So, according to the just released British Social Attitudes Survey, 36% of adults think that homosexuality is always or mostly wrong. When you add in the 10% of those who think that it is rarely wrong, that is almost half of all those surveyed who think that being gay is wrong at least some of the time.
I have read a couple of reports spinning this as good news. After all, 39% said that homosexuality was never wrong. And the number has fallen from 62% since 1983. So, I guess there is room here for a qualified Whoop-de-doo.
Yet I still think that is a very troubling figure, purely because I am not quite sure what more gay people can do to convince that hardline 36% that we are not out to convert children, ruin marriage or destroy society. I realise that this all a matter of time, that eventually those numbers will drop further. But I think there is something pathetic and weak about those who still cling on to those views - a group of self-satisfied, arrogant toss pots who think they have the right to sit in moral judgment on me because of who I love.
I have become addicted to the daily round-ups of the Perry v Schwarzenegger case that is playing out in California at the moment. Briefly, this is the federal challenge to the gay marriage ban that passed in Caliufornia in November 2008. But the case has much larger aspirations, as the plaintiffs, who allege that the ban should be removed because it was based it is discriminatory and irrational, seek to put the entire rationale for homophobia on trial.
Seriously, if you have some spare time, you should peruse the various goings on. Not only does it highlight the vacuity and prejudice of those who funded the campaign to ban gay marriage, it shows precisely how they played on the irrational fears of the general public to enshrine their bigotry. It puts out on display how morally and intellectually bankrupt their opinions are, and it does so in the harsh light of a federal courtroom. If there are people who can read these transcripts, and still believe that there is something inimically wrong with homosexuality and gay marriage, then frankly these are people who simply do not deserve the vote.
