The Gay press in the UK has, at times, been divided into those publications that are aimed at the hedonistic clubbing crowd and those other publications that are more thoughtful and news oriented. The news oriented Gay press has done some brilliant and necessary work. For example, those of us who remember the beginning of the AIDS crisis and the tsunami of young men’s untimely deaths that it brought, recall with respect the vital safer sex messages that the Gay press carried, which probably saved many lives. Also at one point the Gay press would carry important stories such as decrying gay bashing and calling for Gay people to be protected from assault in the same manner that straight people were protected.
Unfortunately, it seems these glory days of honest Gay journalism are gone, at least in the case of the UK publication Pink News. It has become a platform for Leftist Labour Party activists to vent their spleen against organisations and individuals that challenge the Leftist narrative, or who point out inconvenient truths, such as the fact that Islam is a clear and present danger for Gay people. Pink News under the influence of Leftists has become an organ where all diversities are celebrated, except the one form of diversity that really matters, particularly in the press, that of diversity of opinion.
The reason for writing this piece is as a response to a scandalously biased piece in Pink News about the forthcoming ‘Gays against Shariah march which is to take place in Manchester on June 10th 2017. The piece was written by Benjamin Butterworth, who is not only a journalist who has had stuff published in the left-wing Guardian newspaper, but is also a committed Labour Party activist. A quick websearch for Benjamin Butterworth shows this man to be a bit more Left wing activist than impartial journalist. A decent journalist would not have treated their coverage of the Gays Against Shariah event in the manner that he did. It’s disgusting that at a time when Gay people deserve to know the facts about the ideology of Islam, Benjamin Butterworth has let down his audience by insisting that there is no threat to gay people from Islam and by attacking those who are opposed to the violent gay hatred contained within Islam. Butterworth has done this even though credible surveys show that Muslims in Britain are more inclined to turn back the clock on gay rights than almost any other religious group.
Benjamin Butterworth of Pink News, the Guardian and the Labour Party.
Here’s the Pink News article that has given me so much concern over the issue of pro-Islam, pro-Leftist bias. As is usual policy for this blog the original text from Pink News is in italics whereas this blog’s comments are in plain text.
Benjamin Butterworth of Pink News said:
A far-right group is hijacking the first anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting with an anti-Muslim march.
Note the usual smear tactic from the Leftie writer in referring to any individual or group that asks awkward questions of the ideology of Islam as ‘far right’. I also fail to see how the Gays Against Shariah are ‘hijacking’ the first anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting merely for pointing out that Islam and Shariah Law is a clear and present danger to gay people?
The march, organised by a group calling itself ‘Gays Against Shariah – UK’, claim to be campaigning for LGBT rights, and have capitalised on public outrage at the abuse of gay men in Chechnya.
This group doesn’t just ‘claim’ to be campaigning for LGBT rights, they ARE campaigning for LGBT rights. They are campaigning against the murderous threat to those with an alternative sexuality that comes from the ideology of Islam.
The “Gays Against Shariah/Orlando Memorial Rally” is set to be held in Manchester on 10 June, and currently has 73 people either interested or attending.
Unfortunately Butterworth and others who have attacked the Gays Against Shariah rally have shot themselves in the foot badly. Their attempt to smear the group has, according to contacts that this blog has had with the organisers, had the opposite effect. The smear attempt has alerted more people to the existence of the event and is encouraging more people to pledge support for it.
The Facebook page for the event depicts shocking images of men being hanged, racist, Islamophobic content, and a video produced by gay Trump supporter Milo Yiannopoulos.
Islam kills gays, that isn’t an ‘Islamophobic’ statement, that is verifiable fact. The majority of countries that have the death penalty for gays are countries where Islam is the state religion or where Islam influences the country’s legal system.
It has been organised by the founder of the EDL’s supposed LGBT wing, Tommy Cook, who goes by the name Tommy English on social media.
Despite Mr English, head of Gays Against Sharia, failing to secure necessary Public Liability insurance for the event, he still plans to go ahead with the march.
This may be an erroneous statement from Butterworth, I believe that PLI has been obtained.
Mr English claims to have been in touch with EDL leader Tommy Robinson, who is supporting the march and says it should go ahead regardless of legality.
I’m pleased to see Mr Robinson supporting this event and I’d like to add that if every campaign did everything in a legal manner there would be no changes in society. Butterworth fails to recall that it was the actions of early gay campaigners, many of whose actions were at the time illegal, such as the Gay Liberation Front’s disruption of the anti Gay ‘Festival of Light’ event, in 1971 that helped to pave the way for today’s gay equality and activism. I’d like to add that there is nothing ‘illegal’ or ‘immoral’ about pointing out threats to people’s lives and Islam is definitely a threat to gay people’s lives.
Far right figures, including Tommy Robinson, as well as Director of Sharia Watch UK Anne Marie Waters, are due to attend the Manchester march.
There we go again with the use of the smear of ‘far right’. For the record Mr Robinson is a normal working class bloke from Luton who, whilst leader of the English Defence League, did all that he could to keep the genuine far right nutcases of the British National Party away from EDL demos. As for Anne Marie Waters, she’s a former Labour Party and UKIP supporter and a committed feminist, and secularist gay woman, hardly the sort of person who could legitimately be called ‘far right’.
Event organisers have been attacking human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, making lewd accusations toward the activist and sending abusive Tweets, after he confronted organisers about the event.
Tatchell responded to the online posts by writing that it “shows I’ve rattled the far right”.
Although this piece by Butterworth lauds Tatchell, he’s lost a lot of credibility in recent years, owing to his failure to walk back his comments of a few years back on the moral acceptability of sexual relations between those above and below the legal age of consent, which are probably the ‘lewd accusations’ that Butterworth talks about. We’ve all made political mistakes in our lives but most of us have put our hands up and admitted our mistakes (I used to be a leftie and I regret that immensely now). Tatchell on the other hand has not properly said ‘sorry’ for comments that he made that gave the impression that paedophilia and Ephebophilia is morally acceptable in some circumstances. Tatchell has also lost a lot of credibility and public support by associating himself with the disgraced and dishonest ‘anti-Islamophobia’ group Tell Mama, where he has acted as one of their patrons. The best thing I can say about Tatchell is he was good – once.
The anti-Muslim march, masquerading as a genuine LGBT rights event, is not the first of its nature.
Last year an event in Stockton-on-Tees had billed itself as a Pride march in ‘Solidarity for the Orlando and Nice Attacks’, organised by a supposed LGBT group.
The Stockton event wasn’t organised by a ‘supposed’ LGBT group it was organised by an actual LGBT group, or is it the case that Butterworth believes that the only legitimate LGBT groups are those that identify with Leftist politics? That certainly seems to be the case, judging by the tone of Butterworth’s article.
It purported to have been set up by ‘LGBT Stockton on Tees’ – a group that had no identifiable contact information, or have held other LGBT events or actions.
As far as I can make out this event did have contact information on social media, as any decent and non-partisan journalist would have found out. It was also a new-ish group which would account for there not being previous events. The organisers of the Stockton Solidarity for Orlando event were certainly much more credible than the opposition for this event, which appeared to be an astroturf organisation ‘LGBT Against Islamophobia’ an entity which in itself is a front group for the far Left ‘Hope Not Hate’ organisation.
An anti-extremism watchdog warned that it appears to be a ruse set by affiliates of prominent far-right extremist groups, including the English Defence League and Pegida UK, who are seeking to stir conflict.
Tell MAMA, an anti-extremism body set up with backing from the UK government that monitors anti-Muslim sentiment, warned that many of the organisers of the march were activists associated with the EDL, despite portraying the event as an innocent LGBT march.
If a journalist is reduced to quoting from an organisation that has such a piss-poor record for honesty and probity as Tell Mama, then it shows just what a sticky wicket they are on. Tell Mama have a long history for inaccuracy and spin, going back at least to the Islamic murder of Lee Rigby when they falsely claimed that there was a ‘massive rise in Islamophobic attacks’ following the murder, which later turned out to be complete and utter bullshit. Tell Mama also left a demonstrably fake ‘hate crime’ story on their website for well over a year and only removed it because of intense public pressure. Tell Mama are a group who I would not trust to sell me a used car, let alone make judgements on the motivations of others.
Tell Mama are also being extremely dishonest by saying that Gays Against Shariah are connected to the EDL, they are not as anyone viewing their Facebook page can see. As for ‘stirring conflict’, a growing number of people are aware that this conflict is not being stirred by those opposed to the ideology of Islam but by the followers of Islam itself. Beating up gays, scaring gay venues out of places like Tower Hamlets, engaging in mass gang rape and the horrifyingly ubiquitous terror attacks is what brings division, not being opposed to such things.
It warned at the time: “Anyone coming across this page would rightly think that this silent march was something that would not only show solidarity against the senseless murder of so many people enjoying a night out in the US, it would also provide an opportunity for communities to come together.
No, Tell Mama are wrong again. Both the Stockton event and the Manchester event have made it quite clear that these events are opposed to the ideology that drove the Orlando murderer and which drives the oppression of gays in places like Chechnya. Also Tell Mama have a habit of using other non Muslim groups as ‘beards’ in order to give themselves a credibility that they do not deserve. There are numerous instances of Tell Mama hiding behind Jewish and left wing gay groups in order to make their campaign to stop people speaking negatively and truthfully about Islam look more widely supported. The Fahrenheit211 blog has published numerous stories about the dodgy Tell Mama group and their equally dodgy founder Fiyaz Mughal and they can be found by searching this blog using the terms ‘Tell Mama’, ‘Fiyaz Mughal’ and the phrase ‘mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artists’.
“Nothing on this Facebook page would point to the motives behind such a page and where community issues are being appropriated as potential fronts to draw in people who may have some deeply questionable views.”
Wrong again Tell Mama. The Gays against Shariah group have been quite open about their motivations and are not hiding their views in any way. Islam is a threat to gay people and no amount of dishonest bluster and bullshit from Tell Mama can change that fact.
The event description reads: “Raising awareness of the widespread homophobia within Shariah Law and remembering the victim’s of the Orlando terrorist attack”.
Like it or not, Shariah law is a threat to gay people. There is a reason why gay people are considered as citizens of equal worth in non Muslim societies but are considered as targets for murder in Islamic ones and that is Islam and Islamic Shariah Law itself. I suspect that there are many on the Left who would prefer the victims of Orlando and other Islamic homophobic murders to be remembered by some useless and pointless candle-lighting ceremony rather than people standing up for their right not to be murdered by Islamic savages.
The disturbing tactic is not new in itself.
Far-right groups including Britain First have previously been accused of exploiting a number of causes including animal welfare and women’s rights in order to recruit and accrue donations.
I’ve no time at all for Britain First or any other group made up of BNP rejects, but as far as my researches can ascertain, there is no connection between Britain First and the Gays Against Shariah organisation. It was disingenuous of Butterworth to imply that by this sentence that there was some form of affinity between Britain First and Gays against Shariah.
Anti-extremism bodies are concerned that LGBT rights could also be exploited to drive an extremist agenda, due to the groundswell of pro-LGBT sentiment online.
Which ‘anti extremism’ bodies would these be Mr Butterworth? Are they all from the Left or are they organisations that have has little credibility as Tell Mama? If you are going to make statements like this, then it would be helpful to name such bodies. Gays, like Jews, are often the first targets of violent Muslims and I see nothing whatsoever wrong with people standing up against an ideology such as Islam that has a long history of the murder and oppression of gays and Jews.
This article by Benjamin Butterworth shows just how dominated by the idiotic pro-Islam Left are the British gay press and British LGBT organisations. It also shows how readily such groups and individuals reach for the tool of censorship when their narrative is challenged.
If Benjamin Butterworth is so convinced that Islam is not a threat to gay people, then why doesn’t he take a holiday in somewhere like Saudi Arabia or Iran or Sudan and declare on his visa application that he is a writer for gay publications such as Pink News? Something tells me that Butterworth will not put his money where his mouth is and do that, because it would be patently unsafe to do so.
For the record, my own awakening to the danger that Islam poses to gay people came when I was writing about a group of Muslim gays. I realised that this was the very first gay event I had ever attended which had to have a police officer stationed outside and armed police on standby to be called in if need be. This officer was not placed in position to defend the Muslim gays from the ‘far right’, which Butterworh mistakenly things is the threat, but from these Muslim gays co-religionists. That incident brought me up short and told me that Islam is a far greater threat to gay people than most other religious ideologies in Britain today.
I’ll be doing my utmost to attend this event in Manchester, this is to me a ‘safety of life’ event and one that I should attend. This is because I expect it will be made up of ordinary people pointing out to those who may not be aware, the danger that the ideology of Islam poses to British gay people.
As I have said so often on here before, the British gay press and British gay organisations are now so dominated by those of a Left wing persuasion that they are deliberately ignoring a clear and present danger to gay people. It is time for British LGBT people to reclaim those groups that claim to speak in the name of gay people, but are quite prepared to throw them under the metaphorical bus in order to not be seen as ‘Islamophobic’. It is in my view sinful to see a danger and not speak up and it is this sin that the British LGBT Left is committing. One day British LGBT organisations will be seen quite correctly to have blood on their hands, because of their inaction when faced with murderous Islamic homophobia. I hate to say it, but I see that day approaching.
Links
Original article from Benjamin Butterworth of Pink News
Benjamin Butterworth a man more Labour activist than honest journalist
https://www.theguardian.com/pr
Gays Against Sharia Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/GaysAgainstShariahUK/
Oppression of Gays in Chechnya
http://www.dw.com/en/gay-men-flee-persecution-and-honor-killings-in-chechnya/a-38457383
Dodgy Tell Mama group finally remove fake hate crime story after well over a year due to intense public pressure
Story from 2013 stating that Tell Mama were to have backing removed by Dept of Communities and Local Government for lying about number of anti Muslim hate crimes. Unfortunately their funding was reinstated on the quiet shortly after the fuss died down
See
and
Disruption of the anti-gay Festival of Light event in 1971
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Gay_Liberation_Front_1971_Festival_of_Light_action
The astroturfing ‘Gays Against Islamophobia’ entity
It’s time for British LGBT people to stand up against both the murderous ideology of Islam and the Left wing gay organisations who refuse to see the danger posed to gay people by Islam.
