QuoteMargaret Thatcher was no poster girl for gay rights
Feel free to admire her on the economy and Falklands. When it comes to LGBT issues, she threw gay kids like me to the wolves.
Many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are sincerely and deeply mourning Margaret Thatcher's passing. The gay entrepreneur Ivan Massow called her "a poster girl for gay rights" and said that, despite her being "pilloried for letting section 28 go through on her watch ... her attitude to homosexuality is often misunderstood". Indeed, Pink News described her just as a "controversial figure on gay issues", noting that the artists Gilbert and George described her as a "gay icon".
It's illogical to think that people of a shared sexuality would also share politics. Thatcher's awesome belief in herself and in her vision for Britain, her commitment to the rights of the individual and sweeping economic policies, found her many like-minded gay supporters. But, despite the Boadicea-like Commons performances, the hair, handbag and all the other hard to resist superficialities, the reality is that Thatcher presided over and took advantage of the most devastatingly homophobic time in recent British history.
If you were a gay man in the mid to late 80s – let alone a teenager, as I was – you were one of the unlucky ones. The kick in the teeth was far from metaphorical. When a terrifying new disease began cutting down gay men like rows of corn, the media, most vociferously led by the Sun's then editor, Kelvin MacKenzie, launched a campaign of deeply unpleasant propaganda. Knowing that hated Labour politicians such as Ken Livingstone were actively supportive of gay equality, the rightwing media seized their opportunity. "Pulpit poofs" were hounded from the church, playground workers were exposed as "lesbians plotting to pervert nursery tots", celebrities such as Kenny Everett, Russell Harty and Freddie Mercury were hounded as diseased vermin. Features such as "Poofs in pop" (written by one P Morgan) were run, and the News of the World published the home address of "EastBenders" star Michael Cashman.
The Sun reported a joke that went like this: "A gay man goes home to his parents and tells them he's got good news and bad news. The bad news is I'm gay. The good news is I've got Aids." One senses that MacKenzie reached his zenith when he reported calls by Tory politicians to recriminalise gay sex or to, as one councillor suggested, gas gay men to "fight Aids".
One would imagine anyone with an ounce of humanity would want to distance themselves from this as much as possible. Thatcher used it to make political capital. The 1987 election saw Tory ad campaigns trying to portray Labour as actively trying to pervert children. One billboard showed a line of young men wearing badges such as "Gay pride" and "Gay sports day" with a slogan, "This is Labour's camp. Do you want to live in it?".
After winning the 1987 election Thatcher knew she was on to a winner. She denounced local education authorities for teaching children that "they have an inalienable right to be gay" and brought in the hated clause, then section, 28, which outlawed the promotion of homosexuality as "a pretend family relationship". Despite the fact that no one was ever prosecuted under it, the law made teachers feel they could not tell kids that if they were gay, it was OK. It effectively scared them from talking about being gay even when children were being physically attacked.
Some gay men who knew her have said she liked gay people individually. The journalist and former Conservative MP Matthew Parris says that Thatcher told him she appreciated the difficulty he had in coming out to her. The day before she resigned she awarded Ian McKellen a knighthood. When Norman Fowler set up a high-profile campaign to educate the public about HIV and Aids she didn't stop him – good of her. Most symbolically, they say, she was one of the few Tories to vote for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Whoop-dee-doo. One of the arguments of that time was that gay people should be free from threat of prison so they could "seek treatment". More telling is the fact that when Lady Young led the campaign against Tony Blair's scrapping of section 28 in 2000, Thatcher made her support known by sitting next to Young in the Lords for the vote.
I never met her. Maybe Thatcher didn't hate gay people that she knew. This makes it more despicable that she was willing to throw us – including kids like me, desperate for help in 1988 when section 28 came in – to the wolves for the sake of a few poll points. What she did do was inflict huge damage on a community that desperately needed support, and smashed down any possibility of supporting confused children or educating them about how to not catch HIV.
Twenty-five years later we've just had the highest rates of HIV infection among gay and bisexual men, we're blighted by significantly higher levels of drug and alcohol misuse, and teachers tell me that some of their colleagues are under the misapprehension that section 28 is still in force. Even in 2013, two schoolchildren – that we know of – have taken their own lives probably partly because of homophobic bullying. Feel free to admire her economic policy, her retaking of the Falklands, whatever, if you so wish, but when it comes to LGBT issues, to see Thatcher as anything other than a poster girl for the wrongs done to gay people is a wilful delusion.
An interesting perspective from the Guardian as to why some people may dislike her.
To think that things like this happened 30 years only before the UK legalized gay marriage is both amazing and horrifying.
I know that if I lived as an adult gay man through the 80s in Britain and especially lost someone I care for to AIDS, I'd be inclined to dance on her grave now.
I am sure north englander coal miners hated her because of her actions against the gay lesbian and trans-gender community.
This is just a "spin a global news to be about my sexuality" thing.
You have to face it: her other actions totally overshadow in significance her actions regarding gays, regardless of which actions you consider positive or negative.
Quote from: Tamas on April 11, 2013, 05:03:30 AM
This is just a "spin a global news to be about my sexuality" thing.
You have to face it: her other actions totally overshadow in significance her actions regarding gays, regardless of which actions you consider positive or negative.
That doesn't matter for those concerned, though.
Mart, you would have had a pretty shitty time as a gay, lesbian or transgender person in 1980s Britain anywhere outside certain enclaves of London. Sadly, gay rights was probably the one area in which she was most in tune with the working class.
Quote from: Warspite on April 11, 2013, 05:41:50 AM
Mart, you would have had a pretty shitty time as a gay, lesbian or transgender person in 1980s Britain anywhere outside certain enclaves of London. Sadly, gay rights was probably the one area in which she was most in tune with the working class.
Yes, that's the point of the article though. Due to the AIDS epidemids, this was probably the most traumatic experience for gays in the West in several generations. And she jumped on the bandwagon of kicking GLBT people while they were down. If, as many gay tories now claim, she was not antigay in private, this makes her even worse as she knew what she was doing.
In times like this I always like to give the example of Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, who was a Polish free market liberal and the prime minister of a centre right government in 1991. He is credited with implementing Thatcher-style reforms that saved Polish economy and had a really tough time keeping the coalition government intact, despite massive worker strikes.
But when a health minister from a Catholic conservative coalition party (then, deeply popular, as Polish society came out of communism very religious and homophobic) called homosexuality a "disease", Bielecki fired him immediately, because it was the right thing to do.
People were not nice to gays in the 80's? Shocking.
Typical selfish gays, inventing AIDS the year I went to university and making everyone too scared to have sex :mad:
I'm pretty sure I remember all those Saatchi election poster campaigns - "Labour Isn't Working" etc., but I have no recollection of the "This is Labour's camp" one, and no amount of Googling is turning one up.
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 05:57:16 AM
Yes, that's the point of the article though. Due to the AIDS epidemids, this was probably the most traumatic experience for gays in the West in several generations. And she jumped on the bandwagon of kicking GLBT people while they were down. If, as many gay tories now claim, she was not antigay in private, this makes her even worse as she knew what she was doing.
So it would make her better if she hated gay people in private? That is a weird perspective.
Anyway supposedly Britain handled the AIDS thing much much better than the US did under her leadership and she was one of the few Tories to vote for the gays on some key measure according to the other thread. If she did these things because she was swept along with public opinion so felt it was some sort of political necessity then she is a moral coward, but no more than most politicians out there. I mean what is mentioned in the article are symbolic gestures that ultimately came to nothing...whereas how we responded in the US was far more serious with real consequences....supposedly anyway. I will leave it up to Brits in any case on what is true and what isn't.
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 07:16:23 AM
I will leave it up to Brits in any case on what is true and what isn't.
The article is written by a Brit.
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 08:09:22 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 07:16:23 AM
I will leave it up to Brits in any case on what is true and what isn't.
The article is written by a Brit.
I meant the Brits I respect on the board.
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 07:16:23 AM
Anyway supposedly Britain handled the AIDS thing much much better than the US did under her leadership and she was one of the few Tories to vote for the gays on some key measure according to the other thread.
That was decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967 and the article addresses that.
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 08:11:10 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 07:16:23 AM
Anyway supposedly Britain handled the AIDS thing much much better than the US did under her leadership and she was one of the few Tories to vote for the gays on some key measure according to the other thread.
That was decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967 and the article addresses that.
Sure enough it mentions it and does not address it. It, incredibly, acts as if that vote was cast in 2007 not 1967. Which makes his points rather weak when it is obvious he is tossing out points that do not fit with his agenda. Besides nobody has ever claimed she was a poster girl for gay rights or that she should be praised in this area. The article, despite its title, is not making the argument that she should not be praised for her gay rights record, rather that she should be condemned for it. To do that you have to minimize all the evidence that does not fit with that perspective. Which he does.
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 08:11:05 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 08:09:22 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 07:16:23 AM
I will leave it up to Brits in any case on what is true and what isn't.
The article is written by a Brit.
I meant the Brits I respect on the board.
The who? Do we have any of those?
I mean i respect arkyspite, but he's a croat.
The "Don't die of ignorance" iceberg campaign was incredibly effective, and very clearly identified that AIDS was in no way limited to the gay male community, and set out what everyone could do to minimise the risk of contracting it.
Until I see evidence otherwise, I think the Labour paedophile poster may have been misremembered by the author, or had been either mocked up as a spoof, or was a complete balls-up by Saatchi that was leaked to the press but never used.
Quote from: katmai on April 11, 2013, 08:19:43 AM
The who? Do we have any of those?
I mean i respect arkyspite, but he's a croat.
:glare:
Quote from: Brazen on April 11, 2013, 08:24:01 AM
Quote from: katmai on April 11, 2013, 08:19:43 AM
The who? Do we have any of those?
I mean i respect arkyspite, but he's a croat.
:glare:
I'm just joshing ya B. :hug:
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 08:16:26 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 08:11:10 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 07:16:23 AM
Anyway supposedly Britain handled the AIDS thing much much better than the US did under her leadership and she was one of the few Tories to vote for the gays on some key measure according to the other thread.
That was decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967 and the article addresses that.
Sure enough it mentions it and does not address it. It, incredibly, acts as if that vote was cast in 2007 not 1967. Which makes his points rather weak when it is obvious he is tossing out points that do not fit with his agenda. Besides nobody has ever claimed she was a poster girl for gay rights or that she should be praised in this area. The article, despite its title, is not making the argument that she should not be praised for her gay rights record, rather that she should be condemned for it. To do that you have to minimize all the evidence that does not fit with that perspective. Which he does.
The article addresses a point that is made by some that she actually liked gay people and had many gay friends, and Section 28 was an "accident" - that is raised by many tory gays these days (this is for the people who do not read news outside of Languish).
Come on Mart. You know full well that gays are bad people and deserve every bad thing that they get. You're just a little too close to the problem to be able to admit it.
Quote from: Warspite on April 11, 2013, 05:41:50 AM
Mart, you would have had a pretty shitty time as a gay, lesbian or transgender person in 1980s Britain anywhere outside certain enclaves of London. Sadly, gay rights was probably the one area in which she was most in tune with the working class.
I have a feeling, and this is just me, that outside of the Castro, Marty would have had a pretty shitty time as a gay, lesbian, or transgender person anywhere in the English speaking world in the 1980s.
Another gay voice, this time from the Telegraph:
QuoteI might be a gay woman but I don't need to dance on Margaret Thatcher's grave
I was driving along in the countryside when I heard the news that Margaret Thatcher had died.
It's not a huge surprise. She was 87 and in very poor health. When I worked in the BBC newsroom we prepared for these days. Obituary packages and procedures were well rehearsed. But I'm not in the Corporation's newsroom now. I can respond emotionally and intellectually and I am able to express an opinion.
Over the past few days I have been listening to all the eulogies and tributes on the radio and television. "We have lost a great Prime Minister," said David Cameron. The word "great' is being bandied about in every other sentence. However, it is word with several definitions of course. It can mean 'wonderful', 'first rate' or just 'enormous' or 'important'.
There is no doubt that Baroness Thatcher was important. It's fascinating watching her opponents being interviewed trying desperately not to say what they really feel - respecting the fact that she has just died and we Brits don't like to speak ill of the dead; not too soon after they've passed anyway.
So how long is a respectable period to leave before we can say what we really think?
Even people I admire hugely on Twitter are asking us all "not to dance on her grave". Well I am not going to dance on Lady Thatcher's grave. The feeling of anger and shame that her name engenders in me was as strong in her life as it is in her death. We have all known that she has been unwell for a long time, but because she was ill does not prevent me from having a pretty strong opinion on what she did when she was perfectly well.
I was 24 when Section 28 was introduced to 'prevent the promotion of homosexuality' in schools by Lady Thatcher's government in 1987. It was at a time when AIDS was placing its hideous stranglehold on the gay community. A community that needed help, support and education was instead the victim of homophobia entrenched in our education system.
The progress of equality was set back decades. Gay people were made to feel even more marginalised. There was an excuse to ostracise and bully. It was a sorry, sorry time and anyone who was remotely involved in it should feel nothing but shame.
Lady Thatcher was a woman of principle who never doubted her convictions. She never admitted to being wrong. The British Labour politician Roy Hattersley tells of a time when there was clearly an error in a white paper but however blatant the mistake, Mrs T was having none of it. Is that something to admire? Are we to admire someone just because they have principles even if those principles are misguided?
If I admire David Cameron for anything it is his ability to make a u-turn, to apologise for his support of Clause 28 and admit to an error of judgment.
I don't admire people just for being strong. Strength in itself is not laudable if it is misguided. The truly intelligent ask questions and are open to doubt. Bullishness is not necessarily 'great'.
Am I saddened by Lady Thatcher's death? No I am not sad. I can feel a human sympathy for her family and friends who have lost someone that they loved but I cannot feel sad.
Sadness is a different thing altogether. My political beliefs were formed at the height of the Thatcher era. If I have to thank her for anything it is the sense of injustice that she instilled in me. It is perhaps because of her that I feel the need to defend so strongly the unrepresented and oppressed.
Many of her supporters are trying to reassure us that Lady Thatcher was a kind person in her private life. That may well be. I was not in her private life. As a gay woman, I was a victim of her public life and to me that represented unkindness bordering on bullying. I celebrated when she was ousted from power. I danced then. I have no need to do it again but when the country stops next Wednesday to watch her state funeral, my heart will be empty.
[/b]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/9985392/I-might-be-a-gay-woman-but-I-dont-need-to-dance-on-Margaret-Thatchers-grave.html
And speaking of hagiography and hyperbole, the Economist is running a cover, calling her "Freedom Fighter". I am considering cancelling my subscription.
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 04:46:05 AM
To think that things like this happened 30 years only before the UK legalized gay marriage is both amazing and horrifying.
I know that if I lived as an adult gay man through the 80s in Britain and especially lost someone I care for to AIDS, I'd be inclined to dance on her grave now.
So, ok, were there any good places in the world to be gay in the 80s? I'm searching for places that would be similar to Canada, UK, France, Australia today?
Linking Thatcher's policy of no gay promotion to teen suicide is dishonest, at the very least. Teens keep committing suicide for various reasons in our occidental societies. In the 3rd world, they are sent to die in various wars&conflicts, as it was before.
I don't think teens killing themselves because they're gay should be treated seperately from other issues, it is the same basic problem related to teenage years, with drugs, alcohol, bullying, first love drama, desire for freedom denied, etc, etc. We are at a crossroads where we need to be treated like adults, but are not yet ready to be so. Gay is simply one more reason to commit suicide. Nerds commit suicide because they are mocked. Those suffering from sever acnea used to commit suicide. Those who pose nude commit suicide. Those who are bullied because they aren't smart enough are committing suicide.
If you focus on one of the many reasons, I fear you will ignore an underlying cause common to most teen suicide, and that is counter-productive for the society.
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 08:47:40 AM
And speaking of hagiography and hyperbole, the Economist is running a cover, calling her "Freedom Fighter". I am considering cancelling my subscription.
:nelson:
Marti is so ridiculous.
Quote from: viper37 on April 11, 2013, 09:58:06 AM
Linking Thatcher's policy of no gay promotion to teen suicide is dishonest, at the very least. Teens keep committing suicide for various reasons in our occidental societies. In the 3rd world, they are sent to die in various wars&conflicts, as it was before.
I don't think teens killing themselves because they're gay should be treated seperately from other issues, it is the same basic problem related to teenage years, with drugs, alcohol, bullying, first love drama, desire for freedom denied, etc, etc. We are at a crossroads where we need to be treated like adults, but are not yet ready to be so. Gay is simply one more reason to commit suicide. Nerds commit suicide because they are mocked. Those suffering from sever acnea used to commit suicide. Those who pose nude commit suicide. Those who are bullied because they aren't smart enough are committing suicide.
If you focus on one of the many reasons, I fear you will ignore an underlying cause common to most teen suicide, and that is counter-productive for the society.
OK then what's the underlying cause common to most teen suicide?
Quote from: garbon on April 11, 2013, 10:05:06 AM
OK then what's the underlying cause common to most teen suicide?
I don't know, but given that many non gay teens commit suicide, it would seem homosexuality is not the cause, no?
A majority of teens committing suicide are depressed. Like all mental disease, it's only been recently really researched.
Maybe there's an hormonal change that increases the risks, I remember reading something along that some time ago. With hormonal imbalance may create depression in subjects.
Aside that, medicine and psychology aren't my field of expertise. I just think focusing only on the gay issues would let us miss other issues.
Gays can't kill themselves, it's a hate crime.
Quote from: The Brain on April 11, 2013, 10:31:51 AM
Gays can't kill themselves, it's a hate crime.
Especially if it's out of self-hatred. Good point.
Marti, we all know that you have a warped view of the world but during the 80s Thatcher wasnt the only one who held those views.
Quote from: viper37 on April 11, 2013, 10:19:18 AM
Quote from: garbon on April 11, 2013, 10:05:06 AM
OK then what's the underlying cause common to most teen suicide?
I don't know, but given that many non gay teens commit suicide, it would seem homosexuality is not the cause, no?
A majority of teens committing suicide are depressed. Like all mental disease, it's only been recently really researched.
Maybe there's an hormonal change that increases the risks, I remember reading something along that some time ago. With hormonal imbalance may create depression in subjects.
Aside that, medicine and psychology aren't my field of expertise. I just think focusing only on the gay issues would let us miss other issues.
Except that it could very well be for a given teen that his sexuality was the reason he committed suicide.
It's odd as you had a whole post about different types of people commuting suicide because of a perceived in adequacy, then said that focusing on any of the many reasons would be ignoring an underlying common cause. Now you're saying that you've no idea what that is. :D
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 11, 2013, 10:42:29 AM
Marti, we all know that you have a warped view of the world but during the 80s Thatcher wasnt the only one who held those views.
For example, in the 80s, I thought the homo gays were gross.
Quote from: garbon on April 11, 2013, 10:05:06 AM
OK then what's the underlying cause common to most teen suicide?
The immediacy of their problems and lack of perspective. Everything changes, but many teenagers don't grasp this.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 11, 2013, 10:54:50 AM
Quote from: garbon on April 11, 2013, 10:05:06 AM
OK then what's the underlying cause common to most teen suicide?
The immediacy of their problems and lack of perspective. Everything changes, but many teenagers don't grasp this.
Don't you agree though that when school workers are specifically prohibited by law from addressing one of the common reasons for teen suicide, this may increase the number of teens committing suicide for that reason?
It's possible. I never got much use out of the school guidance counselors though.
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 08:47:40 AM
And speaking of hagiography and hyperbole, the Economist is running a cover, calling her "Freedom Fighter". I am considering cancelling my subscription.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
[spoiler]Though naturally this is a false dichotomy contrasting an objective with a method. It was a cop-out when Reagan said it to justify his support for the Contras and has since then been used by every single diabolical murderous terrorist apologist out there.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Spoilers are for gays.[/spoiler]
Peter Tatchell weighs in:
QuotePeter Tatchell shares his thoughts on Margaret Thatcher who died earlier this week and writes about her relationships with foreign dictators.
Margaret Thatcher's collusion with tyrannical regimes in the 1980s included regimes that persecuted LGBT people, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, South Africa and Chile. As well as opposing LGBT equality in the UK, and legislating the notorious Section 28 ban on the so-called 'promotion' of homosexuality, she allied with the US president Ronald Reagan who also opposed LGBT equal rights and who for many years ignored the AIDS pandemic as it killed tens of thousands of LGBT and African Americans.
In the wake of her death, Margaret Thatcher has been hailed by President Obama as "one of the great champions of freedom and liberty." Former president, George Bush senior, added: "Margaret was, to be sure, one of the 20th century's fiercest advocates of freedom and free markets." A similar view was echoed by Chancellor Angela Merkel: "The freedom of the individual stood at the core of her beliefs."
Indeed, together with Ronald Reagan, Thatcher spearheaded the fight against "communist totalitarianism." Although the break up of Soviet-era communism was largely as a result of internal contradictions and popular protests, the 'Iron Lady' can claim some credit for challenging the 'Iron Curtain' and halting its further advance.
Often her opposition to communism was, however, at the price of unsavoury alliances with anti-communist regimes that were far from freedom-loving. Throughout the 1980s, Thatcher colluded with the right-wing dictatorships in South Africa, Iraq, Pakistan, Chile, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Indonesia and the Philippines. She and her supporters have glossed over this less than seemly side of her freedom crusade.
Ever the Cold War warrior, a country's stance in the East versus West struggle for global hegemony was the principle basis of her foreign policy and diplomacy. She also indulged dictators if there was money to be made; hence her love of that bastion of freedom, the House of Saud. She sold them weapons and bought their oil. It was a necessity of realpolitik, she said by way of justification. There was not a jot of concern expressed by her about the plight of women or religious minorities under the iron-fisted rule of King Fahd. Freedom for Saudi women and Christians did not concern her.
At a time when human rights organisations were condemning Saddam Hussein's tyranny, her government sought to sell arms components to the Iraqi dictator in 1981. Ignoring his poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988, which killed at least 3,000 people, she dispatched her envoy to offer Saddam £340 million in export credits; thereby helping sustain his brutal regime and arguably helping make it possible for him to attack Kuwait and ignite the first Gulf War.
Thatcher was also one of the closest allies of the apartheid leaders in South Africa. Although not personally in favour of apartheid she defended their regime because she saw it as a bulwark against communism. To this end, she believed that black freedom in South Africa had to be sacrificed to what she saw as the more important goal of halting the spread of communism in Africa. She smeared Nelson Mandela as a terrorist when she denounced his liberation movement, the African National Congress, as "a typical terrorist organisation" and vetoed Commonwealth sanctions against the apartheid government. During the savage repression in South Africa in 1984, she hosted the apartheid leader, P W Botha, for tea at Chequers. Just a few years before the fall of apartheid, her spokesman scoffed that it was "cloud cuckoo-land" to suggest that Mr Mandela would ever win power. She was an apologist for the white minority regime, right to the end.
Likewise, for the same anti-communist reasons, Thatcher backed the Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, even after his military government was exposed for interning, torturing and killing liberals and democrats. More than 2,000 Chileans were murdered and over 30,000 tortured. She declined requests to speak out for freedom in Chile; preferring to heap praise on Pinochet's adoption of her monetarist economic mantras.
Even after the Cold War was over, in 1999, when Pinochet was detained in London on charges of human rights abuses, Thatcher denounced his arrest as "unjust and callous" and praised him for "bringing democracy to Chile."
Despite similar grave human rights abuses, General Suharto of Indonesia – who murdered 500,000 suspected communists following his 1965 military coup – won accolades from Margaret Thatcher. She hailed him as "one of our very best and most valuable friends" and never spoke out against his arrest and detention of journalists, students and human rights defenders. Far from objecting to the military occupation of unfree East Timor and West Papua, she sold Jakarta weapons that were used to suppress the people there. Hundreds of thousands were killed.
Margaret Thatcher may have talked about freedom but too often she colluded with tyrants and torturers, in the name of stopping communism. For the victims of these anti-democratic regimes, they never saw any evidence that she cared about their freedom.
The regimes she did business with were sometimes as harsh and unfree as the communist alternative she loathed and was determined to prevent. Her ideas of freedom were contradictory. She was intolerant of communist tyranny but relaxed about dealing with anti-communist tyrants.
Margaret Thatcher's foreign policy was first and foremost driven by a hatred of communism, not by a love of freedom.
Peter Tatchell is director of the London-based human rights organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, and coordinator of the Equal Love campaign.
Really? She is to be condemned now for being allied to the United States? :lol:
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 11:41:04 AM
Really? She is to be condemned now for being allied to the United States? :lol:
Amerikkka.
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 11:41:04 AM
Really? She is to be condemned now for being allied to the United States? :lol:
How DARE Thatcher be smart! :mad:
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 11:41:04 AM
Really? She is to be condemned now for being allied to the United States? :lol:
That's what you took away from this article?
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 11:45:46 AM
That's what you took away from this article?
Um it is right there in paragraph 1. Besides what the article is condemning her of doing is essentially supporting US policy. We were, above all, the ones who decided to support very sketchy regimes in the service of stopping Communism during the Cold War. This is hardly new information.
Quote from: garbon on April 11, 2013, 10:03:40 AM
Marti is so ridiculous.
He's been going overboard this week on that front.
Week?
Century :yes:
Quote from: garbon on April 11, 2013, 10:45:21 AM
Quote from: viper37 on April 11, 2013, 10:19:18 AM
Quote from: garbon on April 11, 2013, 10:05:06 AM
OK then what's the underlying cause common to most teen suicide?
I don't know, but given that many non gay teens commit suicide, it would seem homosexuality is not the cause, no?
A majority of teens committing suicide are depressed. Like all mental disease, it's only been recently really researched.
Maybe there's an hormonal change that increases the risks, I remember reading something along that some time ago. With hormonal imbalance may create depression in subjects.
Aside that, medicine and psychology aren't my field of expertise. I just think focusing only on the gay issues would let us miss other issues.
Except that it could very well be for a given teen that his sexuality was the reason he committed suicide.
It's odd as you had a whole post about different types of people commuting suicide because of a perceived in adequacy, then said that focusing on any of the many reasons would be ignoring an underlying common cause. Now you're saying that you've no idea what that is. :D
Can you affirm with reasonable certainty that 95% of teenage suicides are caused by sexual orientation?
If no, why focus 95% of resources on teenage sexual orientation?
Why should gays get preferred treatments to other teenages?
Wouldn't it be counter-productive to adress the suicide problem as being mainly dependant on sexual orientation for teenagers who are not lgbt?
And assuming that most suicides affect the lgbt teenage community, can we affirm with 95% certainty that their sexual orientation was the cause and not another problem?
What if the insecurities of being a teenager had nothing to do with presumed sexual orientation but another cause that we ignore so far because we are determined to focus on sexual orientation?
I do not have all the answers. But I know for sure sexual orientation is not the main cause of teenage suicide.
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 11:54:01 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 11:45:46 AM
That's what you took away from this article?
Um it is right there in paragraph 1. Besides what the article is condemning her of doing is essentially supporting US policy. We were, above all, the ones who decided to support very sketchy regimes in the service of stopping Communism during the Cold War. This is hardly new information.
And if this is all being viewed thru an LGBTLOLWTF prism, it's worth adding that the USSR & the East Bloc were not typically very tolerant of homosexuality.
Quote from: viper37 on April 11, 2013, 12:34:25 PM
Can you affirm with reasonable certainty that 95% of teenage suicides are caused by sexual orientation?
If no, why focus 95% of resources on teenage sexual orientation?
Why should gays get preferred treatments to other teenages?
Wouldn't it be counter-productive to adress the suicide problem as being mainly dependant on sexual orientation for teenagers who are not lgbt?
And assuming that most suicides affect the lgbt teenage community, can we affirm with 95% certainty that their sexual orientation was the cause and not another problem?
What if the insecurities of being a teenager had nothing to do with presumed sexual orientation but another cause that we ignore so far because we are determined to focus on sexual orientation?
If anyone was advocating the things you are suggesting, then you might have a point.
Quote from: derspiess on April 11, 2013, 12:37:57 PM
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 11:54:01 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 11:45:46 AM
That's what you took away from this article?
Um it is right there in paragraph 1. Besides what the article is condemning her of doing is essentially supporting US policy. We were, above all, the ones who decided to support very sketchy regimes in the service of stopping Communism during the Cold War. This is hardly new information.
And if this is all being viewed thru an LGBTLOLWTF prism, it's worth adding that the USSR & the East Bloc were not typically very tolerant of homosexuality.
Heh, reminds one of "Queers for Palestine". :D
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 10:57:13 AM
Don't you agree though that when school workers are specifically prohibited by law from addressing one of the common reasons for teen suicide, this may increase the number of teens committing suicide for that reason?
because we all know that a first thing a teenager does, when he has problem, is consult the school psychologist who has a 3 months waiting list.
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2013, 12:44:11 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 11, 2013, 12:37:57 PM
Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2013, 11:54:01 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 11:45:46 AM
That's what you took away from this article?
Um it is right there in paragraph 1. Besides what the article is condemning her of doing is essentially supporting US policy. We were, above all, the ones who decided to support very sketchy regimes in the service of stopping Communism during the Cold War. This is hardly new information.
And if this is all being viewed thru an LGBTLOLWTF prism, it's worth adding that the USSR & the East Bloc were not typically very tolerant of homosexuality.
Heh, reminds one of "Queers for Palestine". :D
Perhaps, if I ever claimed that I'm in any way a fan of the USSR, the East Bloc or Poland, that would be a valid criticism.
Quote from: Martinus on April 11, 2013, 11:38:31 AM
Peter Tatchell weighs in:
Having a vaguely similar name doesn't make you an expert.
Quote from: garbon on April 11, 2013, 12:42:13 PM
If anyone was advocating the things you are suggesting, then you might have a point.
Aren't they? The articles posted by Marty stop short of blaming Thatcher for teenage suicides.
Quote from: viper37 on April 11, 2013, 02:15:52 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 11, 2013, 12:42:13 PM
If anyone was advocating the things you are suggesting, then you might have a point.
Aren't they? The articles posted by Marty stop short of blaming Thatcher for teenage suicides.
Be serious. Which of your listed questions correspond with things that the posted articles suggest.
Can you affirm with reasonable certainty that 95% of teenage suicides are caused by sexual orientation?
If no, why focus 95% of resources on teenage sexual orientation?
Why should gays get preferred treatments to other teenages?
Wouldn't it be counter-productive to adress the suicide problem as being mainly dependant on sexual orientation for teenagers who are not lgbt?
And assuming that most suicides affect the lgbt teenage community, can we affirm with 95% certainty that their sexual orientation was the cause and not another problem?
What if the insecurities of being a teenager had nothing to do with presumed sexual orientation but another cause that we ignore so far because we are determined to focus on sexual orientation?
One the writers complain that the UK did not invest to support the LGBT teenage community at a time where there was an AIDS panic and that caused suicide on a vulnerable community.
That's a big shortcut:
Quote
Despite the fact that no one was ever prosecuted under it, the law made teachers feel they could not tell kids that if they were gay, it was OK. It effectively scared them from talking about being gay even when children were being physically attacked.
[...]
Maybe Thatcher didn't hate gay people that she knew. This makes it more despicable that she was willing to throw us – including kids like me, desperate for help in 1988 when section 28 came in – to the wolves for the sake of a few poll points. What she did do was inflict huge damage on a community that desperately needed support, and smashed down any possibility of supporting confused children or educating them about how to not catch HIV.
I still fail to see how Thatcher's policies would have been worst than the rest of the world, or how cuddling gays would suddenly solve the problematic of teenage suicide specifically for gay teens. AFAIK, even in the US, there's a lot more tolerance to gays than there used to be in the 80s, gay actors&actresses come out, there are gay characters in most tv shows and yet... Gay teenagers are still more likely to kill themselves, apparently.
Maybe, just maybe, going at it on the grounds of sexual orientation is not the way to go, for heteros as well as gays? Teenage suicide wasn't that much heard of in the 40s&50s. Were gays more socially accepted at the time?
Oh, I think it was that suicide was less socially acceptable in the West at the time. Also, people had less free time to wallow.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 11, 2013, 03:48:56 PM
Oh, I think it was that suicide was less socially acceptable in the West at the time. Also, people had less free time to wallow.
We just had another tragic case of a teen committing suicide because of social media. I think people had just as much time to wallow back then. Its just that their time of wallowing now can entail extreme scrutiny by their peers. Before stupid stuff we did was forgotten within days/hours. Now it lives on within the internet forever.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 11, 2013, 03:55:21 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 11, 2013, 03:48:56 PM
Oh, I think it was that suicide was less socially acceptable in the West at the time. Also, people had less free time to wallow.
We just had another tragic case of a teen committing suicide because of social media. I think people had just as much time to wallow back then. Its just that their time of wallowing now can entail extreme scrutiny by their peers. Before stupid stuff we did was forgotten within days/hours. Now it lives on within the internet forever.
Is it that rape thing? Maybe Malthus can light some people on fire to make sure justice is done.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2013, 05:03:08 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 11, 2013, 03:55:21 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 11, 2013, 03:48:56 PM
Oh, I think it was that suicide was less socially acceptable in the West at the time. Also, people had less free time to wallow.
We just had another tragic case of a teen committing suicide because of social media. I think people had just as much time to wallow back then. Its just that their time of wallowing now can entail extreme scrutiny by their peers. Before stupid stuff we did was forgotten within days/hours. Now it lives on within the internet forever.
Is it that rape thing?
yep.
Although I should add that is the tragedy I was referring to. I did not mean to suggest that she had done something stupid online. She was a victim of others doing stupid things online.
[Frak's sake, in the future I'll know not to work on two posts at once and then try to post both within 5 seconds of each other...just had to reconstruct this post after failing to wait the five seconds, then being told I'd already posted it after I retried, and then losing it totally. :glare:]
I'm not going to argue that Section 28 wasn't unneccessary; after all, no prosecutions were attempted using it as a basis for all the years that it was on the Statute books.
However, there's a world of difference between "promoting" a lifestyle and providing support to a troubled teenager who needs to make a decision about his or her own sexuality; teachers should not be promoting any lifestyle over another, whether it be hetero-, homo- or whatever.
At least, there is a difference in the English language that I know. Hopefully the guidance councellors who were worth their pay actually understood that. :hmm:
Unfortunately, I am relatively unaware without further research of how the debates in parliament and the press went at the time concerning the interpretation of the terms involved, to my slight embarassment now; at the time I considered the whole row overblown and a "storm in a teacup" and paid little attention after the initial volleys of claim and counter-claim.)
I can say I've never met anyone who claims to have been affected by Section 28, but since my circle of friends is relatively small that is not a statistically significant fact I'm afraid... :(
Anyway, my point is that Thatcher seems to have considered that being "gay or straight" was a private issue ("behind closed doors" being perhaps a better term, and certainly fits her background and upbringing.) Hence she voted for decriminalising sodomy while also coming up with a clusterfuck like Section 28. She simply considered it yet another issue where the State should not get involved.
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2013, 12:44:11 PM
Heh, reminds one of "Queers for Palestine". :D
In fairness Tatchell's been beaten up at the Mosco Gay Pride and threatened because he keeps attending anti-Israel protests with signs saying 'Israel: STOP OPPRESSING PALESTINE. Palestine: STOP OPPRESSING GAYS.' Needless to say it's not the message the 'we're all Hezbullah now' crowd are going for :lol:
In addition he's been beaten up twice trying to perform a citizen's arrest on Robert Mugabe. He's very left-wing but difficult not to love. Having said that he's around Morrissey level in terms of his opinion of Thatcher.
I think the article's a bit slippery. As I say Section 28 is indefensible. But Thatcher's government had probably the best response to AIDS in the western world and compared to Reagan, especially, it's something they deserve a lot of credit for.
Whether she's a gay icon is another issue altogether. I can see it. She often dressed like a sort-of suburban drag queen (think Dame Edna) and the hair and the voice and the things she used to say ('we are a grandmother!') were very high camp.
I like and respect Tatchell a lot, he is also an irritating prat, life can be so complicated sometimes :hmm:
The poster campaign mentioned in the article in the op btw..................like Brazen I cannot remember it, yet I was living in London at the time (Bermondsey) and my route to work took me past many billboards. I think it may be fictional.