Andrew Eaton-Lewis: According to a recent survey, more than 60 per cent of Scots support gay marriage

Published on Tuesday 6 December 2011 00:00

BACK in 2000, almost half thought gay relationships – not even marriage, just relationships – were wrong. If those figures are accurate, we are far more open-minded than we used to be.

Why? The answer, I suspect, is reality TV.

It is much easier to hate and fear minorities if you keep them at a distance. In the case of gay people, that became less and less of an option in a decade full of unthreatening, family-friendly, openly gay reality TV stars. It began with Anna Nolan, the most level-headed contestant on the first Big Brother in 2000, hugely popular despite juvenile tabloid sniggering about the “lesbian ex-nun”. A year later the series winner was Brian Dowling, also gay, and still one of the series’ most popular figures.

In 2002, Will Young won the first series of Pop Idol. Who on earth could think badly of this obviously big-hearted young man, the first contestant, famously, to stand up to the bullying judges? Then Alex Parks won Fame Academy. It says a lot that by the time Boyzone’s Stephen Gately married his partner in 2003, much of the snide media innuendo that greeted his coming out in 1999 had already ebbed away.

There were, of course, openly gay celebrities before 2000. But there is a big difference between Will Young and Boy George or Freddie Mercury. If TV talent shows have made pop progressively blander and less subversive (for more on that topic, look left), the fact that gay people are queuing up to be in them has made being gay seem less subversive too, to the point where, increasingly, people’s sexuality hardly seems worth discussing. The result, a few years later, is John Barrowman – an established star of children’s TV and panto, for whom being flamboyantly, openly gay has proved no obstacle at all.

In 2011, the biggest obstacle to gay marriage becoming legal is not the increasingly mad scaremongering of a minority (“The destruction of society as we know it.” Really?) but the silence of a majority who have no problem with it but neglect to say so because it seems so obvious.

Sadly some small-minded people don’t share that view, and they’ve spent £10,000 on a campaign which essentially argues that people like Will Young should remain second-class citizens. Don’t let them win. Please go to www.equalmarriage.org.uk, read the facts, fill in the online consultation form and help fairness and civility win the day.

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drumalban

Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 10:34 PM

Why do those who object to same-sex marriage direct their venom at the SNP? As the Scottish Government, they are only conducting an open consultation on the matter. This issue has already been discussed in other countries and accepted by legislation in many including Spain, Mexico and Argentina. The SNP has no party line on this; only an open mind. Yet legal recognition of same-sex marriage is already party policy of the Greens and the Liberal Democrats and certainly most Labour MSPs will support it; the leader of the Scottish Conservatives is engaged to be married to another woman. So to whom is this anti-same-sex marriage lobby going to shift their support? The BNP?

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Leisure_suit_Larry

Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 10:47 AM

So much influence from so few. . 0.5% of the Scottish population are said to be homosexual and given that a high number of them are not Scots but incomers (like this guy),one could probably guess there are less than 10,000 in this country- mostly concentrated in Edinburgh. True ,their lifestyle costs the average taxpayer lots of money - AIDS is on the up and there's hundreds of them costing +£50k each on treatment- but on size grounds they are tiny. In fact small enough to completely dismiss as sexual deviants. However, the SNP make it an issue because they wish to break down the bonds that bind us all together, whether mass immigration to kill genuine nationalism and patriotism, "anti-racism classes for pre-fives", grotesque laws (abortion on demand) undermining Christianity and finally homosexual "marriage" to undermine the fundamental pillar of society - the Family. A population without any principles or structures is very malleable and a nihilistic malleable population is easy to shape and for us to accept the unacceptable. Make a stance here and now folks. I leave you with the words of paster niemoller during the NAZI era. First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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neoloon

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 11:01 AM

More bad news for Scottish unionists.

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A Thouroughly Decent Bloke

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 07:38 AM

Poofs are people too!

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