Stonewall try and fail to be inclusive

Today Stonewall launch their campaign to tackle homophobia in work. There are four poster designs, though by looking at their website you would think that there are only three. Two are all male with the headline "One is Gay". There is a lesbian version but this morning it took many LGBT activists some time to locate it.


There is one woman that Stonewall are happy to promote on their posters about this campaign. She is a police officer who appears with a male colleague under the title "One is bisexual". So the women may actually be the straight one on that poster, after all we are assuming that the other one is, unless she is a lesbian and her male colleague is the bisexual.

However, what many campaigners including myself picked up on the bisexual poster is that apart from the title you would not know that Britain's "self-proclaimed" leader in the LGB rights

The text underneath all four designs is the same.

At Stonewall we've campaigned for 25 years for equality. We've had major successes with legaslising same-sex marriage, repealing section 28 and lifting the ban on gay people serving in the military. But 99% of young gay people still regularly hear homophobic language in school, 100 homophobic hate crimes are reported to the police every week and 2.4 million people have witnessed homophobic bullying at work in the past 5 years.

Lots done. Lots to do.

Yes even when  Stonewall try and be inclusive in their poster campaign they fail within the text. They focus only on the G, hide away the L, fail to recognise the different problems faced by the B, and as for the T as usual with Stonewall they don't get a look in.

They are also taking credit for same-sex marriage, which they were opposed to in 2010 even as the Liberal Democrats passed as Federal Policy in support of it.

There are many harping away about how fantastic this campaign is. Sadly it is more fan'as'ic and fails from its outset to be a diversity inclusive at it appears on a quick scan of the posters.

While we do need to end homophobic bullying, and biphobic, we also need to address transphobic. The Stonewall riots saw the transexuals stand alongside the Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals in countering the police brutality. But Stonewall UK (itself a misnomer due its lack of action on Northern Ireland) fail to live up to the name it bears by constantly getting the full range of those who made at stand at the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village.

Looks like those of us who get the full spectrum of sexuality and identity will once again had to pick up the pieces that the UK most high profile organisation that many few as standing for LGBT rights fails to pick up and run with.

After Thomas Hitzlsperger is it time to see openly gay players?

So I should have seen this coming, the first football player who has graced the Premier League comes out on one day when I am busy with work and then have bowls in the evening.

So I guess that everyone has said their piece about how great it is that Thomas Hitzlsperger has come out as gay.

It is indeed a momentous moment, but one part of me wonders if he hadn't suffered a career ending injury that forced him to retire from the game at the relatively young age of 31 if we have heard this news today, or if we might have had to wait another four years until he retires.

However, the fact that a former international with 52 caps for Germany and a player in one of the top leagues in Europe has come out so soon after retiring is a good sign. People cite the example of John Amaechi, but he took 4 years from his retirement from the NBA to come out. He was the start of major league stars to come out in the USA, but it took until last year for Jason Collins of the Washington Wizards to come out while still playing. It was the following that Robbie Rogers who had come out after quitting Leeds United signed for LA Galaxy.

Rogers said that a major part of the reason for him returning to professional football came when he addressed a group of 500 LGBT teenagers. He said:

"These kids are standing up for themselves and changing the world, and I'm 25, I have a platform and a voice to be a role model. How much of a coward was I to not step up to the plate?" 

So he stepped up to the plate, got back into the game to await the natural end of his playing days rather than one imposed by the sense that he felt in football he had to stay in the closet.

In 2010 Rudi Assauer, who was boss of Schalke in Germany, said about gay players:

"Perhaps they are OK in other sports but not in football.

"If a player came to me and said he was gay I would say to him: 'You have shown courage.'  But then I would tell him to find something else to do.

"That's because those who out themselves always end up busted by it, ridiculed by their fellow players and by people in the stands. We should spare them these witch-hunts."

Strangely although he had been part of the build up for that year's World Cup, indeed scoring the last of his six international goals in the qualifying game, but didn't make his second world cup at the age of 28 that summer. Bizzarely at that World Cup the captain Michael Ballack's agent Michael Becker said there were a "bunch of gays" in the squad, but the German press instead of pricking up their ears at the revelation seemed to take it placidly as if they either already knew the allegations or knew about some of the players.

Interesting to look back over recent comments and interviews given by Hitzlsperger about the issue of coming out in Football he has always been positive yet realistic about the effects this would have. Saying in 2012 that a pro might come out within a year. He was slightly longer than that and Rogers fitted right into that time scale. But he also said that in doing so it would depend on who and how they came out, but that it could lead to an end of a career. This is what Rogers initially did before that change of heart, but Hitzlsperger himself also waited until the end of his career.

Looking at the support from footballers, Federations, commentators, teams and fans it looks like the overwhelming  majority don't care one way or the other. Is it possible that other players seeing today's response might take the even bolder step of coming out while still playing?

In the mean time if I am supporting my team and some fans start the chant at a set play "Put your hand up if you're gay" I will continue to do what I have done in the past and put my hand up, and hope that maybe one of the players with their hand up also is answering the question rather than looking for the ball.

The Grouchy Gove: A Horrible History Special

So Michael Gove has decided to attack Blackadder, for not being a true reflection of history. Guess what? It is a sitcom and not a documentary?

But as a result of it being set in four historical times (more when you include Blackadder's Christmas Carol and Blackadder Back and Forth) it can lead to quizzical young minds to look into those periods of history more thoroughly. Indeed you may find some do just that as they do with the Horrible Histories series of books now turned into an award winning TV series.

Nobody can say that Horrible Histories give a full and complete account of the history of the period of that time. Indeed if Gove were to read The Frightful First World War [1999] he would probably have similar palpitations it doesn't give a full a thorough account of the First World War. However, checking on the bookshelves of any bookshop at the moment no one volume, and no doubt no one television series is going to encapsulate all of the history of the war which started 100 years ago later this year.

But when Gove then goes off saying:

"The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite. Even to this day there are left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths."

The alternative is to see it solely through the official histories written by the officer classes that do not admit to failings or mistakes. Things that only in later histories when under the 30 or 50 year rules Government papers revealed that things didn't always go as planned. But isn't that spreading a more right-wing view of things, that is where the majority of the officer classes came from, but not the majority of those who served and certainly not proportionately those that fell. Or then there is the fact that while we did not have TV or Radio in 1914-18 there were the war poets, satire through The Wiper Times and the letters that millions of tommies sent back home describing conditions at the front.

As this year and the four thereafter go on I'm sure that others will be doing what I have already done and find out about those of their family who served and/or fell in the Great War. As someone who has relatives who fell at The Somme, Gallipoli and Ypres amongst others I am a left-ish person who does not take their sacrifices lightly, nor do I accept everything that the officers tell us about such events is fully the truth.

That is what education should be doing for us giving us enquiring minds. Whether those enquiries are sparked from familial interest, Blackadder, Horrible Histories, text books in school/university or some other source of inspiration that is to be nurtured not mock by the Secretary of State for Education.

Ping Pong between Westminster and Stormont over decision on NI MSM Blood Ban

You will have seen me blog in the past how sick I am of Northern Ireland Assembly ministers using tax payers money to fight equality measures (especially LGBT equality) here in Northern Ireland. So you can imagine my shock to learn that the Westminster Department of Health has decided to launch its own appeal against the High Court ruling in Belfast that said that the UK minister should decide the policy in Northern Ireland as Edwin Poots is challenging the whole ruling.

While the Department of Health in Westminster is saying it will fund it's appeal from its own funds, yet more Northern Irish funds are going to be wasted as yet again Edwin Poots is launching another appeal against the courts ruling.

Are people in England happy that the Department of Health is spending money preventing their minister being handed a decision that his Northern Ireland counterpart has been unable to make under any measure of equality as defined in the Belfast Agreement?

Because that is probably part of the reason that Justice Tracey had passed the decision back into Jeremy Hunt's lap in the first place. The judge had ruled it "irrational" that Northern Ireland Mr Poots would retain the lifetime ban on MSM blood donations in Northern Ireland while accepting GB blood which had the 12 month deferral whenever there were shortages.

This means that MSM in Northern Ireland are clearly less equal when it comes to being able to donate than elsewhere in the UK. In fact I know of some from Northern Ireland who after a 12 month period of refraining from sex with other men are travelling to the UK to donate blood. So there is actually the possibility that Northern Ireland may be importing blood from men who've had sex with men greater than 12 months ago who reside here while denying them the right to donate here!

In November the Department of Health said, "“in England, we have made a different decision on the actual issue. In considering any health policy issue that affects all countries in the UK, we will focus on the implications for devolution." Part of the implications of devolution here in Northern Ireland was Section 75 which recognised various minorities, including the LGBT community. The implications of devolution failing to meet those requirements of equality is something that Jeremy Hunt needs to look at as well, although it seems that he has decided to appeal being given the decision to help enact part of the DHSSPS remit on equality when they themselves fail.

So now we have two health Departments playing ping pong over taking a decision which the LGBT community here in Northern Ireland see as an example of the institutionalised homophobia of the largest party. A party by the way that has Ministerial responsibility over the areas of blood donation, adoption and marriage, three major equality pushes that LGBT people in England, Wales and Scotland are taking for granted or see coming.

14 Predictions for 2014

It is that time of year once again to dust of my crystal ball and try and work out that is going to happen over the next twelve months.

1. An Olympic medalist will make a statement/protest about LGBT rights live on the Olympic Broadcaster. This will be the reason why we were right to let the athletes attend the Games at least one of them will make a protest and it will be the LGBT communities 1968 Black Power moment.

2. After the 400 bomb alearts, some of them viable, in Northern Ireland in 2013 one of the ones in 2014 will lead to a fatality. This is the one forecast I want to get wrong but I'm scared that at some point one of these will go wrong, we had the carrier of one incendiary devise catch fire this month and other brave civilians have carried devices to safe areas before contacting the authorities, so I suspect that as these are not up to the high standards at the end of the troubles that something is going to go wrong.

3. Mark Cavendish will win stages in three of the British Isles capitals this year. It will a unique year of opportunity for the Manxman. He will have the chance to win in the capitals of three nations that can be seen from the Isle of Man. First there is stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia finishing in Belfast city centre and the following day when the race finishes in Dublin. Then in July stage three will finish in London and this time, unlike the 2012 Olympics Cav will have the chance to sign and show Marcel Kittel that he is back at full strength.

4. There will be a coup against Kim Jong-un. I've said this before about the North Korean leader but after a number of eliminations of senior opponents I think that for the sake o self preservation a group will rise up to challenge his leadership this year.

5. Olympians Katherine Grainger and Louis Smith will announce their retirements.  Both these two have taken a long time since the London to get back into action. Katherine did a BBC show in 2013 looking at those who continued and those who have quit while saying she was yet to come to her own decision, at 38 after over 12 months out she is unlikely to fancy getting back into the swing of training. Since the Olympics Louis has won Strictly Come Dancing in 2012 but has yet to compete again on the pommel. With the rising stars of British gymnastics that have been successful in 2013 being multiple discipline it is unlikely that being a pure specialist will suit well with Louis trying to fit back in.

6. Britain will win three or more medals in the Winter Olympics. With changes in the skeleton, short track skating, curling and slopestyle events there are multiple opportunities for Team GB to do well in Sochi so look for the Union flag going up the flag poles on a number of occasions and the National Anthem to play at least once. It will be the biggest haul since 1936 beating the two medal hauls of 1948, 1994 and 2002. Only at the first Winter Olympics in 1924 have GB ever won four medals at one games.

7. A DUP elected representative will actually speak/vote positively about an LGBT issue. The reason that the elected rep will state for this u-turn in their thinking is that a member of their family is either lesbian or gay.

8. Sammy Wilson will spend thousands of tax-payers money defending a court challenge by an same-sex couple who oppose their UK marriage being down graded to a civil partnership. Following the leadership of Edwin Poots the Minister for Finance and Personnel will waste finance and personnel on trying to defend that fact that marriages legal elsewhere in the UK as only being civil partnerships in Northern Ireland.

9.With Haass talks failing to reach an agreement on flags Northern Ireland descends into further acts of civil disobedience. With the lack of political leadership at the end of 2013 to realise that some solution had to be made on flags, both sides and especially the unionists continue to lose control of the situation in Northern Ireland. Alliance continue to be the main focus point of acts of civil disobedience which are on the verge, if not actually illegal.

10. England lose their first two group games in the World Cup in Brazil and are out before they face Costa Rica. After losing 1-0 to Italy in the first game in the heat of Manaus, England slump to a second defeat to Uruguay and the results of both those teams against Costa Rica mean that they are unable to progress before the final match on 24 June.

11. Scotland vote to stay in the UK. My prediction of the result 38% Yes, 62% No to the question that is put. Turnout will be under 50%.

12. As a result of the above Alex Salmond faces a leadership challenge from Nicola Sturgeon and John Mason in the Autumn and steps aside. The eventually contest will see Nicola Sturgeon elected as the new leader of the SNP. It leaves only the Scottish Liberal Democrats in Holyrood to have a sole male leader.

13. David Cameron is told by the EU that he cannot keep restricting free access to Romanians and Bulgarians, so he attempts to call an immediate referendum on EU membership. I use the word attempt as the coalition agreement and indeed act only relate to any constitutional change automatically prompting a referendum. So when David Cameron attempts to call this all the Liberal Democarats resign from Cabinet and the coalition is over forcing the Conservatives to operate as a minority Government.

14. As Parliament rises for the summer after months of failing to get his actual agenda through Parliament David Cameron announces he will resign after his party elect a successor. Immediately Zac Goldsmith resigns his seat and Boris Johnson stands for Richmond Park. But in the ensuing by election Lib Dem Robin Meltzer defeats Boris and his leadership aspirations are over.

Predictions for 2013 how did I do?

There are just 4 hours left of 2013, one thing I didn't predict was that I would spend most of this year in Orkney, but how did I do with what I actually said would happen.

Well as is traditional on this blog it is time to look forward to what 2013 will have in stall.

1. Peter Robinson will be ousted as DUP leader and First Minister. I seriously think that the way that the Protestant/Loyalist/Unionist community has been in revolt this past month will bring about a split within the DUP. The hardliners will be out for more blood and those that want a shared society or are seen too will be further marginalised. The biggest casualty of this will be the leader, who for the first time will be forced from office. Somehow Nigel Dodds takes over as leader. He's still there 0 points

2. We will say goodbye to Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher and the Duke of Edinburgh. Yeah a triple whammy but all three have been in hospital this year and all three are far from young. I don't think that any of the three of them will live for a further 365 days. Maggie was the first to go on 8 April. Nelson and the Duke were both hospitalised soon after that. Mandela passed away, after being cared for at home for the final months, on 5 December. ⅔ points

3. Chris Froome will win the Tour de France. After Bradley Wiggins wins the Giro d'Italia Sky decide to name Froome as co-leader publicly for the Tour but in private Froome has been given the nod with Wiggins as his super-domestic, just so he can wear the number 1 for the race as defending champion. Meanwhile in his new team, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, Mark Cavendish returns to Paris in Green and yet again manages to win on the Champs Élysées, he also manages 5 stage wins and the sprinters jersey in the Giro. Well Froome was categorically named as leader for the Tour while Wiggins was racing the Giro as race that Wiggins had to pull out of and subsequently not be able to even start a defense of his title in France. Froomey went on to win, but as for the side prediction on Cav he ran into the new kid on the block Marcel Kittel who took the Green Jersey and the win in Paris. 1 point

4. Pressure mounts on Northern Ireland to rethink Equal Marriage with England, Wales and Scotland all passing legislation to allow equal marriage the Unionist politicians come under increased for their sham-Unionism on the matter of LGBT rights. Well when the Constitutional Convention recommended a referendum on Equal Marriage for the Republic of Ireland there was a second unsuccessful debate before the Assembly on 29 April. I think that is one point

5. Andy Murray kisses a gold trophy. Yeah, I'm sticking my neck out here. In July Andy Murray fulfills every British tennis fan's dream of lifting up the silver-gilt cup inscribed with the words "The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World". Well no doubt here he did it 77 years of waiting ended 6-4 7-5 6-4 and the last game was a fight. 1 point

6. Jeremy Clarkson will say something so over the top that he is suspended from presenting Top Gear. Yeah, hard to work out exactly what it is that Clarkson says that could lead to such action looking at his past history, but he will come up with something. No Jezza is still there.

7. A DUP elected politician will be caught in a compromising position with someone of the same gender. Big news for the DUP as they try to carry on an attack on any expansion of LGBT rights is that one of their own is found to have had a secret lover of the same gender for years. No the insitutionalised homophobia of the party continues, still waiting for one of their elected reps to be causght out.

8. Alex Salmond drops the plans for a referendum on independence this becomes inevitable after he is caught telling even more inaccuracies about what an Independent Scotland will look like. An SNP MSP resigns and points out that under his plans Scotland would be a puppet state to too many other nations that being a devolved part of the United Kingdom is actually the most economically and legislatively liberating option that there is. Well the inaccuracies have kept coming and the promising of everything is coming. Although with the white paper Salmond appears to be keeping us in Sterling, UK fleets to be allowed to use Faslane, keeping the Monarchy, the control and bail out of the Bank of England. So nil points here.

9. The Republican Party finally concede the need for gun control... sadly this only happens after an intern working for a Republican Senator kills a number of GOP Senators and Representatives and staff with assault weapons he has sneaked in in parts over a number of months.Nothing

10. Two members of Westboro Baptist Church leave to move in together in San Francisco...yeah turns out that they fancy someone of the same sex after all. One of the members is a member of the Phelps family. Well the year started out well with a former member posing for the NOH8 campaign. So maybe 0.5 points.

11. The 2020 Olympics are awarded to Tokyo. The compact proposal set largely in the harbour area beats Istanbul in the second round of voting at the 125th IOC Session in September. Spot on here. 1 point

12. The Flag Protests will carry on until Easter. The protesters will continue in diminishing numbers to protest against the designated days the Union Flag is flown on  Belfast City Hall until Easter. They run a near riot when on one of the designated days it's lowered and fail to notice as they are charging City Hall that it is being lowered to half mast only, to mark the death of the Duke of Edinburgh. When they carry out one last protest they are shouted at by members of the public for not showing respect to it being the day of the Duke's coffin being transported to Westminster Hall to lie in state. Well the nearest lowering of the flag at Easter was for Margaret Thatcher. But the protests were still going on and escalated with UVF flags being flown. There was of course shock when the flag was raised on a extra day to celebrate the birth of Prince Goerge of Cambridge. With another protest a year on this is set to roll on. There are still protests a year on so 1 point.

13. There will be two by elections caused by MPs being charged as a result of the Jimmy Saville investigations. None of the by elections were caused by operation Yewtree so nil points.

So in conclusion that is 6⅙ out of 13 just under 50% right.

Tune in later for my predictions for 2014. 

My top 10 posts from 2013

This blog is about to enter its ninth year of production being founded in July 2005. However, before I update my copyright declarations it is time to look back at the top 10 posts of 2013, I am restricting this only to posts that were written in 2013 as other two of my Olympic history posts and my first look that the 2020 contenders are in the list. The latter obviously was a push at the selection of Tokyo (which I predicted in that 2012 post) came closer.

So in traditional reverse order here are my top 10 hits that were written in 2013.

10. Dear John Pugh you asked about errors in your reasoning it was a year in which I took a few of our parliamentarians to task over their reason for not supporting the parties policy position on marriage equality, first out of the box in this year's top ten was John Pugh.

9. When Church turns on its own in April after the second debate on equal marriage in Stormont, when David Ford amongst others took a stance that look beyond that which their churches advocated, some in his own congregation rose up against him taking a stand For Everyone.

8. Why the Drewitt-Barlow's going to court have got it wrong #equalmarriage in August the gay couple who paved the way for surrogate co-parency here in the UK said they would take the Church of England to court if they could not be married in their local parish church. I argued about why this was the wrong approach.


7. In response to Simon Hughes after the third reading on Same-Sex Marriage in the Commons Simon wrote about his reasons for his abstention on Lib Dem Voice. I just had to respond and it appears that you lot went to have a read.

6. Lembit, Brent Central and women only short lists in September just after a confluence of events I end up making a totally un-me-like conclusion, warning there is some satire in my conclusion, but some of the points are valid.

5. Some thoughts on the Tom Daley reactions earlier this month Olympic diver Tom Daley came out about his current relationship. There were all sorts of comments erroneous and downright wrong that I decided to write about.

4. I like Steve Chalke cos he is a nice guy back in January Baptist Minister and Oasis Trust Founder Steve Chalke broke from the main Evangelical Christian tradition in this country with comments about homosexuality. It hasn't sparked a flood tide of others doing likewise but the conversation within our churches goes on.

3. Feeling sorry for Mexican Congresswoman's  Sex Life in August Ana María Jiménez Ortiz surprising came to my attention, when obviously trying to avoid sounding homophobic in saying guys shouldn't marry, came out out only those who have sex facing each other should be allowed to marry. I can imagine divorce cases filed when the husband suggested some other positions, and same-sex couples trying to prove that they only had sex facing each other.


2. Say Hello to the Belfast cultural revolution this rant against news that a portrait showing a same-sex kiss from an exhibition in Belfast (before any of us saw the actual picture since added) raised my heckles in good old fashion.,



1. Reponse from the Royal Ulster Academy quite happy for the response that came from the outrage of my number 2 post is actually the top post. That is a rather unique position but good for the story that people appear to have read both. Although over 150 more people seemed to read this rather than the original rant.

2013 wasn't a year that I was able to give a great deal of time to my blog especially considering the job that I moved into in February. I hope that productivity and intensity can be picked up as we head into 2014.