Thursday, May 10, 2007

Miss, that little boy crumpled on the ground over there pushed me

At least once a week now, the Guardian has a column bemoaning the cruelty and arrogance of atheists, and the dire lot of the religious in this country. For example, Madeline Bunting recently railed against outspoken atheists such as Richard Dawkins.

Don't get me wrong, I think Dawkins is a bore. But when they criticism him and his anti-religion ilk, Bunting and the burgeoning religious crew writing inthe Guardian appear to operate under the fallacy that it's only the anti-religious lot who are attempting to impose their values, and that religion is a poor bullied weakling. Tell that to the gays, Madeline (famous apologist for homophobic Muslim clerics). And tell that to the 17-year-old girl in Ireland who the religious crew is trying to force to stay in Ireland and bring her baby to term, rather than go to England for a termination, even though the baby has no head, and is guaranteed to die within three days of birth. And tell it, Madeline, to the UK women unfortunate enough to have as a doctor one of the 40% of GPs who say they would refuse to refer a woman on for an abortion, on 'moral grounds'.

Religion has been imposing itself on the rest of us for thousands and thousands of years. Just because in a relatively enlightened country such as the UK it has less power to do so than before, doesn't mean it still isn't doing it all the time, and still trying to do it even more. Just because you take this for granted, Maddy, doesn't mean it isnt' happening. So enough with this silly notion that religion is the victim because a handful of verbal atheists are giving it a heckling. It's been bullying us for years, and isn't going to stop until we force it to.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Football and teh gay

If I could change any single thing in sport, it would be to make it far less homophobic. To their credit, Man City are making positive steps in that direction.

Writing in the Guardian, Sam Delaney says this is a good thing, but he says so in a curiously half-hearted way. What's up with that?

UPDATE: I think that looking at this range of issues - sport, sexuality, masculinity, acceptance - would make for a very fun thesis. And then I can be very ambitious by getting the FA to employ me to help fight for a more inclusive agenda within football.

More with the casenotes - homophobia

The homophobia casenote came out yesterday, and got decent coverage in the Guardian.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Gay pay

According to analysis of the Labour Force Survey, gay men in resident couples (ie living together - and no, i'm not sure why they don't have data on gay singletons) earn, on average, 1% less than straight men in couples. Once education, region and other factors are controlled for, the pay gap for working gay men rises to 6%. In addition, this group of gay men is three percentage points more likely to be out of work. Link: Centrepiece, Summer 2006

The picture is much brighter for lesbians who are living together. Before controls, they earn 35% more than working straight women in couples. Once controls are put into place, that drops to a still large 11%. These lesbians are also 12% more likely to have jobs.

I imagine that the positive lesbian pay differential is largely accounted for by the presence of kids in far more straight women's households, with commensurate negative knock-on effects for maternal work opportunities. I'm not sure what would explain the pay gap for gay men. Discrimination?

By the way, according to Labour Force Survey data, homosexuals in couples comprise just 0.2% of the adult working age population. That strikes me as rather lower than I would have imagined, but I guess I do live a very gay couple-rich life. 

UPDATE: Over at the fossil, Trevor makes some good points.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Sending out an SES

This homophobic bullying piece I'm working on has me very interested in how schools might develop a gay-friendly ethos, and how unlikely such a thing is to exist in any school in camberwell. Over at 11D, there's a general discussion going on about public and private schools, and the effects of SES on schooling, and i've raised this issue.

Elizabeth has something in passing on white middle class kids going to schools where they're in the big minority. (I'm sure that's an oxymoron, but I like it anyway.) It's positive news, though they don't get into the dynamics of enforced heterosexuality and simplistic notions of accepted gender norms that I'm obsessign about right now.