Meet Peter Tatchell, Fiyaz Mughal’s brand new ‘beard’
“Golden Boy with feet of clay
Let me help you on your way
A proper push will take you far –
But what a clumsy lad you are!”
(Quoted from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson)
The gay activist Peter Tatchell has always been a controversial figure. He is one of those people whom you can both vehemently disagree with on some issues but completely agree with on others. He has been a fixture of the Left/LGBT scene for many years and despite being involved in campaigns that are questionable ie the lowering of the age of consent to 14 and flirting with the increasingly mental Green Party, he has been a solid human rights activist. He has faced down homophobic members of the Russian far right, and has done stuff that many activists could only dream about, including being a part of the very first Gay Pride march and being a leading light in groups that campaigned against police harassment of LGBT people.
However, recently he has done something that is inexplicable for someone of his experience and political connections; he has agreed to become a patron of the discredited ‘hate crime’ monitor Tell Mama.
How did someone as politically brave and foresighted as Peter Tatchell get himself lumbered with this? Tell Mama is not a credible group like Amnesty International or many other human rights or anti-racist groups, they are a bunch of charlatans who lost their public funding primarily for cooking the books over the number and type of crimes aimed at Muslims.
Anybody who was even the slightest bit aware of Tell Mama’s reputation, not only amongst the counter-jihad community but also among mainstream journalists, would have known that Tell Mama is one of those organisations that are liable to leave a taint on all those who support it. To use an analogy, if genuine anti-racist organisations were to be represented as a pair of underpants, then Tell Mama would be the embarrassing skid-mark on the back. Unfortunately, despite normally being very astute, Peter Tatchell has really blotted his copybook for many by getting involved with Tell Mama.
I can imagine that up and down the UK there will be LGBT people of an Islamo-sceptic persuasion who will be going ‘what on earth!?’ about this. Those who know about the ‘Queer Cleansing’ of East London since the arrival of Islam, where violence against customers and staff has driven out nearly all the traditional Gay Pubs will also be baffled by Mr Tatchell’s decision to hook up with Phoney Fiyaz and The Internet Bin Rifflers of Tell Mama.
Tell Mama have a long and undistinguished reputation for wanting to shut down any harsh criticism of Islam and let us not forget that it is Islam that poses the greatest threat to life and limb to LGBT people throughout the world. The last thing Mr Tatchell should have done is got himself involved with the mendacious grievance-mongering taqiyya artists of Tell Mama. Sadly like other people and groups, including respectable ones like the Jewish Community Security Trust, Mr Tatchell has been persuaded that Tell Mama have a social worth beyond raising Fiyaz Mughal’s media profile and filling his wallet.
Mr Tatchell used to be the golden boy of the LGBT movement, feted for being one of the late 20th century’s longest serving and high profile gay activists, but he is showing that he does have feet of clay because of his decision.
When Tell Mama eventually either implodes or is caught out in another scandal and the shit really hits the fan, then all these naïve people and groups like Peter Tatchell and the CST who thought that by helping Tell Mama they were doing the right thing, may find that their future reputations may carry the taint of their association with Tell Mama for many years to come.
Peter Tatchell is a person whom I’ve agreed with on some things and disagreed with on others and I am really disappointed to see him being taken in like this. He will, I’m afraid, be used as a ‘beard’ by Tell Mama just as the CST are used in this way, which is primarily to make Tell Mama and the ideology of Islam ‘look good’. Shame on you Mr Tatchell, shame on you.
I’d like to end this piece with a message for Mr Tatchell personally. On Twitter recently you said in response to many comments on the lines of how could you as a gay activist get involved in a group like Tell Mama:
“Peter Tatchell @PeterTatchell 23h
To all the anti #Muslim bigots who’ve been tweeting at me today: Search your conscience (if you have one). Unlike you, I fight ALL hate.”
What you have failed to realise Mr Tatchell is that there are many of us involved in counterjihad activities or writing, HAVE searched our consciences on the issue of Islam, and our consciences tell us that if there is to be a society based on freedom and treating everybody equally, then the ideology of Islam must be fought by whatever peaceful means necessary. Islam is against almost everything that you’ve fought for over many years, you must be mad to get involved with a group that is far too keen to scream ‘Islamophobia’ at almost anything.
Link
Here is the statement from the Internet Bin Rifflers of Tell Mama on Peter Tatchell’s appointment as patron.
http://tellmamauk.org/human-rights-global-campaigner-peter-tatchell-joins-work-tell-mama-patron/
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Tatchell holding up a banner proclaiming “not all adult sex with children is unwanted” or some such obnoxious drivel.
For that reason alone I wouldn’t listen to anything else he had to say.
He should be consigned to the margins of society, crawl under a rock and remain there.
No that was ‘shopped. A fake. I know that because the background shows a banner for a union that was not even in existence when the PIE group was operating. Also Mr Tatchell is considerably older in the picture you mentioned than he would have been if he really had been demonstrating for PIE. Although I disagree with Mr Tatchell on the issue of Tell Mama and the issue of lowering the age of consent to 14 (and I have examined the arguments both for and against this). The image that you refer to is a joke and a smear. There is far more to connect Harman, Dromey and Hewitt to the Paedophile Information Exchange than there is to connect Tatchell to it, although the Gay Liberation Front during the turbulent 1970’s did have rather an anarchic approach as to who it allowed to join and the policies that it advocated. There is a world of difference between advocating sex with children as PIE did and Tatchell’s misguided policy of advocating ‘teenage sexual liberation’. The Harman Group within NCCL was far more better connected and far more mainstream than GLF ever was and therefore much more dangerous as regards nonce advocacy.
The camera can lie and that has been proved by examples of manipulated images produced for political reasons from the days of Stalin onwards.
Even if one doesn’t agree with Tatchell on things there is no doubt that he has been a consistent campaigner for human rights and this makes his climbing into bed with the discredited and failing Tell Mama organisation all the more inexplicable.
The evils of this world need to be fought, but they cannot be fought with lies and fake pictures, these evils can only be fought by bringing the truth out into the open.
By all means attack Tatchell for the things he has genuinely done wrong or challenge views of him that you disagree with but I prefer to attack using facts not fakery.
Attacking those giving their backing to Tell Mama with facts is more likely to get those like Tatchell and the Community Security Trust who have stupidly backed TM, to think again than fakery. Fakery is more likely to make them think that they made the right decision and stay with TM.
You cannot fight lies with lies, only truth can fight lies.
I nearly added “unless it was photo shopped” I’ve seen him take some flak at Harry’s Place over that claim, and nobody rushed to his defence. And they do quite admire him over there.
I’ve also admired Tatchell for his uncompromising stance on human rights issues even when I’ve disagreed with him on many issues, as I’ve done with many a person. Maybe the lack of support on HP was because people didn’t want to get into a pointless row over something that was so obviously ‘shopped.
I still cannot fathom why someone like Tatchell, who has spoken against homophobic Islamic hate preachers, has let himself be used like this?