Several people say they are distressed at the comments in this article I posted on Friday. It is only my opinion. Ignore it, if your conscience lets you. Thank you to the bed-and breakfast operators – including a Free Church attender – who tell me they despise our churches’ homophobia. The Free Church turned its back on the plight of American slaves (see link below). Why shouldn’t its followers ignore God’s people who happen to be homosexual when its elders can enforce its own bloody message by damning them? The church has form for ignoring the plight of anyone it doesn’t see as a potential source of income for itself. So look away, thou who art hypocrites.
Love, Iain
http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1066.htm
Several practising Christians have been in touch tonight. Some have stressed they are not homophobic and some have also said religion should have nothing to do with politics. As far as I can tell, none of these correspondents are from churches with the word “Free” in the name. I did not mean to imply all Christians have such abnormal views as we have unfortunately heard. And, yes, I think we should hear more from normal Christians. I
Congratulations to Alasdair Allan and the SNP. It was a famous victory which will be remembered for a long time.
It will also be remembered as the fantastic day the previously-repressed people of the Western Isles rejected extremist religion. They had the choice and the people said no. No no no, eight thousand times no.
None of the Labour or SNP apparatchiks wanted to admit that to me after the count but, going by my inbox today and in the last few weeks and the impromptu get-togethers last night at polling stations up and down the islands, it was obvious that was a major factor. No one wants to talk about it in case their granny might get upset. Often though, their granny is more open-minded than they are.
Today was also a victory for freedom of information. The stupid banal analyses in local newspapers went unread because they avoided the real facts. Happily, the internet gave younger people what they wanted. One simple weblink seemingly paralysed Labour’s appeal to younger people in the islands.
http://www.hebrides-news.com/western-isles-election-hustings-3511.html
That link above on Hebrides News about the candidates’ standing on moral issues from the Stornoway Primary husting was very widely read. Their answers showed some of the candidates, in their own words, demonstrating what homophobic, uncaring bigots they really are. One candidate (guess who), defying the law of the land and his own party’s policy, said bed-and-breakfast owners refusing gay guests was “an issue of conscience”.
No, it isn’t. It ‘s discrimination. It is also illegal. It is no excuse to say it is in the bible. People know the bible is wrong on many things – except the ones who accept its absurd fables about people who breathe fire (Psalms 18:8) or more than 200 mentions in favour of slavery including the order to take local non-believers as slaves in good old ludicrous Leviticus 25:44-46.
The link of the candidates’ comments was circulated on Twitter and particularly on Facebook. How many times did I read: “I thought I would always vote Labour but I cannot support this.”
Alasdair Allan, the only realistic alternative contender, instead rightly spoke up against bed and breakfast owners telling them to keep their bigoted noses out of the sexuality of guests and won himself massive support from many unbigoted under-40s. The proof is online if they care to look. I only found one honest Labour stalwart today who would admit, albeit privately, it may be a factor. If they deny the truth, there is no hope for them. There’s a huge lesson here. Avoid churchy candidates. They will only bring a plague upon your all your bed-and-breakfasts.
Incidentally, there are still a few nasty bigots in the SNP ranks. They are isolated dinosaurs now. You can easily spot them. Most are called Murdo or Macleod. Maybe these guys should now think of joining a party more suited to them. There’s always the BNP, I suppose. On sex, it has views exactly like their own.
There is also a huge lesson today for non-political council leader Angus Campbell. According to my sources, the First Citizen (majority: awfully tiny) is not an enthusiastic church attender yet he continues to prop up the religious bigots’ end day in, day out – and oppose pr0gress – in the desperate hope of a few scabby votes for himself from the curamachs. Mr Campbell, currently, is an apologist for religious discrimination that is utterly vile and contemptuous. He just grins and calls it tradition. We grin and call it hypocrisy.
Councillor Campbell once told me he got into politics to make a difference. Angus, the sad truth is that the islands are changing despite you – not because of you. You are fighting changes all the time.
Apart from the cold, hard souls on cold, hard pews in cold, hard churches, are you the only person who’s not got the message yet? The game changed today, Angus. Buck up your ideas or buck off.
Excellent post. Really appreciate it. It’s not easy speaking one’s mind to the religious extremists who seem to control the establishment at home. Glad to have been directed here by Innes Morrison on FB and glad for your brave voice.
Best wishes from an old Stornoway girl living far far away but with loads of family in the islands, and a deep and abiding love for home.
Lovely to hear from you, Samantha. It may not be easy sometimes – with similarly-religious people in our own families and circles of acquaintances – but it is the right thing to do. That’s the importantant thing.
Someone has to speak out to show how ridiculous and divisive fundamentalists and their ancient ideas are – from Muslim extremists to the good ol’ Wee Frees. They all promise and threaten with heaven and hell – no difference.
Most people won’t dare to challenge extremist views until someone else points out just how racist, prejudiced, bigoted and evil they actually are. People need poking and prompting.
The good news is that people here are finally waking up to what is being done to their minds. Today’s vote demonstrates that. I am convinced your island home has a magnificent future but not until the influence of the brainwashers wanes. And that is coming sooner than we dared hope.
Iain
I think Fundamentalists of any description are any easy target, mostly chosen by lazy punters. I follow your blog with interest & generally find it intriguing & informative, but I’m astounded that you seem to earnestly believe christians are the number 1 problem facing the Western Isles. It’s usually the mass media who take that route whenever there’s a real threat that needs covering up.
Certain Christians, and those who cave in to them, are an obstacle to progress, I think is all I have suggested. Anyone who has any grasp of world events must surely accept religious fundamentalists are behind most global strife.
However, thank you for your comment.
Has anyone noticed how the new , after-hours (11pm-7am) pumps at a certain filling station (which are an excellent and welcome innovation), CLOSE at 12pm on a Saturday night till monday morning??
If it wasn’t so bloody pathetic, it would almost be hilarious.
While agreeing with the thrust of your post, Iain, I wonder if you are implying that the choice of a non-churchy candidate would give Labour a fighting chance of recovering. I disagree: I think the Labour Party is finished because it no longer stands for anything except the enrichment of its own members. In the days of political giants like John Smith, Donald Dewar and Robin Cook, everybody in Scotland knew what Labour stood for. But what does it stand for today? Just look at how many U-turns it managed in only a fortnight: Council tax freeze, no tuition fees, free prescriptions, RET. Just a desperate attempt to win an election and keep the MSP salaries flowing into the bank accounts of its useless minions like Andy Kerr. The Labour Party, in a process started by Blair and Brown, has shifted to the position of the Tories under Ted Heath while the SNP has assumed the vacant political space once filled by the Labour Party. That’s why it won by one of the biggest landslides in British political history in the Western Isles and practically everywhere else in Scotland.
Hi David
No, I am not saying that a non-churchy candidate would definitely help Labour recover its old position of power. All I can go on is the many people who have been in touch with me and said they didn’t vote Labour because of the candidate’s extreme discriminatory religious views. I was in Inverness over the weekend and even there I met people from here who said it afected their vote. There is, of course, still no official recognition anywhere of that though, as far as I can tell.
I have no scientific way of determining what difference it would make here because the swing against Labour was so immense – for among other reasons its stupid last-minute flip-flops on basic policy and weakness of personalities – that I suspect it wouldn’t affect the outcome this time.
But in the future, how the open-minded will vote will be far more important to Labour than the rump of hardcore evangelicals the local party tried to court this time with a politically and journalistically well-c0nnected church elder who supported illegal discrimination for religious reasons.
Murdo Murray’s dismal performance for the Christian Party last time rang bells but they pealed on deaf and desperate ears. I suspect Labour learned a hard lesson but I expect you will consider it too little, too late. I
I’m sorry Iain, the reason Labour failed in the Western Isles was the same reason that they were in trouble all over Scotland. They no longer represent the working class, the key to success in the UK is to please the middle England vote. For instance, a fuel regulator would upset those middle England voters and therefore Labour oppose it.
It was the lack of devolved policies which beat Labour and the poor level of leadership since Holyrood came into being. When Labour came into power in 1997 they virtually adopted all of Thatchers policies. Policies like PFI which helps the fat cats get fatter while draining the public purse.
Ask yourself one question, why did you vote Labour when you were young? Then ask yourself if there is any similarities between old Labour and new Labour other than the name and colours?
Too many people in the Western Isles take Labour loosing too personally which objective people find strange. Especially when labour policies are oppressive to the man in the street. Wake up smell the coffee! Just like turkeys voting for Christmas.
I’m not suggesting you vote SNP or for any other party for that matter. Another underlying problem is that people like yourself vote Labour through tradition and your vote is taken for granted. If you are going to give a party your vote you should be looking for something in return. I would expect a clever guy like yourself to be more on the ball.
If you believe in democracy, you have to allow people with different views express themselves.
You however, Mr or Ms Observer, are not so clever – not if you think I am a diehard Labour supporter. I
Iain, it is not my intention to offend you in anyway. Unfortunately listening to your broadcasts and reading your articles there are many others like myself who detect a bias towards labour. I accept that you have taken to task those in the labour party whom you appear to dislike and that in itself discounts you from being a diehard.
Whatever your true political and religious beliefs are is your personal business which I respect. Unfortunately when you express opinions in public you leave yourself open to misinterpretation if you do not state your position clearly. As I have already said, I’m sorry if I have offended you.
Absolutely no offence taken. My policy is deliberate. I set out to take to task anyone who wants votes or office if I feel they are blasé about trampling over mine or other people’s rights. I have to be blunt to make people pay attention but it is not about disliking them personally – even if, as happened recently, they go around telling people how much they dislike me.
I just read your “article” on bigotry in the Western Isles. I could frame intelligent replies as to why the WCoF calles the pope the Antichrist, why the bible does not have errors and why the “fundamentalists” are not the ones hindering progress in the Western Isles. Oh, and also why you yourself are an intolerant bigot who misrepresents good people.. As I say, I ” COULD” but having read your ravings I know you are an unreasonable fool who would not even want to understand. You really need repentance. Really.