Make the strange lady go away Mummy, she’s scaring me!
Paola Binetti, Italian “Union of the Centre” Party member and member of the Italian parliament’s Chamber of Deputies, thinks she has come up with the answer concerning equal marriage in Italy – gays should just change gender.
“Why do we need to pass a law on civil unions for homosexual couples, and to engage in a lengthy semantic debate around what ‘marriage’ means today?’” Binetti asked in an interview with Huffington Post Italy, “Why must we embark on a bitter parliamentary battle on the value of the family, to decide whether certain reforms will strengthen it or weaken it further? It would be a complete waste of time: all debate has now been rendered void by the recent verdict of the Supreme Court in the case of the individual who has demanded the right to change sex without surgical intervention.”
Yes dears, you did read that correctly – she did suggest that gay people need only undergo gender reassignment to get married. Hang on for a bumpy ride, this is a woman with degrees in surgery and psychiatry.
“Sexual difference appears completely irrelevant. It is enough for an individual to claim not that they are a certain way or they look a certain way but merely they desire to be a certain way,” Binetti continued, “Just present your documents, declare how you feel and how you want to be considered and the die is cast.”
To steal a line from the BBC comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth, “I do believe the phrase rhymes with ‘clucking bell’.”
When I first came across this story, which appeared in The New Civil Rights Movement, I thought it had to be satire or a spoof. Surely no politician could be that stupid? So I went searching the internet. Sad to say that it is 100% genuine.
Some people really don’t get it, do they dears? Hello Paola, gay men like men, lesbians like women – they are not interested in the opposite sex, and have absolutely no desire to change gender. If any of my gay friends saw some muscled Adonis, say in a kilt, I could be wearing my sexiest outfit – and they would trample over me to get to him.
Oh well, I suppose no-one can every accuse her of transphobia.
Her comments follow the European Court of Human Rights condemning Italy for denying same-sex couples their human rights by not offering them marriages or civil unions.
72-year-old Binetti is a devout Roman Catholic and a Numery member of the ultra-conservative and controversial Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei (Work of God), which Dan Brown mistakenly called a “secret sect” in his novel and subsequent movie The Da Vinci Code. As a member, Binetti has voluntarily asserted that she does indeed wear a cilice; a toothed metal belt worn around one of her thighs, to constantly remind her of the suffering of Christ (let me see; crown of thorns, scourged, crucified, spear in the side – nope, nothing there about wearing a toothed belt – they didn’t even break his legs because he was already dead).
This is not the first time Paolo Binetti has made homophobic statements. In 2007 she stated on Italian TV channel La7 that gays and lesbians needed medical care, maintaining that homosexuality is a disease.
As well as holding a senior position in the Italian government, since 1991 Paolo Binetti has been overseeing the work of the medical facility of the Biomedical Campus of Rome.
I pinched this from Pink News. Someone posted this picture to Twitter, an illustration from a children’s book about the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark – complete with two male lions going into the Ark. Lionesses are of course much more slender and cannot grow manes.
Just a thought, if there was a large collective of homosexual lions, would that make for “gay pride”?
Nebraska woman’s bizarre case is thrown out of court
So outraged was 66-year-old Sylvia Driskell at LGBTQI people in the US media, that she brought a lawsuit against all homosexuals on Earth.
In some sort of bizarre reverse of the Billy Connolly movie The Man who Sued God, Driskell, of Omaha, Nebraska, filed a federal lawsuit against all homosexuals, naming herself as ‘ambassador’ for the plaintiffs, namely “God and His son, Jesus Christ”.
In a seven-page, handwritten suit, Sylvia Driskell stated;
“Your Honor, I’ve heard the boasting of the Defendant: the Homosexuals on the world news; from the young, to the old; to the rich an famous, and to the not so rich an famous; How they were tired of hiding in the closet, and how glad they are to be coming out of the closet.”
…
“I, Sylvia Ann Driskell, Contend that homosexuality is a sin, and that they the homosexuals know it is a sin to live a life of homosexuality. Why else would they have been hiding in a closet?”
…
“I, Sylvia Ann Driskell, write, as well, we also know that if a child is raised in a home of liers [sic], and deceivers, and thieves that it is reasonable to believe that child will grow up to be one of the three, are all three.”
…
“I’m sixty six years old, an I never thought that I would see the day in which our Great Nation or Our Great State of Nebraska would become so compliant to the complicity of some peoples lewd behavior.
Why are judges passing laws, so sinners can break religious and moral laws?
Will all the judges of this Nation, judge God to be a lier [sic]?”
Oh dear. Poor Sylvia. Her comments would be tragic if they were not so hilarious.
Firstly, one would have thought that an omnipotent deity would have no need of any earthly “ambassador” and that if any such entity wished to punish homosexuals, then he would be perfectly capable of doing so of their own accord. Instead, if God exists, then he seems to have absolutely no problem with having his creation born gay, lesbian, bi, genderqueer, intersex, pansexual, asexual, or in variations in some of these themes.
The closet references are extremely amusing. “Why else would they have been hiding in a closet?” suggests that Ms Driskell actually think that non-outed LGBTQI people actually live in physical closets. Oh if only, dears. Where else would one find fabulous frocks to try on?
The statement concerning children is Facepalm City. “I, Sylvia Ann Driskell, write, as well, we also know that if a child is raised in a home of liers [sic], and deceivers, and thieves that it is reasonable to believe that child will grow up to be one of the three, are all three.” she writes, and of course the inference here is that if a child is brought up in a gay household, that child will also turn out to be gay. Not only does science not bear this out, but how then does she explain exactly where LGBTQI children come from if not from cishet parents, including Christian parents? Seems to me that Ms Driskell is of the Pat Robertson belief, that gays will die out because they can’t multiply.
Well, Judge John Gerrard, hearing the case in Nebraska’s US District Court, lost no time in throwing out Ms Driskell’s case. He told first flatly told her that she had no legal jurisdiction to act as “ambassador” for God and Jesus Christ. He then told Ms Driskell that it is not the business of US courts to decide whether homosexuality is sinful or not.
“The United States Federal Courts were created to resolve actual cases and controversies arising under the Constitution and the laws of the United States,” stated Judge Gerrard. “A federal court is not a forum for debate or discourse on theological matters.”
Some people have too much time and money on their hands. Perhaps Sylvia Driskell should spend both of hers on improving her English spelling, in becoming educated on LGBTQI issues, in learning that a federal court in Omaha does not have the jurisdiction over the entire world (nor does the USA as a whole as she seems to think so), that the USA is a secular republic with a wall between church and state enshrined in the constitution, that an omnipotent God would not need a mortal being to do their bidding – and that if she wants to take the Bible literally, then as a woman she should be silent and subservient and by bringing her fatuous lawsuit, she has in fact blasphemed the very faith she claims to believe in.
I was going to do a full blog challenging every one of these points, Loves, but there’s simply too much to address. So instead, I’ll leave this here to judge for yourselves. I will however make a few observations upon it.
Every election throws up candidates who are controversial, eccentric, offensive, and downright barmy, and the UK General Election, which takes place on 7 May 2015 is no exception. Susan-Anne White could fit all the above categories and is standing on the above ticket, which even puts UKIP in the shade for bigotry, ignorance, and frankly daft ideas.
Claiming to be “Biblically correct NOT politically correct”, Ms White’s agenda is anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-adultery, and pro-child discipline. Her agenda also includes other measures such as the UK pulling out of the EU, banning the legalisation of dangerous drugs, opposing global warming science (which she claims is pseudoscience), CCTV in all abattoirs and banning Halal slaughter, which of course are clearly Biblical because… …ah… …ermm… …perhaps Ms White would like to explain those ones herself?
Interesting to note that Ms White wants to “recriminalise” homosexuality. She would have a hard job, as homosexuality was never actually criminalised. Buggery, Sodomy and Gross Indecency (under the Labouchere Amendment of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885) were the offences under which gay men were prosecuted, but being homosexual in itself was never a criminal offence. It’s equally interesting to note however that she claims that after stating “Oppose the LGBT agenda while showing compassion to those who struggle with gender confusion.” Yes, the LGBTQI community have encountered that particular brand of “compassion” many times before.
Please note I am using Ms White’s terminology here, as I have no doubt she thinks gay men and lesbian women “struggle with gender confusion” and is unaware that gender and sexuality are two different things.
No doubt I am the very sort of person who would make Ms White want to heave. I like dressing in pretty, feminine clothes, right down to frilly panties and I’ll happily shag anything I fancy, male or female, which moves – and a few things that don’t. To steal a line from one of my favourite movies, Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, “my tongue has been places you don’t even know you’ve got and it’s great.” And being a pansexual genderqueer crossdresser, I’m not struggling with gender confusion at all. I fully embrace it, I love it, and far from feeling any shame, I’m proud of it. One can only wonder just how much “compassion” Ms White would afford the likes of me?
Another bizarre stance is to raise the age of consent to 18 and enforce the law. I don’t know how Ms White imagines teenagers with raging hormones are going to obey that law, how she intends to enforce it, or what point needlessly making criminals of young people and wasting police time would achieve exactly.
I would also question her claim that she is being “Biblically correct” on this one. This is what the Bible has to say on Mary’s conception of Jesus; “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.“ (Matthew 1:18, KJV). Now, at that time Jewish girls were betrothed in arranged marriages at age 12. So if Joseph had not “known” Mary before she conceived, then that could mean she was as young as 12 years old when she conceived Jesus.
That’s before we even get onto the story of Rebekah, whom even rabbinical and Biblical scholars agree may have been as young as three years old, that’s right dears – 3, when she was betrothed to Issac.
What was that about being “Biblically correct”, Ms White?
But then, for a woman, we see that Ms White’s manifesto is particularly misogynistic. when we consider that she wants to “Oppose feminism and restore dignity to the stay-at-home mother” (which no serious person has ever seriously questioned the dignity of women who choose that noble role), and “Restore the concept of the family wage with the father as the bread-winner”.
Which only leads me to wonder just why she, as a woman, does not choose to “stay-at-home”? Particularly when being so “Biblically correct”, she should be staying at home and not be seeking political office at all;
“The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” (Titus 2:3-5, KJV)
“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.” (1 Timothy 2:11-13, KJV)
Them’s the words of the Bible, which you claim to be the unerring word of God, Ms White dear, not mine.
UPDATE: Susan-Anne White came last in the constituency of West Tyrone, polling a mere 166 votes and thereby losing her deposit. So far no reaction has been posted in her blog.
“And for Aaron’s sons thou shalt make coats, and thou shalt make for them girdles, and bonnets shalt thou make for them, for glory and for beauty.“ (Exodus 28:40, KJV)
Oooh, and I’m sure they looked just DARLING in them, dears!
Many thanks to Teresita, the Linux Gal, for supplying the quote which inspired this.
Linux Gal’s site, Terminal Cruise, can be found here:
Despotic and homophobic president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, who during last years “election” campaign called gay men worse than “pigs, goats and birds” (what’s he got against birds?) and called for them all to be beheaded, was captured in this snap by an unnamed photographer, standing in front of a woman, giving the impression that her hairdo and earrings are his own.
Worrying thing is, it really does suit him.
You look absolutely DAHLING, Robert. So do we know you as ‘Roberta’ or ‘Bobbie’ now?
Religious loony claims gays will force Christians to enjoy anal sex.
Oh dear. Just when you think he cannot get any more bigoted, bizarre or ill-informed, American Christian fundie Pat Robertson insists that allowing same-sex marriage will eventually lead to all sorts of sexual behaviours he finds “abhorrent”, including male rape apparently.
Speaking on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s 700 Club in response to Indiana’s homophobic Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Pat claimed that gay customers “make you conform to them.”
In one of his most bigoted and bizarre statements to date – and he’s come out with some doozies – Pat said “You’re gonna say you like anal sex, you like oral sex, you like bestiality,” he added. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to conform your religious beliefs to the group of some abhorrent thing. It won’t stop at homosexuality.”
As ever, a homophobe hiding behind a Bible to promote his bigotry, and getting it all wrong as usual. In falsely claiming that homosexual men (you’ll notice Pat never references lesbians) will enforce others to ‘enjoy’ anal sex, what he is talking about is rape. I would like to ask Pat Robertson if he thinks women victims enjoyed their experience of rape, but I am frankly scared of the reply I might get.
It may interest Pat, and any who think like him, to learn that the vast majority of rapists are heterosexual men, and that includes rapists who anally rape other men. This is because rape is not about sexuality, it is about control and power over and the humiliation of the victim. As he is such a loyal ‘merkin’ boy, who no doubts hates the ‘dirty commies’, I suggest that Pat reads about the atrocities the Red Army committed during the march through Germany to Berlin in 1945. Soviet soldiers, mostly heterosexual (the Soviet Union was probably more homophobic than the west), raped anything that moved; women and men, girls and boys. as a weapon of war and as revenge for the Nazi invasion of Russia.
Oh gosh, we’re all going to like oral sex – like we don’t all like it already. And I’ve got news for Pat, that includes many Christian couples, with both partners happily going down on each other, just as couples have been doing for millennia. Unless of course, given his obsession with gay sex, Pat is referring purely to homosexual fellatio (and no dears, that’s not a character in Hamlet).
And here comes the stupid statement – bestiality. I really wish Pat would become better informed and learn that every US state and every country which has allowed same-sex marriage has the same stringent laws against bestiality (he means zoophilia, rather than human beings being sexually ‘bestial’, which was the original definition) as all others do. And of course it is not gay men who practice bestiality – it’s mostly straight men who do that. I know this; I live in Scotland, where the men are real men – and the sheep are nervous.
Then we come to polyamory; group sex. Again, people have been happily engaging in orgies for millennia, and if Pat thinks this does not happen in the straight community, I suggest he takes the blinkers off.
I really cannot BELIEVE that Pat Robertson describes polygamy, having many wives, as an “abhorrent” practice. WOAH, Pat. To use a wise old Scots saying, haud the bus. Pat Robertson bases his opposition to homosexuality on verses against it in the Old Testament – the very same Old Testament which is replete with men having many wives, and Bob Almighty certainly didn’t seem to have a problem with that. It’s not the LGBTQI community calling for polygamy, Pat, it’s your religion which advocated that.
With predictable ignorance and bigotry, Pat then goes off on a rant about Islam, correctly stating that stoning wives is in the Qur’an – whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that the very same practice appears in the Old Testament. In fact, the laws on stoning appear in the Book of Leviticus; the very same book that Pat and his like get the rule of gay sex being an “abomination” from.
Similarly Pat makes the mistake of stating that a Muslim can tell his wife “I divorce you” three times, and the couple are legally divorced. While the “triple-talaq” of a man telling his wife “I divorce thee” three times is indeed legal in some Islamic countries, there are some Muslim scholars who frown upon it, stating that there should be a period of time between each talaq to give the wife two more chances – a sort of “three strikes and you’re out”. The triple-talaq however is most certainly not legal in developed, western countries, where Muslims seeking divorce have to go through the same due process of law as any other couple, nor is it ever likely to become legal in western society. Hell, could you see US lawyers giving up potential divorce cases without putting up a fight? But Pat maintains “it’s in the book”. If he is meaning that the triple-talaq is in the Qur’an, then it is obvious he has never picked up a copy. It appears in fact in the Hadith; writings of Mohammed. And that is why some Islamic countries allow it, but not all.
It may also interest Pat to learn that under Talmudic Law a man must divorce an unfaithful wife, even if he is inclined to forgive her. And the Torah states that divorce is simply obtained by a man writing a Bill of Divorce, and handing to his wife, which any Jewish husband is entitled to do, for as little as the wife being a poor cook. At least in Islam it has to be something substantial, like adultery.
Poor Pat. Such intolerance and ignorance in under three minutes. And always reducing what is supposed to be about loving relationships to sex, and attacks homosexuality at every turn.
Not that I wasn’t already aware of this. In 1999 the Bank of Scotland entered a deal with Pat Robertson to try to use his influence to break into the banking market in the USA. Having come over here on a visit, Robertson responded in an outburst decrying the amount of homosexuality in Scotland. Robertson stated “In Scotland you can’t believe how strong the homosexuals are.” Well, I don’t know if Pat was speaking from personal experience, but while some of them are quite strong, the rest are what are commonly known in Scotland as ‘Big Jessies’ – I should know, I am one. He added that Scotland was “a dark country overrun by homosexuals.” HA! I should be so bloody lucky, dears.
So, having slighted the best wee country in the world, one would imagine the Bank of Scotland would have sent Pat packing wi’ a flea in his lug. Like hell they did. They broke off their business relations and gave Robertson £10 million ‘compensation’. What the hell, BoS? I’ve been a loyal customer for over 20 years. If you’re throwing millions away, throw some in my direction.
So what do we make of Pat Robertson’s obsession with sex, and gay sex in particular? The late great Bill Hicks once said “You just know someone that right-wing is hiding a deep, dark, secret.” and of course, he was right. So know what? I reckon that’s Pat’s problem. Anyone that obsessed about gay sex must be thinking about it morning, noon and night. And as any psychologist worth their salt will tell you, those who are most vehemently homophobic do not necessarily hate gays, they hate themselves for their own latent homosexuality, and are so ashamed of it, but are too cowardly to admit it, they lash out at others.
Let’s face facts; Pat Robertson is so far back in the closet, that he has Aslan on speed dial.
And if that is the case, another reason why Pat Robertson is so homophobic is because he’s not getting any action himself. In that respect, he reminds me of the Conservative Party politician Ann Widdecombe, who at age 67 claims to have stayed a virgin through choice. Yes, but not necessarily her choice.
And so it is with Pat Robertson, who is more to be pitied than anything else, as a sad, sexually confused, old man, who is unlikely to ever get the good solid rodgering he needs, and which may just unpucker his face a bit and make him lighten up a little.
So he need not worry himself about anyone in the LGBTQI community forcing him into anything. Certainly not from me. Sorry Pat dear, but although I’m quite happy to shag just about anything that moves (and a few things that don’t), you wouldn’t even be last on my list; you simply would not appear upon it. And I reckon the same goes for all my LGBTQI sisters and brothers.
Finally, if you are reading this Pat, and you’re not pleased about it, well, you claim to be a Christian, so forgive me.
Xandra 
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