Category: LGBT

EXCLUSIVE: Boojum set to mock Mohammed during Ramadan, gay icon during Pride Week

Christianity, Equality, LGBT, religion / / by

Following the publicity-grabbing success of its Easter meme which mocked the risen Christ, the overrated quasi-Mexican restaurant chain, Boojum – famous for its sticky floors and nappy-style burritos – has revealed similar plans to mock the prophet Mohammed during Ramadan and the veteran gay rights activist Peter Tatchell during Pride Week.

After some pushback from Christian former-customers, who found the Easter meme offensive, Boojum’s management responded by saying their aim is to offend all people groups equally, not just the easy targets.

“Our next meme will go up during Ramadan and will depict Mohammed having the Koran revealed to him by an angel, but – get this, right – instead of the Koran, it’ll be a big burrito! And the caption will read: “When the only thing worth revealing is a Boojum!”

He added: “We’ve already hired a graphic design student to photoshop an image of Mohammed kneeling before a burrito with a speech bubble coming from his mouth saying: “Allah Akbar! I knew I smelled Boojum!”

“F***ing hil-are, isn’t it?” said Boojum’s impossibly cool and radical PR manager and Head of Banter, Sye Merkin.

“And then, during Pride Week, we’ll post a meme depicting the veteran gay rights activist, Peter Tatchell, coming out of an actual closet, but instead of finding tolerance and acceptance, he’ll find a trio of tacos!

And the caption will read: “When the only thing worth coming out for is a Boojum!” with the speech bubble saying: “Heeeey! I knew I smelled Boojum!”

Merkin continued: “Mocking Christianity – especially during its most significant time of the year and at a time when hundreds of its adherents were just recently murdered for their beliefs – is not at all insensitive and crass or devoid of wit and creativity; it’s the kind of super original, cutting edge comedy that sets Boojum above the other higher quality, more authentic Mexican restaurants in the country.

That’s why we’re going to up our banter game even more by going after Islam and homosexuality!”

“Yeooooo!” he added.

In a separate radio interview, Boojum reaffirmed its commitment to equality by revealing additional plans to mock Bobby Sands during the upcoming hunger strike commemorations in August and King Billy during the Twelfth fortnight.

If you think right and wrong exist above the law, you’d be right. But that’s theism.

Human rights, Humanism, LGBT, secularism / / by

Where now for secular humanists, atheists and other moral relativists who profoundly disagree with the Ashers ruling? The outrage currently coming from their various corners is palpable, but it only highlights their inconsistency when it comes to the Moral Project, and exposes their faulty understanding of human rights and what it means to be human.

Human rights, as far as we can tell, can only come from one of three sources: 1) God, 2) Nature or 3) governments. Those who subscribe to an atheistic and/or strictly secular worldview reject God outright. Grand. That leaves Nature and governments. We can all agree, I think, that Nature is an amoral and impersonal force that thrives on violence and discrimination. Nature might bless you with the genes needed to live a long and prosperous life, or it might chuck a tree at your caravan. So that’s Nature out. That leaves governments – which brings us to the Ashers case.

As far as strict secularists and the Ashers case are concerned, the highest court in one of the most enlightened and progressive civilisations on earth has ruled emphatically that what they sincerely thought was a human rights violation was in fact nothing of the kind. On what basis can they now argue otherwise?

This was a question posed to the pro-life community when the 8th Amendment referendum result went against them. But there’s a key difference. The dominant view among pro-lifers is that the State does not get to hand down human rights. The State’s only job is to protect the human rights that already exist by virtue of you simply being human. Abortion, therefore, will always be wrong, regardless of what the State says because it unjustly takes the life of a scientifically-proven-to-be human being. And so, like all social reformers worth their salt, pro-lifers understand what it means to be human, and are able to remain consistent in their philosophical convictions by opposing the State and continuing to fight for the rights of unborn humans.

This view, of course, is rooted in the Judeo-Christian idea that all human beings are created equally and imbued with intrinsic value and purpose. In other words, human rights are an objective feature of reality above man’s ability to change. This, of course, is a scandalous and radical departure from secular atheism.

Secular atheism, on its own terms, cannot account for human worth or dignity because such things simply don’t exist. They are social constructs arbitrated by those in power – like those who ruled against Gareth Lee. So where do secularists turn now? What are their options?

The European Court of Human Rights? Possibly, but there’s every chance that could go the same way. The universe? Ha. The universe hates you. Shit happens. What about the doctrine that underpins the entire atheist enterprise, Darwin’s Origin of Species? Well, if Darwin was right, human beings are just slabs of talking meat. Some will get lucky, some will get devoured. There’s no secular hope to be found there, either.

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No. All they have are the laws given to them by the State of whatever country and time period they happen to be in. And what the State giveth, the State taketh away.

That’s not to say that proponents of secular atheism can’t oppose unjust laws. They can and do. And many of them do a great job of it. But they do so in contradiction to how they believe reality to be. Any secularist of any stripe who thinks otherwise is halfway to theism, so why not save all this public inconsistency and join us theists, completely? You’d still be wrong about the Ashers ruling, but at least you’d know on what grounds.

Iran successfully eradicates homosexuality after gay gene discovery

LGBT / / by

Since the discovery of the gay gene in 2048, Iran is now close to becoming the first country where no-one gives birth to a gay child.

Pre-natal tests were introduced earlier this year, with many of those who receive a positive diagnosis choosing to terminate their pregnancy.

While the tests are optional, all pregnant women are informed about their availability, with up to 95 percent choosing to take it. The remaining 5 percent of women who decline the test are quickly disappeared, never to be seen again.

The test determines whether the foetus will have a certain gene that results in homosexuality. According to PinkNews, children born with this orientation behave differently to other children, often striking fabulous poses for no reason and by adhering to other generalisations and stereotypes, such as a heightened sense of fashion or a taste for iced coffee.

On average, just one or two gay children are born in Iran each year. Sometimes, this is a result of an inaccurate test.

“Gay babies are still being born in Iran,” said Hekmat Al Muderis, head of the Prenatal Diagnosis Unit at Milad Hospital, Iran.

“Some of the foetuses were ‘straight acting’ in our screening test, so we didn’t detect them. However, we take a lot of inspiration from how Iceland entirely eradicated Down syndrome, so we’re determined to get them all.”

Annhammed Al Furedi counsels women who are considering ending their pregnancy over a homosexual diagnosis.

She tells pregnant women: “This is your life. You have the right to choose how your life will look like. If you don’t like gay babies, don’t have one.”

She told a reporter: “We don’t look at abortion as murder. We look at it as removing a clump of cells. A clump of cells with an undesirable sexual orientation, but a clump of cells nonetheless.

“We end a possible life that may have many future complications … preventing suffering for the child being born into a society that won’t accept them, leading to poverty and mental health issues, and a disproportionate rate of STDs. I think that is more right and humane than seeing it as murder – murder is so black and white.

“Life isn’t black and white. Life is grey.”

Other countries aren’t too far behind Iraq in gay termination rates. According to the most recent data available, Yemen has an estimated termination rate for homosexuality of 83 percent; in Nigeria, it’s 86 percent; and in Northern Ireland, the world’s second most homophobic country after Iran, it’s 92 percent.

The archaic and backward law of 1861 that previously governed Northern Ireland would have prevented the termination of gay babies, but since the recent Westminster power move, abortion is now permitted for any reason, including homosexuality.

Dear Alliance Party, is there room in your party for a public representative who believes gay sex is a sin?

Equality, LGBT, Politics / / by

On the eve of Gay Pride — a massive, brightly-coloured celebration consisting of not-always-clothed people gyrating and pouting in a bid to tell the whole world that what they do with their genitals is no one’s business — the words of Tim Stanley ring truer than ever: “being tolerant is not merely enough; you must celebrate. Otherwise, there is no place for you in politics”.

We’re at the stage now where the diktats of our new illiberal liberal society demand that not only are we to tolerate leftist ideologies such as abortion and same-sex marriage, we must also celebrate them. It is not enough to say, “I disagree with your ideas, but I respect you” — we must also drive a rainbow-coloured float to work each morning while a team of feminists throw handfuls of abortion pills at passers-by to the tune of Bad Romance blasting out over giant nipple-shaped speakers.

Take Tim Farron, for example. Despite not proposing a single policy that would adversely affect the LGBTQ+ community or abortion law, he wasn’t rainbow-affirming or abortion-loving enough and so quickly found himself in breach of Liberal Democrat orthodoxy. In other words, Tim Farron was too liberal for the Liberal Democrats.

Then there was that time the Thought Detectives came after Dan Walker for having the sheer audacity to present a TV programme and be Christian at the same time. In this Brave New World, presenting a breakfast TV show or leading a liberal political party is a job reserved only for the enlightened, you see. “You religious should stick to herding goats,” they seethe with love and tolerance.

Now that the dust has settled on the Tim Farron episode, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Liberal Democrat’s sister party here in Northern Ireland, the Alliance Party. Just like Tim Farron, the Alliance leader, Naomi Long, also claims to be a person of faith. Unlike Tim Farron, however, she has no such issues reconciling her faith with the liberal zeitgeist; she’s more than happy to proclaim that marriage is more of a government registry of friendships than what Jesus describes in Matthew 19, and her position on abortion is vague and watery enough (“I don’t like it, but…”) to gain her the acceptance of the progressive magisterium. For now, anyway.

So – since the Alliance Party never shy away from telling us how progressive and diverse they are, I’d like to ask them this: is there room within your party for a public representative who publicly states that gay sex is a sin? I’m not convinced there would be —  Tim Farron said it wasn’t a sin and his progressive inquisitors still weren’t happy — but I could be wrong. Maybe the rainbow colours they put on everything are really a celebration of the Noahic Covenant.

Or, if nobody is willing to admit to disagreeing with gay sex, what about the lesser secular sin of disagreeing with pre-marital sex? After all, pre-marital sex is wrong in many religions, not just Christianity. If their answer is, “No, we’re progressives. We believe in sex before, during and after marriage. Take your troglodytism elsewhere,” then not only does that exclude many Catholics and Protestants, but also Muslims and Jews who seek to live under the beliefs of their church from publicly representing the Alliance Party.

These are fair questions to ask because, for the benefit of those who don’t know, the sins of pre-marital and gay sex are long-standing and fairly bog-standard Christian doctrines. Of course, there are some Christians, like Naomi, who are happy to embrace other sexual philosophies (but not all sexual philosophies; we still have a long way to progress in that regard) — but many don’t.

So, would these Christians — and adherents of other faiths who hold to traditional values — feel safe to publicly air their views, or would they be advised not to? Would they enjoy the public backing of their tolerant and fair-minded leader or would they, like Tim Farron, find working for Alliance while holding certain beliefs impossible?