Not a good time to be a gay American

On Monday, residents in the state of Maine were voting on a referendum motion to overturn a law that had extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.  The motion carried – I haven’t been able to find the full results, but to be fair, I didn’t look very hard once I discovered that the ‘No on [...]

People search for the darndest things

So, this is an entirely pointless post, and is basically just a method of time-filling for me, and space-filling for the blog.  Anyway, what I’m going to do is look at a few of the search terms people have used to find my blog over the past week, and write about them.  Yes it’s that [...]

Those ker-azy homophobes (3)

I found out about this via Neil Gaiman’s blog.  The specific posts are here and here, but really you should just go ahead and read the whole damn thing – trust me, it’s great.  Anyway, it seems that some lovable homophobes in the amusingly-named town of West Bend, Wisconsin have been getting their underwear uncomfortably [...]

What causes mental illness?

There’s a long and dishonourable tradition of blaming the mentally ill for their own illness.  For a long time, people thought the mentally ill were possessed by evil spirits or demons.  Here, for example, is the description of a man who was ‘exorcised’ by Jesus:

And when he [Jesus] was come out of the ship, immediately [...]

Stephen Fry and gay marriage

Stephen Fry is, clearly, a god amongst men.  Except that gods don’t exist and Stephen Fry does…er…let’s start again…
Stephen Fry is, clearly, an exceptional human being.  I’m a big fan, especially of his comedy, and especially of his work on QI.  You could make a good case for arguing that QI is the ultimate TV [...]

And THIS week I ‘ave bin mostly eatin’

Well, having bludgeoned you all into a state of total unresponsiveness with my last post (it’s ok – even I get bored with my Pet Shop Boys fixation some times), I thought I would give you a follow-up to the post from last week when I bemoaned the state of my diet.  I guess I [...]

Child abuse, abortion, and the catholic church

This stinks.  I mean, this really, really stinks.  I found out about it at the excellent Notes & Comment blog on Butterflies & Wheels.  The BBC has coverage of the story here.
Recently, in Brazil, a 9-year-old girl (excuse me if I emphasise this – that’s a girl aged only 9) was taken to hospital complaining of [...]

The big red ‘A’

If, like me, you spend more time than is probably good for you ambling around the blogosphere, you’ve probably noticed that quite a few blogs are including a badge which consists of a stylised red A.  I think I first noticed it on Mentally Interesting: The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive, and I’ve seen [...]

Religion, homosexuality etc: a follow-up post

Well, my last post seems to have stirred up a certain amount of interest.  This blog had it’s biggest ever daily total of hits on Tuesday, the day after I posted, and the post has rocketed (or, at least, gently strolled) into the exact centre of my “most viewed over all time” list, even though [...]

“Curing” homosexuality: religion, psychiatry & the limits of free speech

Blimey, that’s a title and a half for you…
Anyway, I’m wading into this debate rather late, as per usual, but the combination of religious bigotry and pseudo-psychiatric nonsense on display here is something that I just have to post about.
A Northern Ireland MP, and member of the Democratic Unionist Party, Iris Robinson, has expressed strong views [...]