I loved living in Gwaelod-y-Garth in south Wales, but one of the things I don’t miss is the all-round crapness of the Welsh media. So it’s no surprise the Western Mail is happy to print bilge like this:

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. [...]
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.

Who’s saying this? Step forward Lowri Turner, star columnist for that provincial rag and national telly regular. (via Rob)

I don’t like Simon Hughes. Not at all. I mean, he’s a Lib Dem who gained his seat through dubious means and at the very least profited from homophobia. I also know someone who would be a much better MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey.

If you think I’m about to say, “but today I feel sorry for him”, then this really isn’t going where you think. Cos today, I’m even less impressed than ever. Thanks for demeaning my relationship and my life and those of my friends, Simon, by your insistent denials of your “homosexuality” or your dalliances with men or whatever it was. Thanks for insisting on your - and by extension, our - right to privacy, as if being gay were something to be ashamed of. As if I get a right not to have the heterosexuality of my colleagues, their partners and baby photos in my face all day. (I wouldn’t want to live in that world, my colleagues are lovely etc etc, but you get my point.)

Of course, his bad behaviour doesn’t excuse the hideousness of the reaction of our press, which has been virulent this week. And to think I thought we’d moved on, judging by the reception given to civil partnerships in December. Oh well. Two steps forward, one step back.

Anyone see this piece of nonsense in the Guardian earlier in the week?

Gay men earn £10k more than national average
The true power of the pink pound was revealed today with the publication of a survey of gay men and women’s earnings suggesting they outstrip the straight salary by up to £10,000 a year. [...]
Gay men in full-time jobs earn on average £34,200 a year, compared with the national average for men of £24,800. Lesbians earn £6,000 more than the national average for women, take two more holidays a year and spend £400 a month on credit cards, according to the survey of 1,118 readers of Diva and Gay Times by the marketing consultancy Out Now.

Thankfully the Guardian has put up a correction to say that the data refers to readers of the magazines rather than the L and G population as a whole. What I don’t get is that no-one on the paper thought that the opportunity to read an expensive (and shite, but that’s beside the point) lesbian magazine every month and to live an out-lesbian lifestyle, are opportunities not always available to less well-off people, and that this might skew their figures.

What a charming B&B in the Highlands of Scotland! Take a look, scroll to the bottom of the page and see what stipulation they put on the occupancy of their double rooms… And then say thank you to LCLGR and Stonewall for their lobbying, Alan Johnson for accepting the amendment and all the MPs and peers for voting to make this type of discrimination illegal.

Remember the 1983 by-election in Bermondsey? The one where “practising homosexual” Peter Tatchell, the Labour candidate, was defeated by homophobia, to the benefit of the lovely Simon Hughes? Of course, Simon has always protested his innocence of any of the dastardly tricks, but Guido has evidence to the contrary…

(Yes, yes, Labour wasn’t untainted by homophobia in that election either, I know)

I’m flattered to have a post up at the Carnival of the Bent Attractions, about all things queer. Welcome, if you’ve arrived here from that source!

Sir Iqbal “gays are harmful” Sacranie (centre) cuddles up with Councillor Simon Wright (far left), secretary of the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights and Pav Aktar (far right), ethnic minority representative of the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights, at the launch of Islam awareness week 2005.

… the first lesbian or gay couple to get married in Oxfordshire yesterday. Lovely photo here.

Congratulations Shannon Sickles and Grainne Close, the first lesbian couple to get legally married in the UK.

The BBC’s article is here; do you think someone should have told the homophobes outside (see the picture further down) that women don’t usually sodomise other women?!

5.45pm This column in the Guardian, written by Jerome Farrell who will marry his partner Ray later this week, is well worth a read. Jerome talks about his previous partner Steve, who died ten years ago, and gives an example of what committed couples had to contend when one of them died, before civil partnerships:

The day after Steve died, I went to the town hall to register his death. I explained to the registrar that I was Steve’s partner and lived with him, but she informed me that only relatives could register a death. A loophole was found - I was with Steve when he died in our home, and could register in that capacity with the words “present at the death” appearing after my name on the certificate to explain how I qualified as the person registering the information. Had I not been present when Steve died, his mother or sister (both of whom lived 150 miles away) would have had to register the death.

In general it seems to be the case that the coverage of the first civil partnerships has been positive, enjoying the scenes of happiness with the newly-registered couples. Certainly, the BBC is doing well: News 24 has just had Matthew Parris on, together with a couple from Brighton who have been together for 40 years and will marry on Wednesday. It does irritate me, though, that they give any space at all to frankly hateful speech from some of the clerics who picketed the Belfast ceremonies.

And so I end up at Peter Tatchell’s pretty odd piece in the Guardian today. He’s been banging the drum that civil partnerships aren’t good enough for a while now - see this news report from 2003, when they were first mooted.

Veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell described the plans as “heterophobic” and “retrograde”. “It is divisive, heterophobic and discriminatory to exclude unmarried heterosexual couples,” he said. “Cohabiting heterosexuals also lack legal recognition and protection. This is a grave injustice.” He added: “It is a pity the government has opted for an unimaginative, watered down version of marriage, instead of having the foresight to devise an entirely new, modern legal framework for partnership recognition.”

I have little sympathy for this point of view: as I first wrote in February 2004, I’m sure some straight people are angry that in order to get their relationship recognised, they need to enter what they perceive as a patriarchial institution founded on the notion of passing a woman from her father’s care to her husband’s. As a feminist, I have real sympathy with this point of view, but the fact remains that straight couples already have the option of a civil ceremony with no religious significance held in a registry office, whereas lesbian and gay people (until now) have had no way of registering their relationships and safeguarding their loved ones. And it’s just not the case that couple-relationships are the same as other loving family and friendship relationships: I want equality with my straight friends and family, a recognition that my relationship with Jo is as strong and as committed as that between any man and woman. Not a second-rate free-for-all for inheritance tax avoidance, thank you.

And there’s not only this problem with it: his Outrage group (their site’s currently down, so no link) have kept up a steady stream of complaining press releases outlining the enormous downside to civil partnerships: that gay couples, previously benefiting from the state’s non-acknowledgement of their relationship, rooted in a heterosexist worldview, will be treated as a mutually-supporting couple for benefits purposes, whether they register their relationship or not. So we don’t get to pick and choose when out loved ones are lovers, and when they are merely flatmates any more - what a disaster! Honestly, you’d think this was black day for the gays, the way Tatchell and friends carry on. But it’s not: cheers, Shannon and Grainne (how do you pronounce that, by the way?). Enjoy your first night of wedlock.

18:27 I take back everything I said about the BBC’s coverage including the bigots. Peter Dobbie has just said, live on News 24, after talking to Christopher Cramp, whose partner died in a hospice the day after they got married on Dec 5th:

“Those who are opposed to civil partnerships have said to the BBC that maybe we should reassess the nature of love. Maybe it’s not for me to say, but I think we have just seen the nature of true love”.

The advent of civil partnership ceremonies and Dame Butler-Sloss’ remarks about the Government’s supposed failure to promote marriage means there’s some great writing around at the moment on the subject of making a commitment to someone you love - Natalie at Philobiblon, with added value from my own SO, and Tom, who’s returned to blogging with a deconstruction of policies to promote marriage - especially pertinent as he’s getting married himself in a year’s time (congratulations!), and Small Town Scribbles, on her own decision to get married.

When this by-election is over, I’ll post up my own thoughts. In the meantime, this NIB from yesterday’s Guardian caught in my throat:

Terminally ill gay man dies day after ceremony
A man who is believed to be the first in Britain to tie the knot with his partner in a civil partnership ceremony has died. Matthew Roche, 46, who had cancer, passed away yesterday at a hospice in Worthing, West Sussex, a day after the ceremony.
Mr Roche and his partner Christopher Cramp, from Southwick, near Brighton, were given a “special dispensation” to hold the ceremony which was attended by family and friends.