Resignations All Around - So Long Bigots

Originally published on www.vadamagazine.com

This week it looks as though resignation is at the top of the agenda for a few people. Firstly we have heard the news of how a Conservative town councillor quit his position because of his disapproval of the advancement of the Equal Marriage bill. Secondly, it has been announced that the grand dame of religion himself, Pope Benedict XVI will also step down from his position due to ill health, which is slightly dubious to say the least.

He is relinquishing his post after eight years of being the head of the Catholic Church, doing what exactly I’m still unsure of (in fact does anyone actually know what he does apart from stand/sit around in a rather fetching robe and hat combo promoting Catholic guilt?). Anyway, after eight years he has decided to step down because as he states “after having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.”

Now you can’t blame anyone for not having much sympathy for the wicked witch of the Church in this instance. On my part this lack of sympathy stems from the anti-gay rhetoric that he’s constantly bombarded us with over the best part of the last decade.

Over this period he’s said that gay people are a “defection of human nature,” he warned the world that the introduction of equal marriage would risk the future of humanity, and on the World Day of Peace 2013 he released a message that said that not only is same-sex marriage unnatural but it also poses a threat to “justice and peace.”

This is just what you want to hear from the man who is the spiritual figurehead of the 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. The list of his intolerance does not stop there however. In 2008 he said that the existence of gay people threatened humanity in the same way as the destruction of the rainforests, and that “blurring” genders through the acceptance of transgender people would kill off the human race. Someone really needs to send this man back to a classroom.

However, despite the fact that ill health has been used as the reason for him resigning, it has already been cast into doubt by numerous experts who believe it is most likely due to his controversial stance on homosexuality, along with the legacy of a number of paedophile priest scandals and cover-ups that have destroyed the integrity of the Church in certain areas.

I myself would not be surprised if this was the case, or if it has anything to do with the fact that no matter how hard he tries and no matter how much he shakes his heavily adorned head, gay marriage equality seems to look inevitable. You only have to cast your mind back to the debate in the UK last week.

This brings us onto our second resignation of the week, the resignation of Matty Donnelly. You may be wondering who this is as his fan base isn’t quite as large as the Pope’s. Well, he was the town councillor for Hexam, Northumberland, until he quit on February 10^th due to the Conservative Party’s backing of equal marriage.

Now talk about throwing your toys out of the pram. Mr. Donnelly quit just after last Tuesday’s vote, which says to me he had this whole thing planned. His reasons for resigning were because he was “brought up as a Christian” and because of this he knew “the difference between right and wrong.” It is a shame that no one taught him about tolerance and acceptance whilst they were at it.

Because of this he decided he could no longer agree with David Cameron and the other members who voted for the Equal Marriage bill. However, in Mr. Donnelly’s defence he did say, “I am old-fashioned and cannot for the world of me get my head round gay marriage, same-sex marriage, call it what you will.”

This just shows us that for many people it is a generational issue when it comes to equal marriage, but this still does not excuse intolerance, whether in our daily or working lives.

So there we have it, two resignations in the matter of a week. One that is clearly because of gay marriage and the other because of ill health, which in all honesty probably has something to do with his opposition to the gays. Luckily, when it comes to parliament there are many people fighting for equality. With a couple less intolerant people in power things can only get better. However, in terms of the Church, the future trajectory of acceptance depends largely on the election of a new Pope. We can only hope that he is not as intolerant as the last. I won’t hold my breath.

NHS Services for Everyone?

Originally published on www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Recently I received a survey through the post; apparently out of all the people who live in my area I was selected at random despite the fact my partner also received one, what a coincidence. However this isn't what I'm getting at, the survey was about health and wellbeing for 2013 from the NHS, I know it just sounds like so much fun to fill in doesn't it?

Anyway after flicking through the questions there was the usual; do you smoke? Yes, do you drink? Yes, how much fruit and veg do you consume a week? As you can see it was a pretty standard set of questions. Now this is all well and good and maybe just maybe the survey will help with something, I don't know what it'll help with besides helping to waste some more precious NHS money. But as I got to the end of the survey there was the typical 'about you' section, gender, age, ethnicity you get the picture. I assume this is to help them narrow down which age groups, genders and social groups are suffering the most and which ones are experiencing a happier life, but the one question that was missing was that of sexuality.

Now before you start making assumptions that I'm someone who wants to shout from the rooftops that gay people are being ignored again, I'm not, but you can't help but wonder why this option isn't there. I mean study's have found that LGBT people are more likely to suffer from mental health issues or drink and drug abuse, and by asking this question on a more localised survey by the NHS they could find a way of tackling this, instead of leaving it to certain organisations such as Stonewall and the LGF.

Not every area in the country has somewhere that gay people can turn to for help, and some may send this survey back and be found to be severally depressed or unhappy with life who may be gay, yet this will go unnoticed. I filled out an online health and wellbeing survey a while ago specifically for LGBT people, which was put together by an LGBT organisation, just so I could help out with these statistics that so many organisations such as the NHS are missing.

However it isn't just this NHS wellbeing survey that fails to ask this question. When I was at University I applied for a job at a supermarket so I could make some extra money. Me and my friend (who happens to be a lesbian) went to get the application forms and both said there's no point applying, as we wouldn't get the job. However after noticing the equal opportunities section I made a quick joke that this was our way in, however there was once again no section asking about sexuality. I didn't get the job, because I had no experience working in a supermarket and neither would I want to be given a job simply because I am gay. But it makes me wonder how a company can call themselves an equal opportunities employer and only mention disability, race and ethnicity on an application form as if they're the only reasons why people would be discriminated against when applying for a job.

Now I may have digressed into something completely different there but the principal is still the same, does the NHS not care about the well being of LGBT people? Of course they care, but how will they know the full extent of the health and wellbeing of a social group that does suffer abuse in the areas in which they live (do you feel safe in your area was a question on the survey), and are known for having higher abuse rates if they fail to include a small section in a survey?

Maybe they just forgot, maybe they ran out of space on the paper or maybe because there are LGBT groups out there who've conducted these kinds of studies in the past they felt they didn't need to. The thing is we will never know why it wasn't on there, but the other fact is; if they continue to miss this off surveys in the future then the health and wellbeing of a vast amount of LGBT people will continue to go unknown, which could be a big problem for many.