On Wednesday, March 7, The (Glasgow) Herald printed yet another Letter to the Editor from Tim Hopkins, the Director of an organisation known as Equality Network the funding of which they themselves derscribe in the following terms: "We receive funding from the Scottish Government Equality Unit for five of our projects: LGBT Sector Building, Policy, Information, Scottish Transgender Alliance, and the Intersectional (Disability / LGBT) project. Our Everyone IN minority ethnic / LGBT project is funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. We receive funding from the Big Lottery Fund for our Transgender Transition Support project.
"We also receive funding from the European Commission Grundtvig programme for participation in a partnership project sharing knowledge about minority ethnic LGBT issues across Europe, and from the Lottery’s Awards for All programme for research into LGBT issues in sport."
In other words, we the taxpayer fund them.
In addition, they receive unconditional support from the media, with but few exceptions. These are important points to bear in mind in light of the obvious need to mount a defence of marriage in the face of government determination to do the bidding, not of the approximately 1% (or less) of the population who are homosexuals of one variety or another, but of a minority of that statistically tiny section of society. Albeit one must concede that they are a very vocal and influential minority of a minority. To put this into some sort of perspective, the entire homosexual community in Scotland could not fill Ibrox Park; the number agitating for a change in the marriage laws probably couldn't fill the directors box.
The Editor of the Herald in 2005 publicly stated, in print, in The Herald, that they always publish Letters which correct a mistake. I cannot remember the exact date but this was during a week in which there had been a news item about Great Ormond Street Hospital and its Peter Pan Legacy. The Herald published a Letter to the Editor correcting some sort of misrepresentation relating to a legal dispute that had arisen.
It was also during the sede vacante and a few days later one of their writers published an article in which she claimed that Cardinal Arinze was the son of a man who had been beatified by Pope John Paul II and who was therefore one step away from sainthood. So if Cardinal Arinze became the first black Pope would he also have the honour of canonising his own daddy? This ws a load of tosh. Having done a google search she had come across Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi whom Cardinal Arinze always referred to as his "spiritual father". Not quite the same thing as daddy! Needless to say, my letter of correction was filed under B for Bin.
Apart from his line of argument, it can hardly be called reasoning, Tim Hopkins's letter of Wednesday, March 7 also required correction as to fact. He stated, as fact, that the 2010 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey found that “more than 50% of Catholics in Scotland support same-sex marriage, with only 21% opposed.” This, of course, is not the first time he has peddled this lie. And needless to say my most recent Letter of Correction to the Editor of the Herald was again filed under B for Bin.
But read on Macduff:
Dear Sir (for it is he)
Tim Hopkins states (Letters, March 7) that the 2010 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey found that “61% agree that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, with only 19% disagreeing” and also that it “found that more than 50% of Catholics in Scotland support same-sex marriage, with only 21% opposed.”
I believe this latter statement to be a terminological inexactitude for I can find nowhere in the Survey any distinction between and among Christians by denomination.
As to his first assertion, the Executive Summary in its Conclusions merely states: “29. Finally, the increase in support for same sex marriage since 2006 suggests that a majority of people in Scotland would support same sex relationships being treated in law in the same manner as heterosexual relationships.” Note that important word “suggests”: it may or it may not be the case. The reason for this caution is quite simple: of those sampled, 1500 or so, only 21%, 300 or so, were prepared to tick the box on the questionnaire which indicated that they were strongly in agreement with the statement: “Gay or lesbian couples should have the right to marry one another if they want to.”
It is impossible to say with any degree of certainty how many of the 79% of the sample NOT already strongly persuaded that same-sex “marriage” should be allowed in law would accept that proposition were their attitudes to be more thoroughly tested AFTER a free, frank, open and informed public discussion of the matter taking into account ALL relevant issues.
And, of course, this is the very thing which the gay lobby wants at all costs to avoid, hence their disparagement of anybody opposing them as being homophobic, hateful, a bigot et cetera. Anything to avoid, to sidestep, legitimate discussion and open scrutiny. Tim Hopkins isn’t stupid. He knows that in the SSAS 2010 it was found that between 2006 and 2010 the percentage responding “very happy” or “happy” when asked their reaction to a close friend or relative forming a “long-term relationship” with someone of the same sex had not changed, 37%, while those “unhappy” or “very unhappy” had only decreased from 33% to 30% DESPITE the fact that the media, in all its forms, has, with but very few exceptions, acted as propagandist in behalf of Hopkins and his allies.
Colette Douglas Home being a good example of this (Opinion, March 6). One gem will suffice. According to her, after repeal of Section 2A not a lot happened. Not a lot? Well, not a lot if and only if you fail to take into account the fact that vested interest groups, like Hopkins’s Equality Network and Stonewall, persuaded government and local education authorities to give them free and frequent access to schools on the double pretext that (1) there was a major problem with bullying in all our schools, primary and secondary, and that this was overwhelmingly of the gay-bashing variety, and (2) that they, and they alone, were best placed to go into schools to deal with it.
The reality of this is no different here than in the USA where a leading gay activist, Daniel Villareal, freely admitted: “They accuse us of exploiting children and in response we say, ‘NOOO! We’re not gonna make kids learn about homosexuality, we swear! It’s not like we’re trying to recruit your children or anything.’ But let’s face it—that’s a lie. We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality. In fact, our very future depends on it.”
(This was on his Blog “Queerty: Free of an agenda. Except that gay one”, May 11, 2011. But a word of caution. Anybody wishing to check this on the internet should be warned that the site is quite explicit, I would say offensive, in both the language and images used.)
So let’s have that thing the SNP administration tells us they are dead keen on, a national conversation, a public dialogue involving all concerned; a meaningful, free, frank and open discussion. And then let us have the only social survey that really matters: a referendum.
I remain, Sir, your humble and obedient Servant
Hughie McLoughlin
If anyone wishes to read through the whole of the report, Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2010: Attitudes to Discrimination and Positive Action, go to:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/08/11112523/0
No comments:
Post a Comment