Gay Rights Protest
November 16th, 2008 at 23:09

So yesterday, I went to a protest outside the American embassy. That’s right – after eight years of a disastrous Bush administration, they finally voted the good guy in, and that is when I decided to go on my first protest and hold America to account by standing in front of their building as part of a mob.

It was for a good cause though – it was against Proposition 8, the Californian constitutional amendment that will re-illegalise gay marriage there, that they bewilderingly voted in favour of on November 4th. See, previously I’d have made funny satirical references to the plight of the constantly persecuted minority of homophobes, but it looks like in California, the homophobes actually make up a slight majority of the state’s voters.

This is an issue very close to my heart, as I had been planning to move to California and marry a man.

I’m overselling my role in this slightly – I arrived horrendously late because I was pretty spectacularly ill, and then when there didn’t join in with the chanting or whatever, I was more an observer. This was mostly because my opinions are slightly more complex than something than can be summed up in a chant or a banner. I was planning to make a banner saying: “I UNDERSTAND THAT PROPOSITION 8 WAS PASSED THROUGH PROPER DEMOCRATIC PROCESS, BUT I BELIEVE THAT THIS INDICATES GREATER SOCIETAL PROBLEMS IN AMERICA, SUCH AS THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN PUBLIC LIFE, AND THE POLARISATION OF POLITICAL POSITIONS DUE TO THE STRUCTURE OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM, AS WELL AS A NUMBER OF OTHER ISSUES*”, and then describe my western-European solipsistic bias on the back of the banner for if I was challenged. But I couldn’t find a piece of card large enough.

What was a bit disappointing was that just how few people had turned up – on Facebook, over 800 people had been invited to the “event”, yet on the ground when I got there only around 15 people were present. According to others, at its greatest extent, there were perhaps 25 people. As I approached Grovesnor Square from the opposite side to the embassy, I approached the actually grassy part in the middle expecting to see it swarming with people and whistles being blown, and that sort of thing, but I couldn’t see anything – especially unusual as homosexuals tend to have a reputation for being colourful characters.

Even more bizarely, I can’t actual verify that there were any real life gays actually there at all. I’m straight and I was there with people who called themselves “bisexual” (which I guess sort of counts), “ambiguous” or “gender-queer” (whatever that means)… and if none did turn up, I’m slightly offended that I showed all of that solidarity and they couldn’t be bothered to make the effort for their own damn cause!

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“Waterboarding? Nah, its just like surfing. Dead fun.”
July 22nd, 2008 at 23:02

As you may know, the world is currently fighting a War on Terror. It’s pretty important – as the so-called war is causing us to tackle all sorts of important issues. Issues of war and peace, issues of civil liberties, and then there’s the debate over torture. Basically the War on Terror has more issues than your average moody teenager.

Torture is a complex issue – both proponents and opponents of torture make some points of varying validity. Opponents argue that the use of torture to extract information, or rather, essentially confessions is barbaric and goes against the ethical standards of our modern society, and even when used, can result in inaccurate or dodgy information rending it useless anyway – as if someone is hurting you, chances are you’ll say anything to make them stop. You’d probably even admit to being a terrorist, or a UKIP voter, or even Episode 1 being your favourite Star Wars film.

Proponents of torture (who do actually exist, though mostly live in America) don’t just support it on the grounds of “What’s the harm? It’ll never affect us as we don’t look ‘Muslim’ enough” – they would argue that torture could be a necessary evil to extract information, for example, if a suspected terrorist knew where a bomb was or other vague hypotheticals, like those acted out by Jack Bauer in the TV series 24, where the United Nations Convention Against Torture is broken in almost every episode.

One thing about torture is clear though – it’s a powerful technique. So powerful in fact, that it can make even opinion columnists change their mind about something. And as a loud-mouth opinion columnist myself, I can tell you the one thing I hate most in the world is admitting that I am wrong and changing my opinion.

The American torture technique du jour at the moment is water-boarding – a “process” in which the suspected terrorist has water poured over his (blindfolded) face and into his nose and mouth – causing the gagging reflex to kick in, and is made to feel as though he’s being drowned. Of course, the proponents of water-boarding claim that it isn’t torture, but then seem awfully sheepish when asked if they’d want to undergo it themselves.

A columnist for the American Vanity Fair magazine, Christopher Hitchens, recently underwent water-boarding, in the name of journalism, after he was challenged about a column he wrote where he argued that water-boarding isn’t torture. Do a search on YouTube to see the video, though it does fluctuate between distressing and hilarious depending on how much you like Hitchens. Needless to say, he changed his opinion pretty sharpish.

I think that this was very admirable of him and – and I must admit I’ve got to declare a hidden interest here – way beyond the call of duty for an opinion columnist… there’s not a chance in hell that I’d volunteer to be tortured to find out what it’s like, if you were to offer it.

This said – I will say that getting an iPhone for free is probably torture… if anyone from Apple wants to prove me wrong; I’ll grudgingly accept any free gifts – entirely in the name of journalism, of course.

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