Rights for gay people - how much do you know?

Stuoolong

Stuoolong

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Went on a course today entitled "sexuality awareness", found out some quite shocking things with regard to the laws surrounding gay relationships. Interested to hear what you guys reckon:

1) It is illegal for two men to hold hands in public. Legally, it is incitement to cause civil unrest. People regularly get arrested for it.
2) It is perfectly legal for two men (over 16) to have sex, but only in a house wholly owned by one of them, when no one else is present in the property. This means that if you haven't paid the mortgage off, or are renting, or staying in a hotel etc, then it's against the law.
3) For a heterosexual couple "caught in the act" having sex in public, the maximum penalty is £50 fine. For gay men, it is five years' imprisonment and entry on the sex offender's register.
4) The above laws are used to arrest gay men on a regualr basis. Gay women are very rarely arrested for such offences.
5) Most (three exceptions) of the people who were recently found to be on the sex offenders' register but not on List 99 were people arrested for consenting gay sex offences, e.g. kissing/fondling in public.
6) There is no legislation preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation. This effectively means that, while it would be heinous to hear of, say, a dentist turning patients away because they are black, they are perfectly entitled to turn them away becuase they are gay. Not just dentists, any kind of service.
7) "Having difficulty coming to terms with one's sexuality" can be cited as a reason to section people.

It is estimated that on average, a gay person will tolerate more than 30 homophobic attacks before going to the police. Comparing this with the police data on homophobic violence, there are an estimated 85,000 attacks in Britain per year that are homophobically motivated.

Another thing I learnt in this course - don't use the word "Faggot" to describe gay people. Not ever. It is very rarely that I'm shocked, especially when it's "just a word", but I was shocked by that one. I'll see if anyone else knows before I say.

:finger::scream::scared::sad::sad::runaway:
 
I dont understand why Gay's need their own specific rights, who's busniss is it anyway FFS?

A sad example of how our laws are not based on Human Rights, but archaic ideals laid down by the religous aristocracy, interesting how the ones they want changed change quiet easily.

Its about time our entire law system was over hauled and started from scracth, with a simple method of defining laws and punishments, ie based on Personal Responsability, if its not hurting anyone, its not illegal.
 
feckin 'ell!!! thats outrageous!!!! didnt realise gay men were soo illegal!!!

and is the "faggot" thing to do with burning gays or soomething?

very informative post....cant believe holding hands is illegal...
 
miszt said:
I dont understand why Gay's need their own specific rights, who's busniss is it anyway FFS?

Its about time our entire law system was over hauled and started from scracth, with a simple method of defining laws and punishments, ie based on Personal Responsability, if its not hurting anyone, its not illegal.
Click to expand...

Our system of laws has built up over centuries in a country that is officially Christian. Despite recent changes, for 2000 years the Christian church has essentially preached that homosexuality is just wrong, unnatural etc, you know the spiel.

We are one of the most forward thinking countries on this.Another statistic - there are 24 countries in the world where you can get the death penalty just for "coming out". I.e., not comitting any sexual act whatever, just saying, for example, "I fancy so and so of the same sex." Another 133 countries have life imprisonment for this heinous sin.
 
Jesus H. I'm both surprised by the laws and the fact I had no idea it was that bad. Shocking enough to enough to discover gay men are not allowed to give blood even if they pass all the other criteria, but holding hands???? EH???

:Sad: :Sad: :Sad:

Unbelievable.
 
Shocking, but in a way - sadly not surprising.

I guess we made great strides since the beginning of the last century, but we still have a long way to go.

The disturbing thing is, I seem to be coming across more and more people who would rather we turned the clock back on these kinds of issues.
 
[tongue-in-cheek mode]Well, it's just political correctness gone mad, isn't it? These bastards from Europe come over here and start telling us we should liberalise this and have rights for them! I mean, asylum seekers get paid more than I do these days and as for those 3 million on incapacity benefit claiming they can't work cos of various sicknesses they're just bloody skivers the lorrovem so these gay people, well ok I don't mind what they do behind closed doors but if yer start letting them do it in public what kind of statement is that making to our kids, eh? They'll grow up thinkin' it's normal, and then where will we be? Ye've got ter draw the line somewhere ye'know. Back in my day...etc[/tongue in cheek mode] :iconfused

I wasn't trying to imitate him in the above, but I wonder what a certain person on the Cabbage forum would make of this Chris? :iwink:

It's so true though, I must have lived a sheltered life until recently, or maybe I just closed myself off a bit more to opinions I didn't like but there really is a lot of homophobia around. And far more of it is directed at men than women. Why? Because when it's two women together, it's not threatening to your average alpha male, in fact it might well be exciting! But put two men together and "Ugh!" the thought is too repulsive for them to deal with so they form hatred and go out queer-bashing. :imad::imad:
I'm the same. I find queer-bashers to be repulsive. The difference is I don't go around hurting them to make me feel more powerful in myself.
 
i got called a faggot for smiling at someone's hat the other day...
 
it really happened..

i can't believe these rules still exist in Enlgand

so gay people can marry but not hold hands or kiss in public

what a stupid country we live in
 
What is faggot supposed to mean then

I think you were going to say

sounds like its not gunna be nice :Sad:
 
Mr Mood Deluxe knew, I think. The term comes from the dark ages, on't moors, back in the days when they were burning witches, which was itself a hideous practice.

On't moors, there was a shortage of wood. People would have to travel long distances to get faggots of wood for cooking. So why bother walking all that way just to get fuel for burning witches? We can just use the gays, they're worthless.

So that was the solution. Instead of getting wood for burning witches, they used to use gay people (male and female) and use them as fuel (faggots)for the fires that were used to burn witches.

What a beautiful cultural background we have.
 
SeaGoblin said:
it really happened..

i can't believe these rules still exist in Enlgand

so gay people can marry but not hold hands or kiss in public

what a stupid country we live in
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On the face of it, all this is just more evidence that makes me want to emigrate. But then I thought, are there any countries in the world that have a better attitude to it?
 
Stuoolong said:
Mr Mood Deluxe knew, I think. The term comes from the dark ages, on't moors, back in the days when they were burning witches, which was itself a hideous practice.

On't moors, there was a shortage of wood. People would have to travel long distances to get faggots of wood for cooking. So why bother walking all that way just to get fuel for burning witches? We can just use the gays, they're worthless.

So that was the solution. Instead of getting wood for burning witches, they used to use gay people (male and female) and use them as fuel (faggots)for the fires that were used to burn witches.

What a beautiful cultural background we have.
Click to expand...
Where did you get that definition from? And in any case, wassup? Do gay people burn better than wood? I gotta say it sounds like nonsense to me. I'm not saying it's ok to call gay people "fags" or whatever, but I'd like to see some evidence for that bit of etymology. Another possibility is that it comes from public school faggot-boys, or fags, who got to do all the most menial tasks (such as preparing firewood...) and were sexually available to their seniors and schoolmasters.
 
Gotta say, that was my first reaction too, sounds like a theory dreamt up by a pissed person. Much more likely it comes from public school fags.
 
My Grandpa's told me about the fag system. A prefect would shout from their dorm window "FAAAAAAAAG!" All the first formers would then have to leg it to the dorm and the last one there had to do whatever task the prefect wanted doing.

I don't think my Grandpa engaged in any "relations" with his co-pupils though...I don't know many gay blokes with such a liking of tweed and shooting the local fauna.

Then again he was in the navy...Shit. Perhaps I should have a chat with him, maybe take him out on canal street.:Smile3:
 
Well praps. They mentioned that definition as well but pointed out that the burning witches one is older. If you want to take it up with them, I did the course at Yorkshire MESMAC (clicky).

Personally I find arguing over words a little bit tedious, but it's important to realise how powerful they are. The important bit of the message was that while gay men might call each other "queer", or "gayboy" or "bender" (terms that are often used offensively against them) the word faggot is way way out of bounds, be it for one definition or another.
 
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