Equal Marriage marching on except in Northern Ireland

Cross posted on LGBT+ Lib Dems Northern Ireland

Liberal Democrats at Edinburgh's Equal Marriage March
Picture copyright Liberal Youth Scotland

On Valentine's Day my Lib Dem colleagues in Scotland joined others for a march to Holyrood in support of equal marriage. As you may be aware there has been a consultation process there into the subject and the Government are now considering those submissions. There will also be a consultation by Westminster covering England and Wales.

However, the week before in the Northern Ireland Assembly the subject of the Sexual Orientation Strategy once again emerged from the long grass it has spent most of a decade in to feature at the top of First Minister's Questions. With the Junior Minister saying that OFMDFM do intend to publish this strategy and the revised Cohesion Sharing and Integration programme this year it fell on my Green Party MLA Steven Agnew to ask about one specific:

Mr Agnew: Will there be any mention of gay marriage (Editor's note: I will be sending a note off to my MLA to correct his language on this) in the sexual orientation strategy? Has any progress been made on providing full equal rights to gay couples?

Mr Bell (Junior Minister, Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister): Questions on those matters are the subject of much discussion and have been the subject of much discussion in the media over recent weeks. The issue is not under active consideration.

Now just what did the Junior Minister mean by that?

Is it simply that there is no active consideration of extending equal marriage legislation to Northern Ireland, even if the rest of the UK does. Seeing as we still lag behind on adoption for gay parents and blood donation, this would not be out of character for the Norther Ireland Assembly.

However, more problematic is what if the rest of the UK do accept equal marriage, what consideration then is there to recognise those couples so married should they choose to reside in Northern Ireland? Will their marriages valid and recognised in the majority of the UK not be recognised in Northern Ireland. If they are not civil partnered but married be offered protections under the law of a region that is only recognising marriage as between people of opposite gender and civil partnerships as between those of the same gender.

There could be knock on effects if Northern Ireland doesn't recognise equal marriages from the rest of the UK or indeed the world within its Sexual Orientation Strategy. There will be concerns as far as benefits go, health provision, wording and filling in of forms in all manner of ways.

The fact that there is no active consideration of the complications that carrying on a different approach to the rest of the UK again means that Northern Ireland will be reactionary in its response to this issue and is failing to be proactive in thinking there will be consequences. Not everyone born in Northern Ireland stays here, a lot of us do go elsewhere to study/work. Many of us fall in love with people from other parts of the UK, some of us may even bring that partner to live with us here in Northern Ireland.

So if an LGBT couple fall into that last category having been married elsewhere what position does that leave them in under Northern Irish legislation?

Rangers go into Administration

One half of the Old Firm of Scottish football lodged an intention with the Court of Session in Edinburgh to go into administration this lunchtime. They now have five days to appoint an administrator.

We wonder what punishment the Ibrox giants will incur as a result of doing so to relieve debts of £21-75m.

The last time a Scottish League team went into administration without penalty was Livingston then of the SPL on 3 February 2004, just before their CIS Cup Semi-Final the tournament they went on to win that year. They were managed by the preferred consortium for the following season before Lionheart took them out of Administration, but after relegation to the First Division.

Since then there have been three league teams that have entered administration:

Gretna had been allowed up to the SPL without meeting the ground regulations in time. But after living the dream the nightmare was entered on 8 March 2008, when they entered administration with debts of a mere £4m. The team were already bottom of the SPL but were deducted a further 10 points. At the end of the season they faced relegation and the Scottish Football League uncertain if they would fulfill their fixtures relegated them to the lowest tier of League Football into Division 3. The SFL fears were well founded as the team was liquidated on 8 August weeks before the start of the season.

Debt £4m
Crime Entering adminstration, then fear of completing fixtures following season
Penalty 10 point deduction, then later relegation down to bottom tier Division 3

Livingston were again in trouble after the Italian Job turned out to have been some sort of hatchet job. Something those of us in the stands had been growing more aware of all that single season of Massone control. With unpaid bills to the council of £330,000 the Court of Session put the club into administration on 28 July 2009. Two days later despite the fans baying him to sell the club to the administrator Massone refused twice and liquidation proceedings were begun. The new owners who the administrator had been acting on behalf of lodged a surety bond of £720,000 against any loss of earnings should the club fold, were still relegated to Division 3 on 5 August, less than a week before the first league game was scheduled within the period of any appeal. Rules of insolvency was the reason cited for such a harsh penalty, despite the successful bid being in place with the support of the fans even before the entering of administration.

Debt £330,000 minimum (rumours of max £1m)
Crime Entering adminstration, then liquidation in and out less than a week after.
Penalty relegation to bottom tier Division 3

Dundee like Livingston had been in administration before from 25 November 2003 to 6 August 2004. They entered administration on 14 October 2010 with debts of £2m, £420,000 of which was to the tax man. Their penalty was to face a 25 point deduction on 1 November which saw them on -11 points 20 points below the next team. Miraculously with only 11 senior team players left in the squad and a ban on buying players while in admin the team went on a Division one record 23 game unbeaten run to avoid slipping down in the same season that Livingston managed to win their way back up from their penalty.


Debt £2m
Crime entering adminstration for second time in 7 years
Penalty 25 point deduction

RANGERS


Apparently new owner Craig Whyte borrowed against 4 years future season ticket sales to 'reduce' the paper debt from £28m to £14m. This is thought to be a £21m debt to Ticketplus and then £5m VAT on that deal. There is also the issue that Rangers are currently awaiting the final verdict on the £49m Employee Benefit Trust tax case. It is a tangled web for one of the largest supported clubs in Scotland, that may well lead to liquidation proceedings. If it does what then. There has been the precedent set as above for such financial disasters.

Debt At least £21m possibly as much as £75m
Crime So far entering liquidation
Punishment To be decided

A lesson in statistics for Liberal Vision re: Liberal Reform

As many of you will know one thing I hate is the manipulation of statistics to try and say something. That certainly has something to do with having worked in statistics both in the public and private sectors. There is nothing I hate more than when political groups misappropriate statistics for their own ends and that includes within our own party.

Yet after the soft launch, or looking at the Lib Dem Voice Golden Dozen rather hard, of Liberal Left we now have another soft launch for a group calling itself Liberal Reform.

Now Liberal Vision got out the trumpets and Angela Harbutt to some fanfare said in their honour under the title The right sort of Lib Dem group announces its launch:

There has surely been a need for a grassroots membership group that speaks to the mainstream of the party embracing the free market, for quite sometime. According to a Lib Dem Voice survey from April last year, 35% of Lib Dem members and activists describe themselves as ‘economic liberals’, now a bigger presence in the party than those who would describe themselves as ‘Social Democrat’ (noting that less than half describe themselves as “centre left”). So the time is right for a group such as Liberal Reform.

Now the survey dates of that Lib Dem Voice survey were 18th to 24th April 2011. So far starters I know I for one was too busy in the run up to polling day to complete that one. It appears I was not alone, the previous Lib Dem Voice survey had 130 more respondents.

Lib Dem Voice also always add the caveat:

Please note: we make no claims that the survey is fully representative of the Lib Dem membership as a whole. However, LibDemVoice.org’s surveys are the largest independent samples of the views of Lib Dem members across the country, and have in the past accurately predicted the winners of the contest for Party President, and the result of the conference decision to approve the Coalition agreement.

They have also got things wrong in the past.

Put looking at said survey the rankings are:

Please tick any or all of the descriptions below that you would be happy for someone else to use to describe you:

• 87% – Liberal
• 65% – Progressive
• 64% – Social liberal
• 60% – Internationalist
• 55% – Pragmatic
• 52% – Reformer
• 45% – Centre-left
• 44% – Civil libertarian
• 44% – Radical
• 41% – Green
• 35% – Economic liberal
• 34% – Social democrat
• 33% – Moderate
• 30% – Moderniser
• 27% – Centrist
• 25% – Keynesian
• 21% – Libertarian
• 20% – Ideological
• 16% – Mainstream
• 14% – Free marketeer
• 9% – Centre-right

It is oft quoted that there are lies, damn lies and statistics which makes some of my previous jobs sound like a step down from the press. However, Angela was very particular in her picking of the stats. Comparing Economic Liberal with Social Democrat is not exclusively opposite, but in recent days those of us who were around in the early days of merger have learnt that the younger generation don't quite realise that. Also only highlighting that centre left is below 50% without direct contrast.

As you look at the stats you will note that Social Liberal is 64% to Economic Liberal 35% those two are more or less mutually exclusive opposites. Also while Centre Left is 45%, Centre Right is only 9% with Centrist coming at 27%. Therefore the defining of the centre we see that not everyone who says there are either centre right or left considers themselves wholly centrist, these three may well me almost mutually exclusive.

But to highlight only the figure of the 11th ranked word chosen by the 530 Lib Dem activists who filled in that survey to try and illustrate that you are mainstream seems a ridiculous use of survey statistics and would actually be statistically insignificant to claim as the norm or mainstream opinion.

Liberal Reform I note does refrain from using such divisive language, although I did recall seeing something, somewhere last night about not concentrating on targeting soft-left voters as we had done under Labour. Seeing as even when I was working in Labour held seats (as all our targets in Scotland were) I know that we also worked on soft-right voters from the Conservative vote I know that this wasn't the only place we were gaining support from. This comment has either since been deleted or I just haven't relocated it yet.

As I said last week, I don't like being TOLD that there is only one type of Yellowness that us Lib Dems ought to be. I'm all for discussing the values of various policy approaches, but for a party that talks about being left nor right we have some people who seem intend that we can only exist if we pull more one way than the other. Look what is top of that list of words, that is what I think we all should be

LIBERAL

Note: the author has worked in the Statistics Branch of a Northern Ireland Department and has provided analysis of customer service stats for two multi-national companies European and Global networks.

Boris Johnson hands St. Patrick's Day to Sinn Féin

Dear Boris,

I spent 7 St. Patrick's days in London.

On the first while in the Student Union I helped to set up Kingston University's Irish Society, which is still going strong 23 years later. On every single once of them apart from that one I was doing something Irish, sometimes in one of the centres of Irish population, but not necessarily. But always in London.

I was a member of London Irish and when I returned there after 1992 hoped to be able to represent them in Athletics though I never competed again. I also took part in Gaelic Football when I was there as a local team in Kingston was looking for players, so I merely transposed by football and rugby skills to a different sport for a couple of years.

Therefore to condemn all the London Irish who attend a gala dinner on St. Patricks day as part of Sinn Féin and the event as being "lefty crap", and the people being "lazy and stupid" is offensive and racist. You wouldn't call all the London Scots who attended a Burns Supper last month as being members of the SNP, nor call them tight and drunkards. But then knowing your record of stupid sayings offending cities, peoples and nations maybe you would.

Yours a proud Liberal Democrat, former London Irish man, whose eyes are more on Rome than Paris this afternoon and that for the rugby and not the Pontiff.

Daily Fail misreport courts ruling on prayers

Seeing this mornings Daily Mail (paper edition) front page you would almost believe that David Cameron, or at least the personage of Ken Clarke in his role as Lord Chancellor had declared war on Marx's opiate of the masses.

The two stories that sparked the headline

CHRISTIANITY UNDER ATTACK


with the subheader

Anger as TWO major court ruling go against British worshippers


Refers of course the case in Bideford Council and the failed appeal of Cornish guest house owners [both links to non Daily Fail coverage].

First lets us look at the ruling on prayers before council meetings. The Mail screams out that these are now banned. Here are the words of Mr Justice Ouseley who ruled on that case:

"A local authority has no powers under section 111 of theLocal Government Act 1972 to hold prayers as part of a formal local authority meeting or to summon councillors to such a meeting at which prayers are on the agenda. 

"The saying of prayers in a local authority chamber before a formal meeting of such a body is lawful provided councillors are not formally summoned to attend."

Hang on  there! Far from being banned the judge said it was lawful to hold prayers before a council meeting. What wasn't lawful for requiring ALL councillors to have to attend.

If the calling to order of the council meeting occurs after the prayers are said and councillors who do not wish to partake in them have a chance to enter the chamber then no harm is done. In other words prayer is allowed, just don't force everyone to take part in it against their own conscious. Something that Christians also want to be allowed to do themselves.

The second, which happens to be the result of the appeal hearing, just happened to be delivered on the same day. It is the case of the Christian guest B&B owners who prevented a civil partnered homosexual couple from staying in a double room.

On this occasion we turn to the ruling of Lady Justice Rafferty.

"Whilst the appellants' beliefs about sexual practise may not find the acceptance that once they did, nevertheless a democratic society must ensure that their espousal and expression remain open to those who hold them.

"It would be unfortunate to replace legal oppression of one community (homosexual couples) with legal oppression of another (those sharing the appellants' beliefs).

"However, in a pluralist society it is inevitable that from time to time, as here, views, beliefs and rights of some are not compatible with those of others. As I have made plain, I do not consider that the appellants face any difficulty in manifesting their religious beliefs. They are merely prohibited from so doing in the commercial context they have chosen."

So here we have a judgement that says the the Christian owners had no issue in expressing and manifesting their beliefs, however they had entered a trade of hospitality. The point was made at the time of the judgement had they checked the marriage certificate of every "heterosexual couple" who had turned up at their guesthouse to book a double room. Their objection had been to the fact that the couple were not in marriage of a man and a woman and they would not let them share a room. One wonders what the report would have been if one of the 'of faith' civil partnered couples that I know had been the couple in question? Because then you would have had two potentially christian couples of differing opinions on either side of this debate.

In both cases there was no hindrance in worshippers actually worshipping. What there was however, was protection under the law for those that are not worshippers, or at least don't not believe the same as the worshippers in question.

If Christians want to maintain freedom of their religion they really must stop attacking others options to opt out of their belief system.

1908 Summer Olympics London: IV Olympiad

"And the games of the 5th Olympiad are awarded to.......Rome"

So why are we in London? And why are they now the 4th?

Last first the Intercalated games of 1906 (see last week's post) were at the time recognised as the 4th Olympiad, up until 1949 the position of the 1906 Games being in dispute. The former is because on 7 April 1906 Mount Vesuvius erupted devastating Naples and the funds that were designated for the Olympic stadiums and infrastructure were directed instead to that end. London stepped into the breach, not for the last time.

For the first time athletes came in behind their nation's standard

Nations 22 (+10)
Competitors 2008 (+1357)
Sports 22 (+5)
Events 110 (+19)

27 April - 31 October 1908 London, United Kingdom

An introduction to the opening ceremony in London was the parade of athletes behind the standards of their nation. This was because for the first time competitors truly where there to represent their nations and not as individuals. The days of the mixed national teams in Olympic games were over. So around the White City Stadium paraded the flags of the 22 competing nations lined up with Greece to the front and the United Kingdom (as their banner says in the picture) to the rear.

The new nations to take part in the games were Turkey (who were represented by one Greek athlete Aleko Moullos in the Gymnastics), Finland (though still part of the Russian Empire as the Grand Ducky of Finland at the time) and New Zealand (though their three athletes formed an Australasia team with the Australians).

The first Winter Olympians

Salchow

At the Prince's Skating Club in Knightsbridge on the 28th and 29th October a first occured for the Olympic movement medals were awarded for what are considered winter sports now.

Ulrich Salchow of Sweden (pictured) who the following year would the following year take off on the back inside edge, and land on the back outside edge of his other foot, the jump that still bears his name took gold. Sweden took all three medals in the mens singles.

Great Britain took the women's singles through Madge Sayers, who along with her 45 year-old husband Edgar took bronze in the pairs behind the German pair of Anna Hübler (Germany's first female champion) and Heinrich Burger.

Panin

There was another dicipline the Men's special figures, which went to the Russian Nikolai Panin (their first gold). He was a multi-sports person, taking part also in rowing, cycling, athletics and gymnastics. With skating not on the Olympic calendar again for 16 years in 1912 he took part in the 50m pistol coming 8th.

Other new sports


Hockey (field) also made its debut at these games. Don't tell FIFA but at the first London games along with France and Germany the hockey teams on England, Scotland,Wales and Ireland all took part. England beat Ireland in the final and Scotland and Wales each took bronze.

Jeu de paume (Real Tennis) made its one and only Olympic appear at Queen's Club it went to one of the two Americans, Jay Gould II, in the otherwise British field of eleven.

Rackets also made it only Olympic appearance at that other great Tennis venue the All England Club that will once again be hosing Olympic Tennis this summer. All the competitors were however British so I'll let you guess who won all the medals then.

Water motorsports The London games were the only ones for which motorised sports are still counted in the medals table as three classes of motorboat raced in Southampton Water. However, in each of the three classes although multiple boats started only one in each completed the five laps of the 8 mile course. After these games the IOC stated that the games were not intended for motorised sport.

Some familiarities


The Diving in London took on a familiar look after its debut in St. Louis, although the names of high diving (for the 10m platform) and fancy diving (for the 3m springboard) less so. Although there was also a 1m springboard in that competition the medals fit only in the now familiar categories.

Preparing for the start of Marathon at Windsor

The marathon up until London had been a distance approximately the distance from Marathon to Athens approx 26 miles. But the race from Winsdor to the Olympic Stadium was meant to be just 26 miles, with the athletes using the Royal Entrance to the Olympic stadium before doing a 586 yard lap of the track. However, when it was realised that the Royal carriage would be blocking the Royal Entrance an alternative entrance was found leaving still 26 miles to the stadium, but a clockwise run around the track to a finish line made an extra 385 yards. In 1912 and 1920 the distance continued to vary, but from 1924 onwards the London distance became the official Olympic distance.

On a personal note a marathon has been run in London every year since that 1908 Olympic marathon. Even though the London Marathon only started in 1981 there was a continuous annual race organised by the Polytechnic Harriers (until 1999) the club of . My first brush with Olympic history was training on the track of Kingston Athletic Club and Polytechnic Harriers while at Kingston Polytechic (different Poly as Regent Street is now part of Westminster University).

These were the first Olympic games to be held in London, this summer the city will set a new record for hosting the most Summer Games. We've heard talk about the the legacy of the 2012 Games but what of the 1908 Games?

When a judge ruled that British athlete Wyndham Halswelle had been interfered with by one of the other finalists in the 400m there was a dispute as the definition of what deemed interference was different in the USA and British rules for running the event. The result was a rerun of the race, but the accused and his two fellow Americans refused to run. It meant that Halswelle had the only walkover win in Olympic history.

Following that event in the the greatest legacy of 1908 must surely be the establishment of standard rules for the sports that were deemed to be Olympic sports. Also bringing in judges from other countries other than the host. From here on all sports would be deemed to be judged impartially and a set of rules would be known for each competition. On top of this after the near death experience for the Games in St. Louis, London had given them high profile. Although they were still somewhat drawn out they were successful and as we know the movement has survived to this day.

See also:

• I Athens 1896
• II Paris 1900
• III St. Louis 1904
• Intercalated Athens 1906
• V Stockholm 1912
• VII Antwerp 1920
• VIII Paris 1924

Is Thatchell speaking with forked tongue regarding Ken?

The Peter Tatchell foundation have issued the following statement on Facebook regarding Ken Livingstone's 'riddled' comment about LGBT Tories. Embolding is mine for the purposes laid out below.

Ken Livingstone is not homophobic. His use of the word 'riddled' has to be judged in context. It was clearly not used with any homophobic intent. All parties have lots of gay, bisexual MPs, as Ken noted. He is right to state that there were many gay MPs in the Tory party, from the backbenches to the cabinet. After Labour’s victory in 1997 many gay Labour MPs came out, while gay Tories remained in the closet, continued to vote against gay equality. Ken is correct to suggest that in the 1980s and 90s the Conservative Party was avowedly anti-gay, while having many gay MPs. Lots of Tories opposed gay equality, despite their own homosexuality. They were hypocrites, homophobes. Ken is right to point this out.

In recent years, the Conservative leadership has embraced gay equality, which is commendable. However, only two weeks ago it was reported that 100 Tory MPs intend to block David Cameron’s plan to end the ban on same-sex marriage. They still oppose gay equality.

However, when Livingstone was Mayor in 2005 he invited outspoken Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi to London. Thatchell himself called him out as being a hypocrite at the time.

he Mayor justifies hosting Qaradawi on the grounds that he wants a dialogue with Muslims. But why is Ken having a dialogue with a reactionary Muslim leader? Why isn’t he meeting liberal Muslims who believe in human rights? Why does he host a homophobe like Qaradawi while ignoring pleas from the Muslim gay group, Imaan?

Ken has been a long-time ally of the lesbian and gay community. He stood up for our rights long before any other major politician. He deserves our respect and appreciation. But on the issue of Qaradawi, Ken has made a major misjudgement.

In the name of fighting Islamophobia the Mayor is colluding with homophobia. He appears to believe that Muslim rights are more important than queer rights, and that it is acceptable to ally himself with fundamentalists who despise gays and want them killed.

Livingstone would never host Catholic extremists like Opus Dei or right-wing Anglicans from the Christian Institute. Why is he rolling out the red carpet for an Islamist hate-monger like Qaradawi? 

Ken seems willing to sacrifice gay rights if it is politically expedient to do so. Does he want Muslim votes? Is that why he is cosying up to Islamic fundamentalists like Qaradawi and the reactionary Muslim Association of Britain (MAB)?

Note at the end of this BBC article that is was the head of the Conservative group in the London Assembly who said "[Qaradawi] is the type of man Mr Livingstone should, like us, be condemning not cosying up to. It's utterly unacceptable." 


At that point it was the So why then does the Peter Thatchell foundation now back his use of the word, when in the past he has condemned him as willing to sacrifice gay rights for political expediency. Does raising the issue of previous LGBT closeted Conservatives in the run up to an election campaign not count as political expediency.

Does using a word like riddled, which I notice has casued outrage from with LGBT members of all parties (not just the Conservatives), not warrant an apology. The above which is not condemned, but put into context by the Thatchell Foundation. How come formerly it was a major misjudgement and yet not it is something that Thatchell has to jump in to explain. 

Clearly the use of the word was a misjudgement, although the Thatchell Foundation have refused to say that is it. But they are jumping in to defend one candidate, while there are another seven.

It is a political expediency that Livingstone has gone running to the best known LGBT rights campaigner to get him out of this jam following this faux pas of his own making?