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London: Gay couple threatened with death in violent late night homophobic assault
141
Government considers watered down same-sex marriage bill to minimise Tory rebellion
133
UK: Card Factory accused of homophobia for selling offensive 'fag' birthday card
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Tory MP Gerald Howarth: 'There are plenty in the aggressive homosexual community who want more than just same-sex marriage'
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France: Far right activist commits suicide in Notre Dame following legalisation of equal marriage
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Norman Tebbit: David Cameron has 'f**** things up' with his equal marriage bill
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Tory MP Sir Gerald Howarth defends 'aggressive homosexual community' equal marriage slur
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US church blames Woolwich suspected terror killing on UK acceptance of gay people
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David Cameron: Gay teenagers will stand that bit taller following equal marriage vote
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US church blames Oklahoma tornado on gay basketball player Jason Collins
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Robert in S. Kensington 740
GulliverUK 363
Midnighter 360
D.McCabe 350
Mark Y 334
Jock S. Trap 324
Iris 307
That There Other David 297
Sasha 292
Rehan 276
Maybe David should start with the hate crimes that are happening within his own party by his own Cllrs, MPs and MEPs . . . then we may start to believe he actually means what he thinks he says . . .
http://www.rainbow-citizen.com
I totally agree. The equal marriage debate has produced some of the worst hateful rhetoric from many Tories in opposition as well as the BNP, UKIP, the Northern Ireland Government and the likes of those other hatemongers at the Christian Institute, C4M and the Roman Catholic church hierarchy. Just as abominable as the actual physical hate crimes committed against innocent people, gay or straight. Direct action speaks far louder than well-meaning words.
. . . and the fact that the ‘former leader’ of the SNP is homophobic as well . . . whilst the current ‘leaders’ accept bribes and donations from known homophobes and worse . . . PaH . . .
Robert
http://www.rainbow-citizen.com
I wouldnt call it bribes , if it were would Alex Salmond risk losing them by legislating for Equal Marriage? A lot of people donate not because of social issue views but because of other issues like independence that they support. Yes the Former leader is a homophobe and yes there are some dinosaurs in the party that complain, but at least this is in the minority unlike the Tory party where we have seen the opposite effect. Apart from some of them. But Mr Salmond of the SNP has always had a good record on LGBT rights unlike David Cameron. Who his intentions are very unclear and what his true views are confusing as he had suddenly came out in support of Equal marriage after forming a coalition with a Socially Liberal party who he needs support to govern.
Here is a link to all the letters received this year in support of our first Hate Crime Awareness Week, the act of Remembrance at St Paul’s Cathedral and the London Vigil against Hate Crime.
http://172430notohatecrime.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/letters-of-support-st-pauls-hate-crime-awareness-week-solidarity-vigils-against-hate-crime/
Whilst there are many issues that need to be addressed, any many that divide us – I am pleased that we have cross party political support for what we are doing and hope that we, along whith what others are doing – can keep things moving in the right direction.
Surely elected Police and Crime Commissioners will mean hate crime is less of a priority because it protecting minorities are not a popular with the majority.
Yes Rico – that could be a problem, unless the different strands of people affected by different forms of hate crime start working together which is why it is important that we are oganising events like our Hate Crime Awareness Weeks and the Solidarity Vigils to encourage communities to start working together.
Excellent point
I don’t know why he is so surprised. The crime rate (I’ll wager) hasn’t increased either in the UK or the US — it’s just that they are keeping track of it now, and its ugly head is appearing more and more in their faces.
That having been said, I’m extremely grateful that he is, at long last, taking note of it. Only if there were politicians in this country who would do the same!
People are reporting it more . . . and judges are putting more people away instead of looking at alternatives . . . (if you have a low paid bad lawyer that is . . . ) . . . no change from when I was a prison officer.
Robert
http://www.rainbow-citizen.com
It’s good to see cross party support for our Hate Crime Awareness Week and the Solidarity vigils against Hate Crime that we have been organising. We need those at the top to come out on our side – which they have done, but we also need to work with the grass roots and do more to get the communities working together. See the link to the letters of support received posted above.
It’s ironic that he’s complaining about the high levels of hate crime when he’s the one who caused them to go up! He’s pushed people in to poverty which creates tension and I think the main reason for the high levels of hate crime is because of him saying disabled people are benefit scroungers, so levels of prejudice towards disabled have gone up!
> It’s ironic that he’s complaining about the high levels of hate crime when he’s the one who caused them to go up!
What disgusting moral equivalence. People who lack money do not suddenly become homophobic or transphobic because of it. Others are angry not at the disabled properly seeking assistance but those receiving money which they ought not to.
David Cameron has, himself, pushed no-one into poverty. If the state is bankrupt and has run out of money, then it has run out of money. Both main parties spoke of reducing the deficit – which is no more than the gap between tax revenues and borrowing. The UK ran a deficit of more than 1% at the top point in the business cycle.
Since the Coalition came to power, there has been no cut in the level of public spending. Borrowing and public spending has increased in real terms each year.
But then its far easier to search around for easy cause of homophobia and blame the Right then to engage in genuine enquiry,
The state (in the UK) has not ‘run out of money.’
There is plenty of money to fund tax cuts for millionaires, to renew trident (money into to pockets of wealthy arms dealers), plenty of money for the Olympics, and the Jubilee and the Royals in general. Plenty of money for the politicians and their cronies.
The UK government is letting huge foreign owned companies operate in the UK whilst paying hardly any tax (putting our own companies out of business in the process) hardly the attitude of a government that is strapped for cash.
There is clearly plenty of money, the government is simply prioritising the wishes of a tiny elite ahead of the wellbeing of everyone else.
Roderious, I wonder whether if you had any money, you personally would be happy to 50% or more of every pound you earned taken in taxes?
I’m not sticking up for the rich, you do really have to question why any body on a high income would continue to live in this country if they could avoid it.
What is increasingly becoming more of a visible issue is the legal tax avoidance that is being undertaken by a considerable number of multi-national companies operating in this country, who are chosing not to pay their taxes here if they can possibly avoid it, and it seems that they can avoid it.
Were these large companies to be paying their share the Treasury coffers would be looking far healthier and we wouldn’t have to be going cap in hand borrowing money from elsewhere.
Its got nothing to do with a few people having plenty of money, a few people have always had plenty of money. Its those companies that are conducting business here and shifting their tax liabilities elsewhere.
No one in the UK (apart from a few on the far left, who have never come close to being elected) has ever suggested that people should pay 50% or more of every pound you earned.
The closes we have got in recent years was a temporary 50% tax rate introduced by the last labour governemnt to try to deal with the financial crisis.
That is 50% tax on all income OVER 150,000 per year (which is very different to 50% tax on every pound you earn). In other words you can earn £150,000 a year without paying a panny at this tax rate.
I understand why you may have confused over this issue, many people have. The 50% you earn line has been peddled by many on the far right in recent year and by the, extremely rich and powerful elite who were briefly impacted by it, but it has absolutely no basis in fact.
Well said, de Villiers.
People who commit homophobic hate crime should not be allowed to shunt off their personal responsibility to someone else by the claim that they are poor and that this has caused them to behave the way they do. Even if they have socially-conditioned negative beliefs about LGBT people, it is their decision to act on them with violence. I have come across plenty of very nasty homophobic rich people, by the way, and also plenty of poor people who were not in the slightest homophobic. Let’s put the blame for homophobic hate crime where it belongs: with the ignorant and hateful bullies with big egos and an enjoyment of causing suffering to others; and with religious institutions such as the Catholic and Evangelical Churches who peddle ignorance and bigotry, proclaiming LGBT people are disordered and sinful, and thereby sow the seed of hatred and derision that provides the conditions for hate crime to flourish.
Well said Gazza! Some common sense!
David Cameron’s Conservative’s in the Thanet (Margate Kent) Area are allowing Cllr Ken Gregory who phoned me to say “WITH A BIT OF LUCK YOU’LL GET AIDS” back into the party despite the fact that he has NOT apologised.. To add insult to injury they are letting him back on world Aids Day? THE MEDIA NEEDS TO COVER THIS IT APPEAR TO BE IGNORED!
why did the rich gay tories running crusaid make their staff live in poverty on statutory sick pay before offering them thousands of charity money to destroy their dodgy documents as the compromise agreement reveals nasty rich gay tory boys
Prime Minister criticises the level of hate crime towards gay people and transsexuals.
Gay people attack the Prime Minister.
Seems crazy to me to attack someone when they say or do something that helps move things in the right direction – I welcome the Prime Minister’s letter of support along with the letters of support that have come from across the Political Parties.
didnt the rich gay tory boys try n sacrifice the disabled after they wrote requesting a contract of employment with the correct start date at crusaid SAcrificing disabled people to cover up their own incompetence who would treat people like that ? ? ? time pinknews investigated along with the other scandals
Some people moan about everything. It’s actually good to live in a country where there is cross-party consensus to tackle hate crimes as a priority. There is no such bipartisanship in the USA, for example.
unfortunately there are still plenty of people (in all parties but more in some than in others) who regard tackling hate crime as either political correctness gone mad, a waste of money or pandering to a minorites at the expense of ‘normal people’.
True – which is why we need to welcome positive steps in the right direction.
The killers of Ian Baynham, Ruby Thomas and Joel Alexander (both of them repeat offenders), will be out of jail less than a year from now. A support page for the female assailant was allowed to remain up on Facebook for at least two years. (I reported it many times)
Jack Bolton, Andrew Griffin and Nathan Marshall (I want these names to be infamous), who tortured and sexually assaulted an autistic teenager for three days spent their three month curfew and served their 80 hour community sentence (the CPS didn’t seem to think this was worth a custodial sentence) a long time ago.
The police consistently show complete double standards to non-white officers ALLEGED of wrongdoing (Ali Dizraei) and white officers KNOWN to have broken the law (Simon Harwood, Mark Duggan’s killers, the officers caught on tap racial abusing a man in their custody).
(continued below)
The gutter press whips up moral panic against muslims and black youth at every opportunity and celebrate the DWP’s war on the disabled. A national newspaper can actually print a headline like “1 in 5 Children Will Be Ethnics” with impunity. Parents of Middle England react with hysteria to the mere mention of homosexuality to children of school age or the sight of two men kissing on TV before the watershed.
All this and you wonder why hate crimes are so high?
Which is why we need to support inititives by Stonewall, Schools Out and Inclussion for All – which are tackling these issues in schools – so that hopefully more teenages won’t turn out like Ruby Thomas and Joel Alexander. We need to educate future generations to have a greater understanding and acceptance of diversity around them.
I wonder if David Cameron or his party will look at the dates of hate crimes? perhaps he might see a correlation between these dates and the start of the consultation period of Equal Marriage!
The anti gay or bias to deny equal rights to the GLBT community by outspoken religious groups has regurgitated a hate filled bile in society not seen for many years.
Any one that would say there is no equation to be found, would be misleading both them selves and those they seek to solicit support from. Outspoken advocates against the issue have only precipitated an anti gay sentiment that seems to grow day by day. Is it any wonder we see a high level of resentment creeping into society again.
Take responsibility for your contribution to the high level Mr. Cameron, it was your government that allows this process to generate hate sentiment well towards 2014 at the least!
Steve
Sometimes I am amazed that David Cameron hasn’t simply given up on his commitment to introduce equal marriage – as the leader of the only main party to commit to trying to legalise it in their manifesto.
He is attacked for it by the religious anti-gay lobby in his own Party, and to the right of his Party (e.g.UKIP). He is also attacked for it by the Left (who themselves made no effort to introduce equal marriage when in power) and by sections of the LGBT community, who criticise him for taking too long and having a consultation to establish how to introduce the measure.
People are leaving the Conservative Party in large numbers because of it (good riddance!) and the Party is bleeding votes because of it (similarly, good riddance).
David Cameron is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t. He is going out on a limb to support this, and all that anti-Tory sections of the LGBT community can do is find fault.
Credit where credit is due: regardless of your politics.
Gazza
I hear you loud and clear, at this point in time David Cameron is between a rock and a hard place with this mandate. To save face he can’t back down…. and to progress he has to maintain his commitment and win over the undecided and the objectors.
I view this from a point of flawed procedure to accomplish his mandate, personal politics have no bearing.
The issue of equal marriage should have been introduced as a bill or legislation. It should have been clear that faiths had the freedom to participate or opt out, but would not have a voice to deny people the right to equal marriage.
By deferring this until 2014 raises the question was this deliberate?
Allowing consultation could provide an out for him that losing a vote that faith groups disapproved!
or
The voters had time to come to terms with their consciences a vote after reflection.
or
Did he just put it off until the last moment in his term in case of defeat?
Regardless It has contributed to anti gay sentiment!
Just about a week ago an acquaintance slipped into a[n on-line] message about a completely different topic a remark that he thought that the Government was ‘wasting far too much time talking about the completely irrelevant subject of gay marriage’ – as I say he is only an acquaintance so is unlikely to have been aware that I am gay before I reacted in a very vociferous manner to his ‘off the cuff’ aside. In later exchanges he defended his remarks basically by reiterating the usual religious clap-trap that the Bible forbids it, even if he did grudgingly accept that the existing ‘civil partnerships’ were good enough and we should be grateful we are ‘tolerated’ that far. Obviously I let him know just what I think of his noisome views, but it illustrates that here exists widespread low-key to vociferous objections to enhancement of equality in the rights afforded to gay people.
His politics probably lean toward UKIP & he is quite elderly, but I know there are younger people like him :(
crusaid staff repeatedly complained to the police during the three months.it took the charity.to remove the false statement a member.of staff had aids.from their staff appraisal, the charity.launched the.grievance.procedure which went.on for.months eventually their doctor wrote.to crusaid advising.them.they didnt have aids – all hushed up by gay and hiv media for years sic
nigel
This is not national news, or relevant to the article. It sounds as though you have a grievance to air. Most people reading this will have no idea whether it is a well-founded one or not, without the other organisation having a right of reply and some independent investigative work. But I don’t think PN comments pages are the place to air a grievance like this, no matter how angry you may feel. Sometimes it’s better in my experience to move on after stuff like that happens. Otherwise it can end up eating up your life and soul.
Dear Mr A Strong (aka Nigel, Sarah, Caper Crusader & all the other names he uses) your problem with the two organisations are not relevant to any current PN stories – there have been various investigations into the allegations you make. I suggest you keep your personal grievances private as that is all they are, personal grievances which have nothing to do with enhancing the support & welfare for HIV positive individuals. Your continued SPAM on various sites is stymieing good debate. You of all people should understand that there is a time to move on as others have indicated……………………….
Thanks for this article and your reporting. What you do is appreciated.
I posted it to my LGBT Group on LinkedIn to spur members to read your article and to make comment. I also scooped it at Scoop.It on my LGBT Times news mashup.
Link to group >> http://www.linkedin.com/groups/LGBT-Gay-GLBT-Professional-Network-63687/about
All LGBT+ and community allies…. please come join me and 16,000+ of your soon to be great connections on LinkedIn. The member base represents 80% of the world’s countries.
It’s core value is – Visibility can lead to awareness which can lead to equality. Come stand with us and increase our visibility on the globe’s largest professional networking site. Be a professional who just happens to be LGBT – or a welcomed community ally.
Shocking, hate crime needs to be tackled, harsh fines and punishments need to be implemented and the message of bigotry is not acceptable needs to be reiterated.
I fear that these Free Schools which many are being sponsored by Socially Conservative groups will teach inequality, and Micheal Gove’s family values plan may make things worse.
If David cameron were genuinely serious about tacking hate crime he would allow the post-1967 gay crimes to be disregarded in the way he has admirably allowed for pre-1967 legislation to be expunged. It is well known that for many police, catching gays was sport at best, an amusing activity even, and the agent provocateur a homophobic and intimidating construction which has left many gay people, 20 and 30 years later, terrified to volunteer or apply for certain jobs because of the shame of having convictions for soliciting or persistently importuning for an immoral cause showing up on CRB certificates.
We all know that sexual activity itself is illegal in some public places and specifically in public lavatories. However, homophobic methods were used to establish a conviction which were simply appalling and demeaning. Also, nowadays, the same constraints are not there that promoted cottaging and cruising as the only ways of meeting others similarly like-minded. Circumstances have changed and most would not choose this way anymore. It is wrong that the opportunity to have post-1967 gay offences disregarded has not been envisaged as yet. Hate crimes ensured many of the convictions and terrified people into confessing to avoid publicity. Suicides and mental health problems among these men have escalated as a result of being outed in less encouraging times. Most people have moved to more discreet ways of meeting others and it is wrong that they be necessarily humiliated years later when their lives have changed. The amnesty needs to include the soliciting offences and free these people.
The world would be a much kinder place if it weren’t for Social Conservatives, and bigoted people who would deny LGBT rights because of there prejudices.
that’s why I am proud to call my self a progressive left of center individual.
Left of Centre winged i meant.
I feel sure that homophobic abuse and crime has been increased by headlines quoting stunningly homophobic statements by senior Catholic and other clergy. Certainly online abuse is at a level I have never witnessed before because of the campaign by the Catholic Church and others against equal marriage, and claims of a right to discriminate gay people. The government must take some of the blame because of the poor way the consultation has been handled, inviting homophobic responses.
Even one hate crime is unacceptable. The only acceptable level of hate crimes is none at all.
Do something about it then!!!!!
terrible the police panel member that helped crusaid staff regain their benefits as they fled the charity after gay.men forced to have aids diagnosis.in thr staff appraisals was turned away when they asked for help
can w6 blokey explain how does the aids charity workers decide on how.much.money to use to pay people awf ta keep quiet after vile abuse in a email ? how.much are ya pals in the aids charity sector gettin oaid to gag and ungag people ? ? ?is it oooodles
Perhaps Alan Strong you can explain why you think it is necessary to air your dirty laundry in such a public fashion?
Perhaps you can explain why you are so selfish as to hijack many of the comments pages on this and other sites with your allegations?
Perhaps you can explain why you cannot move on from the past?
Perhaps you need to look closer to home rather than rant & rave in an incoherent fashion!
Perhaps – (no most definitely) you need help to overcome whatever happened between YOU & UKC / Crusaid in the past…………………….
Take a hint, no one here is interested in YOUR PROBLEM with failed HIV charities – yes it was a scandal at the time, the charities were badly managed, the money has gone, maybe someone got rich, you are upset because you didn’t get rich – whatever it is there is no excuse for your SPAM on these comments pages, get a grip & some dignity!
now the wrong member of staff has had someone elses aids diagnosis in their staff appraisal can w6 blokey assure ud that this is something that has ceased? apart from being illdegal lol :-O
OMG ! ive.just read all the aids charity scandals and emails on the NAT newsfeature thats outragrous the link in the discussion page takes you to baseline mag and the actual emails OMG…
good job its not a crime to make fools of gay men n lesbians in the lodon hiv charity sector lol gay tories dontcha just luv em making fools of gayd n disabled
:-O
Tell it to Tebbit & Widdecombe or doesn’t hate speech count?