Before I get started, yes there’s such a thing as the British Gay Police Association. Go ahead and get the laughs out… There ya go. Ok, can we move on now?
Back in June, the GPA displayed this ad in the British Newspaper "The Independent". The goal was to claim that there was a 74% increase in homophobic incidents and that they were explicitly due to religious beliefs, namely Christianity. This of course sparked outrage from the Christians. But there’s more to the story.
What’s missing from the article is proof. They don’t include actual numbers to back up their claims. Furthermore, it appears that 25% of those "hate" crimes were committed by Muslims according to a spokesman from the GPA. So was it fair?
I have to side with the GPA on this one. Christians and Muslims alike have been targeting homosexuals for years. Religious groups have held them responsible for just about everything that is wrong with the world. From AIDS to the loss of family values and everything in between. JFK assassination, yep it was the gays. Global warming… gays again. Our dependence on foreign fossil fuels, you guessed it… gays.
Christians have fought unremittingly to classify homosexuals as a lesser species, a mistake, or a freak of nature. They have tried to and are succeeding in not allowing them the same rights as the rest of us. The list goes on.
Now the Christians get a little tiny dose of their own medicine and they cry bloody murder. I find it absolutely absurd.
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Absurd maybe, but fighting fire with fire is not always the best thing to do. It is terribly hypocrital of us to blast away at creationists on this site for a lack of sourced evidence and then turn around and jump on the back of unsourced statements because they appeal to our nature.
In any case, should this article be true I would like to know the magnitude. For all we know, the 74% increase could be a rise from 20 incidents in the whole of Britain to 27 incidents.
Just commenting, the unsourced nature bothers me. But as gasmonso said, the whole turned-tables situation is really quite satisfying…
I agree with Agnostic, insofar as we should prove ourselves right by rising above, not striking them evenly.
But then again, given the level where many of the homophobic religious place their claims, taking the high road relative to them shouldn’t be very difficult…
For all we know, the 74% increase could be a rise from 20 incidents in the whole of Britain to 27 incidents.
Very good point. Much like the argument that is made that second hand smoke makes you 50% more likely to get cancer. Sounds like a big deal, until you pull up the population numbers and find that by the math, non-exposure to second hand smoke results in a 10 in 1,000,000 chance of cancer while with the second hand smoke you have a 15 in 1,000,000. Statistically insignificant.
I’ve shouted it at gay-bashers, now I shout it at their supporters. Sources and numbers, I demand them!
pssst, from 20 to 27 is a 35% increase….
While there certainly is some beatifull irony in this, this is NOT the way to act. You’d think, being subjected to this kind of treatment, they would be above this.
News articles should have sources listed but I dug this up from the pages of Metropolitan police (London).
http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/index.php
Homophobic crime
No. of crimes (12 months to September 06)1,269
No. of crimes (12 months to September 05)1,350
% change -6%
Now this number does not really support the 74% increase but I think they have reached their number by adding the not reported crimes to their calculations. The Metropolitan police would not have those numbers as there is large estimated number of crimes which are not reported in fear of the usual, reprisal.
Not reporting means MET has no official data of it.
If we assume the numbers for 2005 is correct then there would have been 2349 crimes in 2006 for the percentage to be that high.
That means 1080 unreported crime but some organizations say that only 1 in 3 is reported.
But considering that London has some 13 million residents, it is not that impossible for the numbers to rise to that level as MET might have listed the crime under other heading also (racist, violent, etc) if the homophobic part is not that clear.
I have to side with the GPA but they should put out those darned sources would make life so much easier.
Personally, I did find their ads to be highly biased against christians with bible in a pool of blood, must be politically correct to not anger muslims?
Can you spell misogyny?
It’s not just about gays you bastards; it’s about classifying yourself better than someone else by proxy.
I think the campaigns/commericials against smokers are a really good example of this. All stereotyping is WRONG, not just for gay people; even though we feel justified by evidence, generalizing someone or something IS FUCKING WRONG.
Now, I won’t go into the most relevant example, (ie. the relgiousfreaks.com “agenda”), but let it be known that even though you think you are helping, you are passing judgement on other. (But in this case it’s justified, because they are judging EVERYONE else.)
I hate all religious people; just getting that out there.
I don’t hate religious people, just “religious idiocy”, as the site title says.
While there are plenty of Christian leaders who are are very supportive of homosexual people, they aren’t in the majority. In the developed world, the majority position is pretty much that homosexual “behaviour” (for lack of a beter word) is a sin, but theologians are usually quick to point out that it’s but one sin out of many, and Christianity teaches that we’re all habitual sinners anyway, so we’re hardly in a position to be all superior and judgmental.
Including a few more conservative views, it’s a fairly commonly-held view that homosexual “behaviour” is incompatible with Christianity, in the same way that the Buddhist religion is incompatible with Christianity. Yet even the loudest Christian kooks aren’t calling for Buddhists to be executed or for Buddhist marriages not to be recognised.
The real problem here is that the majority of Christians (i.e. the mainstream ones) don’t see the rights of homosexual people as their problem. Oh, sure, if you’re a “non-practising homosexual” member of our congregation, we love you and we’ll take care of you. But those people out there… well, violence, no matter what kind of violence, is a terrible blight on our society, but what can you do?
The reason why this is a problem is that the lack of speaking out (though thankfully this is changing, albeit very slowly) has given homophobic people an excuse.
One thing about human nature is that we’re very good at rationalising the bad things that we do. Basically, to commit evil, we need a “good excuse”. Today, the US government permits torture on the “good excuse” of “freedom” or “security”. Without that “good excuse”, it would be very hard to get people to buy it.
But “freedom” and “security” are, on the face of it, very good things indeed. Who doesn’t want freedom? But that’s no excuse!
“Religion” is, for many people, the greatest “good excuse”. It excused the crusades (which were actually more about opening trade routes to the Orient than anything religious), and today, amongst some people, it excuses homophobic violence. As always, it’s the loudest minority who wins in the race to get their message out. The Westboro Baptist Church only has about 150 members out of 300 million people in the US, yet it gets disproportionally a lot of press.
Yes, Christianity could and should do more about this. But in our defence, it’s hard. People who say nice, supportive, peaceful things don’t get a lot of media airtime. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
Well, I can spell misandry too but that is beside the point but am feeling ornery, sorry about it.
I kind of find it amusing that you talk of judging people and after reading your (well am making a cardinal sin and assuming it is you) comment in another thread.
“Fuck Allah, fuck Islam and fuck your beleif’s. May both you and America choke and die in a Nuclear swirlie.
Yeah, I say we nuke em all; can’t hurt right? ”
I just have to say; welcome Shaze, to the judgement crew.
Surely, if every religious people just chocked and died at the same moment, all ‘holy’ books self-immolated and all religious litterature just dissapeared… it would be quite anarchic, at least for a while.
Then… new religions.
The only answer is to stop that ‘respect of belief’ and valorification of ‘faith’. Rationnallity and a good, logical, upbrigning would be the end of all those religious problems.
To be true, new problems would just develop anyway, BUT, not religious ones. Might even be lesser problems, who knows?
As long as there are people, and as long as those people have questions about the world around them, there will almost certainly be religion in some form or another.
But so long as the answers don’t lead them to uninformed hate, against anyone, that’s okay with me.
Even if every religion disappeared, and “rationality and a good logical upbringing” became the new norm, it would very quickly deteriorate. You can beat religion, but you can’t beat human nature.
People will still commit evil acts, and people will still find excuses for it. If it’s not “religion”, it’s “freedom” or “security”, as I said.
Haha thanks Alcari, my 1am maths isn’t particularly laudable…
But at least, with rational upbrigning, they would be more inclined to be critical of gouvernment-fed bullshit… won’t they?
Naery, you’d think so. But I think governments would just evolve to produce a new kind of bullshit.
You got me there.
Don’t attack Christ-follower’s views on homosexuality without first attacking Christ’s teaching and the original cannon of the Bible as well, including the Old Testament. This view requires a belief in the Trinity first. Has your friend ever done something wrong against you, perhaps lied to you, and you still love that person? Followers of Christ are called to love their neighbor, including homosexuals, but homosexuality is a sin. Sins can be removed if one takes the RIGHT steps.
Keep up the good work. Police officers need to proud of who they are. Gay,is part of the world today. Best of LUCK.
no one can MAKE someone finish smoking if they don’t wish to. The most effective way of stopping smoking is with numerous sessions of hypnotherapy. This process manages with the physical side of the habit and the psychological aspects. Most quit smoking methods don’t tackle the psychology and fail
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Nice post!