General outrage

Now I've been feeling pretty grotty this week — various kinds of winter-related illness — and this has finally snapped my fragile patience. "However much I love my gay friends, I don't want them running the country", says a regular column writer for Wales' biggest daily paper. Why?

Frankly, I don't trust a man who says he swings both ways, unless he is a spotty teenager who hasn't sorted himself out yet. [Mark] Oaten is 41 and [Simon] Hughes is 54. If they think they are old enough to run the country then surely they are old enough to work out which gender they fancy?

Those who claim to be bisexual are simply trying to fudge the truth.

But of course they are! Because there's no such thing as bisexuality; it's just men and their rampaging hormones.

The author of this prejudiced little article goes on to commit at once the most awful and funniest of sins when dealing with a minority: 'Some of my best friends are black/gay/Muslims/etc':

Personally, I have to say that I don't think gay men make good party leaders or Prime Ministers. This has nothing to do with what they do in bed but everything to do with their lives in general.

Before I am accused of prejudice, I should say that not only are some of my best friends gay, but probably most of them are. I work in the media, for goodness sake. It is precisely because I know such a lot of gay men that I can say that I don't think many of them are capable of representing the interests of the vast majority of people.

Their lifestyles are too divorced from the norm. They are not better or worse, but they are different.

Gay men face challenges of their own, but they do not face those associated with having children which is the way most of us live. I have gay friends whose biggest headache is whether to have a black sofa or a cream one. If they have a child it is a dog.

My gay friends have not sat in accident and emergency with a small child. They have not had to make the decision over whether to give them MMR. They have not struggled to get their child statemented or gone through the schools' appeals process.

Without these experiences at the sharp end of our public services, they do not know how they function. This makes them completely out of their depth in administering them. In the same way that career politicians, those who have never had a real job but climbed the greasy pole by way of think-tanks and speech writing, are not equipped to make laws for the rest of us, so I think gay men are ill-suited to representing the interests of the population in general. However much I love my gay friends, I don't want them running the country.

Quite aside from the fact that the author hasn't noticed that, hey, gay people care for children too (and can even adopt them! Shock!), is it just me or does this article pander to all the typical stereotypes — gay men as camp fanciers who are loath to commit and have multiple partners, and as screaming queens who can't deal with something as serious as caring for a child but just want to pamper a little fluffy dog (probably with a pink bow tied around it)?

Just in case you'd missed this nasty subtext, the article begins with:

This week, not one but two candidates for the post of Lib-Dem leader have been revealed to bat for their own side.

Any other clichés you'd care to trot out, madam?

The ill-advised nature of this approach is made obvious when you look at the posts on the icWales.co.uk talkboard:

Simon Hughes and Mark Oaten are perverts!!! There should be no place in public life for perverts. Politicians should be setting examples of being good citizens, honest, and genuine, not being perverts. Perverts should stay in their closets. We don't want them out among our kids.

Comments

[Tom]

Obviously, people who call their children Merlin and Griffin are much more representative of the general population.