Are we the new Victorians*?

Are current politicians turning into the new Victorians? I ask as in recent days there has been an increasing case of prudishness in a number of things that have been done.

Of course firstly the UK has decided to bring in line what is allowed in online pay on demand pronography with what is produced in DVD in this country. The new law bans scenes of caning, aggressive whipping, penetration with an object "associated with violence", physical or verbal abuse (regardless if it is consensual), urolagnia (ingesting during "water sports"), female ejaculation, strangulation and face sitting. This list seems more an arbitrary list of things the panel dislike rather than based on any reasoning as to dangers etc.

Over in Northern Ireland this week we have the latest stage of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill, which somehow is actually the introduction of the Nordic model on all sex workers including those that aren't trafficked or exploited. One of the amendments on Monday even raised the question, which the DUP refrained from answering were they now looking to ban lap dancing, strippergrams or kissograms with the clause of B touching themselves for the sexual gratification of A, whilst B is in physical proximity to A.

Of course with also all the moves as well to bring in a minimum price for a unit of alcohol it seems that those in power are trying to restrict people's morality to suit their perceptions.

So are our politicians becoming modern day Victorians with their attacks on the modern day equivalents of whore houses and gin joints? Are we entering the early stage of prohibition on a number of activities that the free market always seems to have provided through time immemorial.

Somehow, somewhere people will still access the sex workers that they want to, although by pushing it underground you are making it less likely that victims will come forward for support when they need to. People will still find ways to consume cheap alcohol, though if they are forced to set up illicit stills will what they produce be safe. As for porn, well as Avenue Q famously tell us, "The Internet is for...PORN!" somewhere out there in the unmanageable back streets of the interwebs there will still be British productions of all the porn that has just been made illegal. How you find it? How you determine it was made in a room in the UK (when all rooms can look alike)? How you can persecute the content creator who may well use a foreign domain? These are the questions that politicians have not and will not answer through their prudishness.

* Apologies to the all the debauched, drunkard and promiscuous Victorians that lived. Some of your generation gave your entire era a bad name as goody two shoeses. Though if you are viewing this in the UK terms and conditions now apply so maybe the Internet isn't quite so great...

Have DUP criminalised lap dancing?

Today there was Further Consideration Stage on the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill but there were some very loosely worded amendments from Lord Morrow to his own Bill.

I beg to move amendment No 5:

In page 9, line 13, at end insert

(1A) In the heading to Part 5, after "PROSTITUTION" insert "AND PAYING FOR SEXUAL SERVICES OF A PERSON".". The following amendments stood on the Marshalled List:

No 6: In page 9, line 23, at end insert

"and A knows or believes that the payment is made or promised by a third party."

No 7: In page 9, line 26, leave out "level 3 on the standard scale" and insert "the statutory maximum".

 No 8: In page 9, line 29, leave out "not exceeding the statutory maximum". 

No 9: In page 9, line 33, after "services" insert "(other than sexual services)". 

No 10: In page 9, line 38, after "sexual" insert

; or(d) B touching B in a sexual manner for the sexual gratification of A, B being physically in A’s presence.".

The last of this is particularly vague. Something that Alliance MLA Stewart Dickson picked up on and asked:

If we are going to legislate as loosely as to say that person A commits an offence if they obtain sexual services from person B in exchange for payment and that this includes circumstances where person B does not touch person A but touches themselves for the sexual gratification of person A, would that not also make it an offence to, for example, watch lap dancers or strippers or purchase a strippergram or kissogram for a party? While many would regard such activities as morally questionable, I doubt that many think that they would be illegal. However, it appears that this amendment would make their purchase illegal. 

We could even go further: what about cases in which someone goes to see a play with sexually explicit scenes? Some people may go because they consider it art, but what about those who go to enjoy particular scenes for sexual gratification? If my reading of this amendment is correct, then when an actor or actress touches themselves in a sexual manner in the presence of an audience member who has paid to watch it for the purpose of sexual gratification, that audience member has technically committed an offence. For example, are we to have 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' banned from the stages of Northern Ireland once more? 

This highlights the type of problems which will inevitably arise when we try to use the term "sexual services" without a proper statutory definition. We simply cannot draw clear parameters of the offence. It might be useful to share an example from Canada, where the Supreme Court struck down its prostitution laws last December. A lawyer who was involved in the case said that: 

"I think it's both a key thing and an example of a bigger problem with the bill when the thing that's being regulated — it's described as sexual services, [but] the Bill doesn't contain a definition of what it is. That's a real vagueness problem." 

That Bill was not dissimilar to this one.

Instead of answering these concerns Lord Morrow simply said:

If there are some who, even after this debate, feel that they cannot support some of the amendments, that is a matter for them, but I urge them to rethink. I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that, when I was dealing with amendment No 10, I spoke to the Attorney General. If someone can direct me to a higher court or a higher authority on these matters, I am ready to listen. If so, that person can tell me, "You shouldn't have gone there with it; you should've gone somewhere else". If so, I would like to hear from you; maybe you will come to me privately afterwards. 

First, the Attorney General is very clear that amendment No 10 will address the need to cover demand for the scenario where a person is exploited to provide sexual services in the form of the sexual touching of themselves observed by the client. Secondly, he is very clear that amendment No 10 will not criminalise lap dancing and stripping, as some have tried to insinuate here today. 

Mr Dickson said that the amendment would cover that type of activity and even watching films. I suspect that, no matter what I say, Mr Dickson will be of the same opinion when he walks out through the door today, because there is none as blind as those who will not see and there is none as deaf as those who will not hear. There are some who, no matter what I say today, have their minds made up that this measure will not be effective or that it will go into other territory. As I said, I cannot go anywhere else for advice, other than the channels through which I went. Amendment No 10, and I urge the House to consider it, is crucial.

It is shocking that an Attorney General can allow such loose terminology without definition to enter into law. But then the Northern Irish Attorney General has already shown that his understanding of the law is lacking in areas. So for him not to realise that judges and lawyers prefer to have a clear definition of the law, firstly so they can determine if it has been broken, second to consider if there is a case to be answered to.

But then for there to be concerns about the wording on an accelerated passage bill, in other words one that isn't getting that much scrutiny. So yet to amend at this stage when there is only an hour of consideration for this group of amendments shows that the DUP are slipping in loosely worded definitions into law without proper scrutiny or sane advise.

The interpretation is potentially wide and far outside the remit of the Bill. It is not clear where the boundary ends. The touching merely in the presence of someone else for sexual gratification. This is wishy washing and the DUP managed to get the UUP and SDLP to back it as horrifyingly it passed 52 votes to 35.

We live in times that moralists are narrowing the definition of what is allowed and too many people in Northern Ireland would be shocked to find just how loosely they are going about it, opening up a great many seemingly innocuous activities open to the vagueness of new law and the interpretation of the court.

As Stewart Dickson said and I'll add slightly "I am not sure whether the consequences are simply not appreciated by the DUP[, UUP and SDLP] or whether it is trying to drag us back to a Victorian era in which we will all have to cover up our piano legs. 

Bigots on every side

Today is World Aids Day and although I am not personally living with HIV I have friends who are.

But my day has taken an interesting track today.

For a start the letter that I had published in this morning's Belfast Telegraph led to one of my Christian friends in Northern Ireland telling me that they felt they could no longer remain my friend on Facebook and the unfriended me. I sent them the link to my blog post which gave the full version of my original letter to show them that I did not and would not have a go at Christian's per se, but I was having a go at those with privilege extending it to others. I also asked them to tell me in each of the examples that I listed which side was most of the churches or churched on at the times that equality was extended.

I hope they realise that the church has been behind on a number of occasions from slavery to other believe systems to women and that LGBT is just the latest manifestation.

But over the weekend I also posted a sad story about parents who sent their gay son to reparative therapy. Only for him later to rebel and seek to find himself, sadly in a way that would eventually kill him. But the happy ending is that they are teaching that the dangers of reparative therapy are more than the dangers of a LGBT child falling in love with someone of the same sex and settling down.

Sadly one of my acquaintances on Facebook without reading this attacked the article as being Churches attacking LGBT people. It led to some friends messaging me in private to tell me that they felt unsafe on commenting on this post to my time line. Friends who are in the church and supportive or leaning that way in relation to accepting LGBT people within it. When people like that, who are supportive, feel unable to speak up because someone else takes ownership of a thread despite their own ignorance as to the specifics that is as dangerous as reparative therapy. The reason is that some of those supporters get turned off from helping LGBT young people in their midst and the end result is that more of them will feel more isolated until they find others like themselves, if they do, and it is not too late.

So I make no apology for listing both these people as bigots and they exist on both sides of the debate over church and LGBT. But there really shouldn't be sides of this. However,  many church people cannot see LGBT individuals and issues as things that concern them, despite Jesus saying go into all the world. At the same time many LGBT people see no point in talking civilly to people who are religious, despite many of them being supportive and the best people to make sure other religious people become supportive too.

But while there are isolated incidents such as the ones I faced today there are far more people of faith or who are LGBT who are supportive of the stance that I take on this issue, treading a careful line between the two because both are part of who I and others actually are.

But while I felt a little stigma for being me today that is as nothing to the stigma that some who live with HIV feel everyday. But while we still have ignorant comments such as those of UKIP's deputy leader Christopher Monckton the other day many will continue to do so.

We need to stamp out bigotry and the stigma than involves and that goes both ways.

The debate continues in the Belfast Telegraph

I have another letter in this morning's Belfast Telegraph because my last one garnered a response from a fellow reader. I spent almost a full day redrafting the letter to get the right balance only for part of that balance to be edited out of the published letter. I am including the cuts from the original in red especially as sadly I think some of the editing makes it look like a Christian baiting letter.

Here then in the letter:

I would like to thank Dermot O'Callaghan (Write Back, November 28) for proving my point about those with privilege here holding all the power over equality.

Sadly, we have seen those with privilege down through history continually not being prepared to open up equality to those without it - whether it was slave-owners giving all men freedom, landowners giving all men the vote, or the established Church giving rights to non-conformist churches, or to other faiths. Men giving women the vote, rights to people of race, giving Roman Catholics the same voting rights as Protestants.

Now we see people proud to be British in all aspects but LGBT equality parading their flag, but ignoring the fact that they keep some British people as second-class citizens while, once again, things move on elsewhere.

Mr O'Callaghan says that all of us in Northern Ireland have the same rights and prohibitions as to whom we may marry. If by this he means that I may marry someone of the opposite sex, I feel it would be unfair to her as, at some point in the future, she would realise that I am not attracted to her. This would leave only hurt in the wake. Surely he would not want me (or any other lesbian or gay individual) to do that to someone else?But this is what has happened all too often in the past.

My original letter did not focus solely on equal marriage, which seems to be the only hang up for Mr O'Callaghan, but also referred to the science denial over the continuation of the MSM life time blood ban and the legal appeals against that and same-sex couples adopting. Issues that are designed to help others and give something to society. We are falling behind on equality measures not only with the rest of the country we belong to but also the the rest of the island we exist on.

What has been considered equality has been extended numerous times through history, what has happened in England, Wales and Scotland is just another manifestation of that. 

Many people here want to be treated fairly because of their faith, but use that to prevent others from being treated fairly.

Jesus spent time with those religious leaders considered unclean and told the parable of the Good Samaritan. He showed what equality really is about, treating those with as much respect as your loved ones.

If not Trojan Horse is equality an Achilles Heel? @mikenesbittni

The issue of equality is certainly high on the political agenda here in Northern Ireland recently. Though scarily it seems that far too many with responsibility for legislation seem not to realise it or understand how to exercise it and show it to all.

Last night there may well have been the calmest, non-shouting all party debate on BBC's The View I can recall for some time. But of course as ever there were issues in in and some of them I raised on Twitter and Facebook. Now when three of the panellists are known to you and haven't blocked you some of this involves linking to them directly, one such was Mike Nesbitt the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. So I posted on Facebook.

Now for those of you not used to having bilingual discussions on your TV during political discussions let me explain something. Normally when you say something in Irish here the next phrase is the translation. Therefore it struck me that Mike Nesbitt was saying that "Tiocfaidh ár lá" is actually the Irish for "Brits out" which of course I know actually is "Our day will come". It is a rallying cry just like "Stand Up for the Ulster Men" is at Ravenhill in the Rugby, but in the heat of recent discussions over language those who, unlike myself, have no elementary understanding of the Irish language mlattight think from this that is what Mike meant.

Mike said that I hadn't heard him implying not just last night but on other days when he retold the same anecdote that he was implying that. So I rewatched the item and relistened to it on The Nolan Show and here is the verbatim of what he said on The View last night:

"And you get two Gerry Adamses; sometimes on the same night. I was in New York once, he was in a black tie in the Plaza in the Park at a $500 a plate dinner and that speech was about reaching out a hand to our unionist brethren. An hour later he was in Celtic Park in the Bronx, in jeans and an Arran sweater and his first words were, 'Tiocfaidh ár lá, Brits out'."

So it is not 100% clear, even to a trained ear that Mike wasn't inferring that the latter was not the meaning of the former. I've heard him use this anecdote a number of times since the incident in Enniskillen involving Gerry Adams. That was the speech where Adams say that equality was the Trojan Horse by which he sought to break them bastards.

So out of this Mike has also been saying that Equality is the bedrock of our society. So as he had been good enough to respond to my initial comment I decided to immediately replay with a follow up around the subject.

"Also Mike while I have you here. If equality is such a bedrock in our society how come you are keeping me less equal than if I lived anywhere else in the UK because of my sexual orientation by your constant votes against marriage equality?"

I think I've been gracious and not posted this immediately though I did remind him through another comment on Facebook and a couple of Tweets during the day today that he had yet to respond. However, I do go on to say that he is subject to that all to common disease amongst unionist politicians when they talk about equality and then are asked a question about such blatant inequality with the United Kingdom. That disease is mutism.

I notice that Mike has had enough time today to pay tribute to Jack Kyle, post pictures of Christmas lights in Newtownards and support Woman's Aid in the past 10 hours. But somehow does not and did not have the time to respond to my question after he came to my Facebook comment to defend himself on one aspect.

Is this because he is incapable of defending himself on such a matter of inequality and he knows it. Is it therefore true that while Trojan Horse is probably the wrong word for it that equality surely is the Achilles heel of unionism?

If he wants to answer either here, or via Facebook I will happily add his response.

Phillip Hughes 1988-2014

The sad news to wake up to this morning is that Australian batsman Phillip Hughes who was hit on the head by a bouncer while playing for South Australia against New South Wales has died as a result of the damage he sustained to a major artery as a result. He had been in an induced coma since an operation after he was rushed to a Sydney hospital following the incident.

Although he was only 25 he made his test debut on 26 February 2009 against South Africa. Although in his first innings he was dismissed for a duck, he took a half century in the second innings. But in the second match in that series scored the first of what were to become 3 test centuries in the first innings with 115 to be followed up with he record test score 160 in the second. He was the youngest man in test history to take a century in both innings of a Test Match.

In total he appeared in 26 Tests:

2009 v South Africa 
1st Test Johannesburg 0 and 75
2nd Test Durban 115 and 160
3rd Test Cape Town 33 and 32
2009 v England
1st Test Cardiff 36
2nd Test Lord's 4 and 17
2009/10 v Pakistan
2nd Test Sydney 0 and 37
2010 v New Zealand
1st Test Wellington 20 and 86no
2010/11 v England
3rd Test Perth 2 and 14
4th Test Melbourne 16 and 23
5th Test Sydney 31 and 13
2011 v Sri Lanka
1st Test Galle 12 and 28
2nd Test Pallekele 36
3rd Test Colombo 0 and 126
2011 v South Africa
1st Test Cape Town 9 and 9
2nd Test Johannesburg 88 and 11
2011 v New Zealand
1st Test Brisbane 10 and 7
2nd Test Hobart 4 and 20
2012/13 v Sri Lanka
1st Test Hobart 86 and 16
2nd Test Melbourne 10
3rd Test Sydney 87 and 34
2013 v India
1st Test Chennai 6 and 0
2nd Test Hydrabad 19 and 0
3rd Test Mohali 2 and 69
4th Test Dehli 45 and 6
2013 v England
1st Test Nottingham 81no and 0
2nd Test Lord's 1 and 1

It is a shame now in hindsight that his last outing in the baggy green cap of Australia was at headquarters and saw him only scoring a single in both innings.

Phil was born in Macksville in New South Wales, for whom he made his senior debut in 2007 before moving to South Australia in 2013. He has also appeared for Middlesex, Hampshire and Worcestershire in England, Mumbai Indians in the IPL and for Sydney Thunder and Adelaide Strikers in the Australian Twenty20 Big Bash League.

He was three days short of his 26th Birthday and had been scheduled to play in next week's test match against India. The current round of Sydney Cup matched have been cancelled and next week's test is now in doubt as it is suspected that very few of his international colleagues may be prepared to return to the field so soon.

Here is the coverage of his greatest test performance that second test against South Africa in 2009.


Phillip Joel Hughes - Cricketer 30 November 1988 - 27 November 2014

My thoughts are also going out to Sean Abbott the young New South Wales bowler who in playing the way he was taught to play bowled a delivery that changed many lives, but especially the two men at either end of the crease. There are pictures of him holding his mates head in the immediate aftermath of the incident, but it was not his fault, though he is grieving just as the Hughes family are. Our thoughts go to both families and it is clear that many in the cricketing family are on hand to support Abbott though these tough days too.

It is all about power #LGBT #Ashers

Today I had another letter published in the Belfast Telegraph, any who have been following my recent posts and Tweets will know a bit about the subject matter. The title was not the subject line of my email, and the + from LGBT+ got turned into an "and" by them in my signature, but the text it as I wrote it.

Dermot O'Callaghan (Writeback, 21 November) may have a point that the whole issue over the cake that Ashers refused to bake is all about power, though the problem is that the people exercising the power are not necessarily the ones that he claims are abusing it.

From 1967 until 1982 the LGBT community in Northern Ireland were fighting to be equal with those in the rest of the UK. In the end it took court action for the decriminalisation here and in Scotland to catch up with the rest of the UK. Looking at the debate in Westminster back then you can see the level of power and privilege that our elected representatives largely, but not exclusively, unionist had when they decided it was their right to keep gay men in Northern Ireland less equal to those in the rest of the Union they held so dear.

Now after only two decades of moving towards equality with other UK LGBT people we are once again falling behind. Once again it is the unionists that are saying that we cannot be equal.

While DUP ministers continue to argue with scientists and lawyers that their evidence and rulings cannot possibly be right for the LGBT people of Northern Ireland - though they are for the rest of the UK and Ireland - then yes the whole Ashers situation is actually about power.

The fact is that not all of us are equal with people of similar background, race, disability and sexual orientation with the rest of the Union. If we were, then we wouldn't need to campaign for equal marriage, we wouldn't need to rally for it outside City Hall or Stormont and we wouldn't need to get cakes made to back our campaign, but we would need far more wedding cakes.