitutional interference.

The constitution is not the Bible

This is not to ignore the fact that there is still widespread support for propping up heterosexual unions and discouraging homosexual unions – the issue at hand is, that desire does not belong in a constitution, especially not in one that a democracy depends on.

The moment moral and ethical convictions become constitution staple, we are not on some smooth sailing venture to the growth of civil moral rectitude, and rather it invites a downward spiral that catches the Puritans where it hurts most – embarrassment.

We have seen it times before in the “Back to Basics” program of the Tories and other anti-sleaze ideas that make some politicos assume a more saintly image than others only to be revealed and merely mortal and grossly fallible.

Abortion is settled in law

The final contentious issue is abortion, it appears the Supreme Court would not be obliging on this matter regardless of the conservative slant they have and 5 out of the judges publicly back Roe v. Wade.

The seminal Jane Roe v. Henry Wade of 1973 more or less sees a constitutional right related to the choice of abortion if requested subject to gestation terms and medical supervision amongst other sex education issues.

Beyond all this, Mr Bush can still make the wolf howls and Catherine wheels that would gather his congregations, but this fight would be in the consciences of the people not in the tussle between the Judiciary, the Legislature and the Executive – that is democracy.

Insemination Tax Credit

Not just an American problem

The leader of the free world has now put the freeze on freedom. As the second proclamation against gay marriage goes out in America, it is not so much the Americans that are affected, but other places in the world where minorities are oppressed and persecuted.

These places have not even gotten to the first rung of granting basic humanity rights to these minorities and this strident American posture simply means they can crack down harder and dehumanise people for being who they are.

Homosexuals are getting killed in the 21st Century and all the President can worry about is getting fundamentalists out to vote in the November election, who cares about those aberrant lifestyles – we should all conform to the norm.

Where do homos come from exactly?

What is so interesting is this talk about strong families, giving the impression that homosexuals are some alien species – sorry – homosexuals also come from the union of man and woman – probably in better functional families that went to church like it was going out of fashion.

However, let us go the whole hog about protecting marriage, not the paltry tax breaks, the pension rights, the familial rights, inheritance rights or child credit.

Mr President, put your money where your argument for strong families is – I suggest the Insemination Credit.

Swab the evidence

Ditch, all this family planning stuff, anytime a man goes in to his wife, without contraceptive protection, a swap is taken and sent to the IRS, which becomes a tax break of probably $100.00 is credited to the account of that happy family.

Strong large broods of families, all encouraged to strengthen the bonds of marriage, even better than the Nazis attempted. Every child carries a label, conceived on the insemination credit – attesting to the work of the state in building loving families of people loving their nation to bits.

Traditional values of homemaking

Forget love, we are back down to traditional values, women as baby-making machines, liberated in the triangle of the bed, the kitchen and the living room.

She knows her lot in life, to help her husband bring up strong vibrant families, in times of tumult, the perfect marriage which gives lordship of the man over the woman … I cannot go any further – but we have just begun to go down this slope because a fundamentalist President rules in the White House.