Another letter to the editor of South Molton News, after an article appeared under the title Grave Turner (See below) in which gay people are called an aberration.
Sir
I write by way of complaint and to express my disgust at your grossly distorted, bigoted, inaccurate and hateful article about homosexuality.
Gay people are accustomed to reading drivel about them, from people who lack integrity and understanding. However, to find such an article written by what appears to be a patronising, bigoted old git, in what I can only describe as a second-rate rag, offends and concerns me deeply.
In the “article” (and I use the term loosely), it is claimed that the Human Rights legislation “has been used to overturn well founded taboos that have, hitherto, stood the test of time over many generations.” Does this include the right to life? The right not to be thrown in jail for non payment of a debt? The right to freedom of expression, so that mutton-headed cretins can express their ill-conceived, vile views to other people? In point of fact, the Human Rights Act had not come into force when, in 1967, the then Conservative government decriminalised sexual “acts” between two consenting men. Indeed, the aforementioned legislation makes no direct and specific mention to homosexuality.
The “article” is based upon the nonsense of antiquity. Such rubbish has long since been discarded by more enlightened thinkers. Perhaps you consider we should go back in time to antiquity:-
In 1102, the Council of London (Roman Catholic church council of the church in England) took measures to ensure that the English public knew that homosexuality was sinful. In 1533 King Henry VIII passed the Buggery Act making all male-male sexual activity punishable by death. I feel certain we all know of Henry’s attitude towards his wives. Perhaps you would still prefer to have gay people hanged.
It has only been men who were persecuted (remember Oscar Wilde?). Perhaps you would prefer to see both men and women hanged, or does your prejudice not include women on this particular “thorny issue”?
In deference to the patronising statement that “Such persons as suffer from it should be treated with sympathy and understanding”, homosexual people do not “suffer” from being what they are, any more than heterosexuals do. I think it is more accurate to say that some people suffer from religion – as well as blind stupidity, absurd prejudice and a lack of empathy, whilst the rest of us, in turn, have to suffer them. It is also interesting to note that a significant number of people who are anti homosexuality are, in point of fact, homosexual, themselves, but are afraid or ashamed of what they are. Their fear and/or shame only having been born out of ignorance spouted by people who, themselves, feel they have something to be ashamed or afraid of. Fear/hatred of homosexuality is learnt, not inherited.
As is so typical of people with a “chip on their shoulder”, the originator of the article (who is evidently so proud of the bile it writes, that it is too cowardly or ashamed to identify itself to other people), has to bring children into its nonsensical verbiage. Of course, no piece of bigotry would be complete, if it didn’t try to justify its stupidity, by “tugging at the heartstrings” of the feeble minded, suggesting that homosexual people are all child molesters and that homosexuality will corrupt the young. I’m afraid you’ll have to do much better than that, because that has been proven – time and again – to be factually incorrect. It is not possible to make someone into a homosexual – just as it is not possible to make a homosexual person become heterosexual. Were the great Alan Turing still alive, I don’t doubt that he would confirm this. However, because of people such you and the vermin that spout the drivel you have chosen to publish, Mr Turing was deprived of happiness and thus his life, despite having arguably one of the greatest minds the world has ever seen. The benefits he would have brought to humanity are immeasurable, but he was destroyed by the same ignorance, absurd prejudice and utter stupidity that you have shown. I am also wondering what other views you share with Adolf Hitler.
If you have never watched the film “Victim”, starring the late great Dirk Bogart, I would suggest you do (that is always assuming you have the intelligence to understand its message). It is based so honestly on facts. People should not be killed or blackmailed, just because they happen to be attracted to members of the same gender. We are supposed to be the most intelligent species on the planet. However, so many people seem to revel in persecuting others for no reason other than they happen to be different. I can see no signs of a population crisis – indeed, far from it. It isn’t homosexual people who have overpopulated this planet. I am also not aware of any gay organisation that tries to “convert” people to being homosexual. Neither do not know of any homosexual who wants to kill or injure someone just because of an absurd and unjustified dislike of a quirk of fate that befell them due to something entirely beyond their control – their birth.
What gives you the right to publish the nonsense that you have? The answer to that question is simple: the right to freedom of expression. That you won’t be persecuted because of your jaded, antiquated and dangerous views. That you should be allowed to publish the anonymous scribble of a coward, who was probably masturbating over images of naked men as he expressed his own self-loathing, and who found an outlet for his ghastly offspring in the grubby pages of a grotty, provincial, piece of tat! If you doubt what I say, think about why you have devoted so much time and energy in order to express your absurd dislike of something that is so benign. To think of all the problems this world faces, yet there are still people who devote feverish energy to criticise and persecute fellow human beings, whose only “crime” is to have been created different. You have made yourself look a complete and utter fool.
You have shown a total lack of compassion towards fellow human beings. Before you go preaching your false prophecies of doom and destruction, because a few people are “gay” and want to be allowed to exist in safety and peace, think. Use the brain you would have us believe you possess. Remember that you believe you are a decent human being. All you have done is show your crass stupidity, your lack of understanding and that you and the coward to whom you have given a voice, are a menace to civilisation. Shame on you, sir!
“…in spite of your talk of equality and fraternity, you still believe some people are better than others because of the way they make love.” Another Country
G. Dudley
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