mkpdavies

No one gives a flying **** whether they are gay or not.

Some people, like me, don't care if they want to march down the street celebrating their gay pride.

I do care that people who DON'T agree with it, of which there are many, are force to take part in it.

But then I'm not a Neocon/fascist.

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blondy

Should non-smoking firemen be expected to paper smokers?
Should non-drinking firemen be expected to paper drinkers?
Should vegetarian firemen be expected to paper meat eaters?

You need not agree with the lifestyle or preferences of those you serve.

If a policeman disagrees with violence does that mean he should be able to refuse to deal with violent situations?

mkpdavies

Well done, you are now the holder of the dumbest post ever award.

Not if it's a smokers pride march, no.

Not if it's a pissheads pride march, no.

Not if it's a Carnivore pride march, no.

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John Carter

You're reading it wrong, dude. Nobody is anti-gay. They're anti preferential treatment. And it's related to the current political climate. The way this country is going it's almost like it'll soon be illegal to be heterosexual - we'll all have to be bi and have both a boyfriend/husband and girlfriend/wife.

Non-smoking firemen should not be expected to leaflet smokers' pride marches.
Non-drinking firemen should not be expected to leaflet drinkers' pride marches.
Vegetarian firemen should not be expected to leaflet carnivores' pride marches.

They can find all of these people at the mall, along with the gay folk. If they leaflet the mall, they'll catch everyone.

And, to be honest, I don't get the need for them leafleting anywhere anyways. It's not like the government aren't spending millions of our tax quids on running fire prevention ads on TV every five minutes.

blondy

Ahh! Finally, I THINK I've got it.
It's a bit like my rationale for the people refusing to allow the kid with the offensive t-shirt to wear it on the plane.

In the right context you'd have little problem with it but in light of what is going on with the government's leaning too far to the left this is just something that is indicative of a greater malaise than simply whether someone is a fairy.

Thanks, John Carter.

C_steam

Good summation. works on all/most of the issues we harp on about.

blondy

Why do we even bother? :wink:

Roger Gough

What if the NF or BNP held a march and half a dozen of the firemen wanted to hand out safety leaflets? Any chance? :wink:

Roger Gough

[quote Added: Friday, 1 September, 2006, 10:25 GMT 11:25 UK

It is the Archbrishop's 'right' to comment on this issue as it was surely the 'right' of the fireman to refuse this particular duty. If Gay-rights exist to allow men/women to act and live as they want to without censure. Surely straight people deserve equal protection to be able to act according to their conscience.

Jonathan Christian, London, United Kingdom

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The Archbishop in this case is Mario Conti who should be of particular interest to readers of this Forum. On 17th February, 2002 in the (scottish) Sunday Herald he is quoted as saying,"There is a link between the issues of sectarianism and European integration, in both cases, one could discern a mentality primarily focused on protecting narrow interests: a failure to respond to the opportunities to build larger communities of support and affection. We must remember the enormous achievements of the EU's founding fathers... for 50 years the Catholic Church has accompanied the process of Greater European interdependence with encouragement." Then..."Perhaps the closed-mided bigotry which demeans many people in their attitude to religion is, alas, also present in the aggressively anti-European stance adopted by some politicians. Fine work of dialogue and harmonisation....is minimised and despised by those who prefer parochial safety......The Catholic Church has no truck with such petty isolationism"
(At the time Jeffrey Titford slammed him). It looks as though - particularly after the 'thought crimes' reported today in the Daily Mail - that very soon there is going to have to be a showdown between the Churches and the EU over the stance of religion towards homosexuality (and the lack of any action against Muslims who call for ther deaths). Who can forget the public humiliation of Rocco Buttiglione who got kicked out of the EU Parliament because he professed himself to be a devout Catholic and preferred it's views on homosexuality to those of the Eurobunch. This is due to run and run (particularly as the Catholic Church likes nothing better than copping a million euros every now and again for a 'young catholic/EU bonding weekend' when many thousands turn up to enjoy the danegeld). Anyone want to forecast the outcome because this cannot continue to fudged. It's like both sides have got enormous boils on their noses and both sides ignore the boils and continue to adore one another. Sooner or later someone's going to lance a boil.

Oliver

A friend sent me this.
A bit long winded but a timely update on this strange event.



"Man who made millions from gay pop funds defence of firemen who refused to attend gay rally
By GEORGE HARGREAVES Last updated at 22:52pm on 4th November 2006

The boy running half naked from the blazing house was not me, but my older brother Richard. He didn't have time to put on his pyjama bottoms - shame was preferable to the flames that were engulfing our terrace home in Sixties Islington, North London.

It was only as the family gathered around the ambulance that had quickly arrived on the scene that it became apparent that Georgie - as I was, and still am, affectionately known by my family -was missing.

Listen to Sinitta's Christmas charity song here

I was asleep in bed, unaware that the paraffin heater that served as both clothes dryer and a source of household heat had become an agent of destruction.

The first I knew of the fire that gutted the basement of our home was when a fireman carried me from my bed, through my smoked-filled bedroom, out of the back window, over the garden wall and through our neighbour's house to safety. I was seven years old.

When you have been snatched from the flames, when a complete stranger risks their life to save yours, you never forget it. That is why firefighters have always held a special place in my heart.

And that is why, more than 40 years later, when a bizarre case of injustice concerning nine Scottish firefighters came to my attention, I didn't hesitate to get involved.

I was snoozing on the train to Dumfries when I received the call from a supporter of the Scottish Christian Party, of which I am leader. "Reverend Hargreaves", he said, sounding agitated. "Have you heard what has happened to the firemen in Glasgow?". I hadn't, but it was explained.

In June this year, a Gay Pride event billed as a gay, bisexual and transgender festival, took place in Glasgow. When nine officers from the local Strathclyde Fire and Rescue station were asked to hand out fire safety literature there, they objected on moral grounds.

As a result they were disciplined, ordered to attend diversity training, courses and their leader, Brian Herbert, was demoted, resulting in a salary loss of £5,000 per year.

Incensed by this story, which smacked of the all-pervading influence of political correctness, I immediately made it known to the firemen that I would support them financially in their fight against this injustice.

Despite my current status as a Pentecostal minister, this offer was one I could make only as a result of the success I achieved two decades earlier in an altogether different industry: pop.

In this other life as far removed from the world in which I now operate as you can imagine I mixed with the stars, wrote some of the decade's biggest hits and helped launch the careers of artists such as Five Star, Sinitta and Loose Ends. I also became a millionaire.

I entered the music industry in the early Seventies while still at boarding school. Woolverstone Hall was dubbed the poor man's Eton, because although it was run as a public school, it was owned by the Inner London Education Authority and fees were charged according to means.

My schoolfriend Tony Ajai-Ajagbe and I shared a love of music and started writing songs together. We soon formed a group called Snap. We made a demo tape which we sent to many music companies, and received the inevitable rejections. But an up-and-coming studio in Hackney, East London, loved us and signed us, thinking we just might be Britain's answer to The Jackson Five.

The band's first record was released in 1974; it flopped and Snap soon broke up. But Tony and I refused to give up our dream of a music career. Three years later we became the only British songwriters signed to the publishing wing of Motown Records, Jobete Music. Imagine, we were published by the same company as Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye.

Alongside my music-writing career I was also developing an interest in producing and launching other acts.

So when I was offered a job at Jobete Music, complete with expense account and hobnobbing with the likes of Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson and Lionel Ritchie, I could hardly turn it down. At this point, I was just 20 years old.

I met Diana Ross a few times and was completely enamoured by her. She never lived up to her fearsome reputation as a diva, quite the opposite. I remember once being stuck on the phone when she came into the office. She stood beside me and politely inspected the Pirelli nude calendar on my wall while waiting for me to finish my call.

Tony and I found a basement flat in Harley House on the Marylebone Road, Central London, which became both our home and office. Eric Clapton also had an office there, along with many other music-industry folk. Even Peter Stringfellow had an apartment there. We would regularly see his Rolls-Royce parked outside. Harley House was the place to be.

During this time I started working as a producer for an impressive man called Michael Levy, now better known as Lord Cashpoint, Levy, who is embroiled in Labour's cash-for-peerages scandal. At that time, though, he was a music mogul who ran a small independent label, Magnet Records.

Michael was feared and respected, and renowned for driving the hardest of bargains. He was always immaculately dressed in suit and tie, and his Rolls-Royce commanded the attention of all who passed Magnet House, his Baker Street HQ.

Of the many memories I have of the Magnet Records office, the oddest is the day I was met by stacks of copies of the Financial Times. Under the stairs, sat the company accountant cutting out coupons for an issue of shares in high-street chemist Superdrug.

I never quite understood what was going on but I was sure it had something to do with making money) because ultimately making money (not pop records) was what Michael Levy was about.

I have heard many accounts of Michael's dictatorial rages that cajoled his staff into achieving the success that gained him the respect of many in the industry, and the envy of many more. Personally, however, my dealings with Michael were calm and encouraging.

I remember him on one occasion reminiscing about the help he had given to other record-producers before me, who had subsequently risen to great fame and fortune. During the conversation he gave me a stark warning I have never forgotten in more than two decades. 'George', he said, 'they never forgive the favours you do them.'

As he spoke there was an inner sadness in his eyes that his outer countenance could not hide. It betrayed deep hurt. Given the 'cash-for-peerages' investigation, I wonder if Michael ever remembers the advice he gave me.

One morning in the early Eighties a young brother and sister came to our office to see if we could help them. They were part of the unknown Pearson family, who sang in a band called Five Star. The girl, Doris, was stunning, while her brother Stedman was immaculate - it was obvious they were future stars.

Tony and I agreed to help by writing a song for them, Problematic, but because of our contract with Michael we were not allowed to take production credits. The song was released, but didn't make any kind of impression on the charts.

Tony and I had also written the signature tune for the BBC magazine show Pebble Mill At One, and we got Five Star a slot on the show. Thanks to that appearance, they became an overnight chart sensation.

We then signed a couple of other future stars: Sinitta and Yazz. We tried getting them deals with the major labels but no one would take them on, so we turned to Michael Levy at Magnet Records. Inevitably, thanks to Michael's hard-nosed business savvy, the deal was not the best I have ever entered into. But I was happy to sign, as there was no other deal on offer.

Despite our best efforts, chart success eluded us, and the deal came to an end. Yazz married her manager and later recorded the massive hit The Only Way Is Up. Sinitta, meanwhile, met a young music business entrepreneur called Simon Cowell.

I had vaguely known Simon from my Tin Pan Alley days when he was a post-room boy at EMI Music dreaming of becoming a producer, and I was a writer with one of EMI's many publishing companies.

We were both young and ambitious and often shared a laugh. He always had the air of someone who was going to be successful, and I wasn't at all surprised by how quickly he moved up from the post-room to be a partner in a new record company called Fanfare Records, complete with Porsche and 'I can make you a star', chat-up lines for the ladies.

He had the Porsche before he had the money, which gives you an insight into the kind of person Simon is. He knew the money would come, and, in the interim, the Porsche was very helpful in attracting girls. I never saw Simon with an ugly girl on his arm. There were a lot of girls - and Sinitta was one of them.

Sinitta played Simon the records we had recorded with her, and he signed her up for the dance troupe Hot Gossip.

For me, the 'Eureka!' moment came at the Hippodrome nightclub in Leicester Square, dancing to the 120 beats-per-minute rhythm of a song called High Energy which was high in the charts at that time. I thought: 'If that's what it takes to be a hit, I can do that'.

High Energy was the brand of frenetic dance music that was all the rage in the Eighties gay disco scene. The next day I wrote the song Cruisin
, and recorded it with a singer called Desiree Heslop. We took it to Simon Cowell and he loved it but could not agree terms with Desiree. So Sinitta asked if she could record the vocals. We all agreed that that was a fantastic idea.

Desiree Heslop, however, left a legacy that would change all our lives. Part of the lyrics for Cruisin, are the words: 'I'm looking for a macho, macho man, someone who can love and understand, someone who can hold me tight, night after night after night after night!',

During the choruses at the end of her recording, Desiree ad-libbed: 'He's got to be so macho!. The phrase hit me like a thunderbolt. 'That's the title of the next song!', I exclaimed. I wrote the melody and lyrics on my way home. It went on to become a huge hit.

But all did not run smoothly for So Macho. Indeed, Simon, the man who would go on to identify so many hits, could not see the one that would break him into the big time. 'Radio 1 will never play this', he said. 'The lyrics are too cheesy.'

'They will Simon' I said, time and again. 'The gay community will love it as they love sending themselves up, and for the Sharons and Traceys in Torremolinos, the song will be about their ideal medallion man.'

'No, we'll be a laughing stock and it will bomb', he insisted.

But Simon hated the idea of the record so much that I even recorded it with alternative lyrics. But the new version just did not have the X-factor, and Sinitta and I joined forces to fight for So Macho to be released. Eventually, we won.

The record was released at the end of 1985 and received a great reception from the gay community. It remained in the bottom reaches of the Top 100 for six months.

Then, something strange started to happen: it started moving up the charts, eventually reaching No 2. It went on to spend more time in the chart than any other record that year and sold 1.5million copies.

But with the success of So Macho came Simon's even bigger mistake - one that would ultimately cost Sinitta millions.

The success of the record had meant it had come to the attention of every major pop radio station in America. The giant US record company Atlantic Records was desperate to release it as a single, meaning Sinitta would have returned to her native America a star and made mega-bucks. All that was required was for Simon and his partner Iain Burton to agree. They wouldn't.

At the time, Simon was inexperienced and didn't want to risk the business complications he wrongly believed would ensue. He couldn't see the potential for massive financial gain in the deal he was being offered.

To this day, Sinitta isn't aware that her old boyfriend Simon was asked to release her single, and what she missed out on because of the decision he made.

In less than five years, Cowell's Fanfare Records had gone bust. Sinitta never had any hits in the States. Her most famous song has never been released in America.

Simon and I lost touch, although I bumped into him a few years ago at Heathrow airport. By this time, he had gone on to have tremendous success as a music producer and as TV's Mr Nasty. I was waiting for my father to arrive from the West Indies when I saw a taxi driver holding a sign saying 'Simon Cowell'. I went up to him and said: 'Hi, I'm a friend of Simon',s and want to play a little trick on him, can I carry your sign please?'

When Simon came through customs and saw me standing there his face fell. 'George, what's happened?' he said, full of concern.

I couldn't keep up the act for long. The relief on his face when he realised it was a joke was priceless. We had a good laugh and reminisced about the old days.

As for me, my life has changed completely since my time in the music industry. During the late Eighties and early Nineties I became so rich on the back of hits like So Macho that I moved to the Isle of Man as a tax exile, shuttling back to London when I could.

During this period away from my loved ones and friends I realised that all the success I had worked so hard for was strangely unfulfilling.

I had been religious during my teens but abandoned that lifestyle during my years in the music industry, where I concentrated on having

a good time. In the Isle of Man I started to re-examine myself, and rediscover my faith. I enrolled in a degree in theology at King's College, then later at Oxford. I became a reverend and moved to Glasgow.

Over the past two years, I have used my ongoing earnings from my pop career - still thousands of pounds a month - to help finance the Scottish Christian Party, a faith-based political party that stands up for Christian and moral issues as well as human rights.

So when I heard about the plight of my local firefighters, I was immediately concerned and wanted to help. I let it be known that if no one else was prepared to help the firemen, I was.

My concerns are many. First, it is wrong for any public-sector worker to be used as a pawn to promote a political agenda. That infringes the worker
,s rights of conscience.

I believe that a political agenda was behind Strathclyde Fire and Rescue's decision to send the firemen to the Gay Pride march. This concerns all public-sector workers. Will our teachers, nurses and civil servants be forced to affirm lifestyles that are at odds with their conscience?

Second, it had become apparent that a gay bar in Glasgow was running a free drinks sweepstake for any who could prove that they had kissed a fireman during the parade. This threat of sexual harassment was brought to the attention of Strathclyde Fire and Rescue, but no risk assessment action was taken. This was a dereliction of its duty of care.

You may remember the recent case of the policeman who asked not to be stationed outside the Israeli Embassy. In that case, the police quite properly carry out a risk assessment and came to a decision.

Third, having to undertake diversity training as part of their sentence has chilling echoes of communist China under Chairman Mao. If there is to be diversity training at all, it should never be as a punishment but as an integral part of an all-encompassing training programme.

Such training should not be used to promote a given lifestyle and certainly should not be a propaganda tool for the gay lobby, or the Christian lobby for that matter.

Last week, Brian Herbert, the fireman who was demoted, had his punishment rescinded. However, he remains under discipline for 18 months and the Strathclyde firefighters have had their appeal rejected.

To me, this decision is a 'Rosa Parks' moment: she was the black woman who refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus during American segregation. It's a matter of civil rights, so let the new civil rights movement start here.

I am still willing to support the firemen if they wish to push for total exoneration - however much money it takes, I will help. And, thankfully, I am not alone in my support. My phone has been buzzing with other offers to raise funds.

One fireman's wife even suggested we rerelease So Macho in aid of the firemen. The irony of this 'gay anthem' being released to fight this cause is certainly not lost on me. Indeed, I have asked my record label, Sony-BMG, and they are considering doing so.

If they do, you can rest assured that my royalties will be earmarked for the fighting fund. After all, if any men are truly So Macho, firefighters must be among them.

In any event, there is another song I can release. I wrote I Won't Be Lonely This Christmas for Sinitta in 1986: it was going to be a follow-up to So Macho, but never came out. We've always thought that it would be a big hit one day, so we're happy to release it now, dedicate it to the firemen and use the proceeds to support their lifesaving work.

After all, it's thanks to them that many people won't be lonely this Christmas. Plans are being put in place for an online 'rush release' of Sinitta's 'I Won't Be Lonely This Christmas' in aid of the Cowcaddens firemen.

It could even be the first ever Christmas single to chart from online sales alone.

• What a tribute that would be to Glasgow's brave firefighters! Check Sinitta's web site www.sinitta.com "