Westboro Baptist Church

Westboro Baptist Church’s propaganda is all over the internet. Not in a sinister way, but the news that they plan to picket Heath Ledger’s funeral has been posted on facebook and myspace walls everywhere and emailed to death.

They are all too easy to dismiss as a bunch of loons. Because they are a bunch of loons. The fact that they’re so interested in other adults’ sex lives is more than a little bit pervy, and I think all this gay-bashing is more of an excuse to hold signs with rude pictures on them (see madman below) and bond with their peers than anything else.

Really, if you were going to make a serious point would you use a wee picture of two people shagging? I think no.

But as fun as laughing at half-wit bigots is, it’s actually all a bit worrying. Quite aside from the horrible distress they cause by picketing funerals (at random as far as I can see: they picket the funerals of soldiers because they defended a country that allows gays… what the eff?) there are gay people who have to grow up in their malevolent shadow.

According to The Rough Guide to the USA:

“In the heartland [of America] life can look more like the Fifties – away from large cities, homosexuals are oppressed and commonly reviled. Gay travellers need to watch their step to avoid hassles and possible aggression.”

I know Rough Guides aren’t a piece of political literature, but a “sadly” wouldn’t have gone amiss. It just seems a bit flippant. “Oi gays. You’re reviled, okay? Watch your step.”

What’s more it shows the Westboro bigots are not a mental minority, in the deep south their views are the norm. And that’s making me lose my faith in democracy. Something needs to be done to protect the gay people in these areas. But as homophobia is so widely accepted, any state intervention would be suicide for whichever party put it in place.

Anyone got any good ideas? Obama?

Keffi-what? Fashion vs. politics

I may well be the only person who didn’t already know this, but uber-cool indie-schmindie scarves of the variety pictured below are called keffiyehs and are a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.

Most of the people who wear them surely don’t know they’re making a pro-Palestine statement, and pissing off Israel’s supporters just by doing so. I doubt the average hipster wanders around thinking that the Jews have been right nasty and should give the land back at once.

What’s baffling is how keffiyehs became such a universal trend. The scarves are traditionally worn by Arabs but for Westerners they had become an emblem of Palestinian support in the conflict with Israel. Now we see them on the back of every Tarquin, Sienna and Nathan Barley. A little bit of internet-based research shows that there are plenty of people up-in-arms about fashionistas’ casual adoption of such a political piece of symbolism.

Last year Urban Outfitters removed the scarves from their shelves saying: “Due to the sensitive nature of this item, we will no longer offer it for sale.”

And either in striking ignorance of what they symbolise, or in laudable defiance of her family’s pro-Israel stance, George dubya’s niece Lauren Bush sported a keffiyeh at a party last October. Nice.

Abortion rally in Cardiff.

Ann Widdicomb MP is coming to Cardiff on 4th March as part of her “Not on your life..or anyone else’s” tour, which seeks to promote anti-abortion goals around the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

I will be going to protest outside.

The debate on abortion has been well and truly had. I’m not going to argue my side here, but I will state my position: I believe a woman’s body is her own, there are too many badly cared for children in the world, and that believing that terminating an early stage embryo is akin to murdering a baby is just a hop, step and a jump away from “every sperm is sacred”.

The details for anyone interested:

Not on your life..or anyone else’s, The City Temple, Cowbridge Road East:-Tues 4 Mar at 7.30pm

Kirsty, Kirsty, Kirsty.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. Kirsty – Betty-Page-alike, fabulous-wearer-of-coats – Allsopp, how you’ve betrayed me.

Up ’til today I really liked her. Particularly her tendency to suggest smashing walls down with a sledgehammer. She knows her stuff about the property market, and I saw her helping first-time-buyers find their perfect property as altruistic. But I suppose it’s not really, it’s just a load of rich people moving their money around. Rubbish.

I’m not a fan of politics. It’s boring. Party politics anyway. I really like social politics because, you know, it actually matters. But one thing I really, really don’t like is rich people complaining about being taxed. Kirsty Allsopp thinks it’s just AWFUL that she has to pay all this tax to Gordon Brown. What’s he doing with it anyway, she wonders? Probably giving some of it to POOR people. Yuck.

As housing advisor to David Cameron I imagine Kirsty is mainly concerned with finding nice houses for nice, middle class people. And while, yes, my generation doesn’t have it as good as my parents when it comes to our ability to buy houses (I can’t see it happening unless a large whack of inheritance comes my way… not something I want to happen any time soon) there’s no shortage of rental accommodation and it isn’t crippling in price. There are bigger problems in Britain than whether the children of middle class parents can afford to buy houses or not.