Well, it’s certainly been a busy few weeks for us gays, as the gay agenda comes ever closer to taking over the universe. On Thursday, Scotland’s equal marriage bill passed the committee stage; better still an Equality Network amendment, put forward by Linda Fabiani, means the spousal veto for trans people has now been removed from the Bill that will be put to Parliament.  But it’s been our extra parliamentary activities that have been making the biggest splash so far in 2014. I say splash, it’s really been more of a worldwide weather spectacular – America freezing over, parts of Britain submerged.  So what do the homos have to do with all this?  Step forward UKIP councillor, David Silvester. Apparently, the passage of Equal marriage legislation has angered God and we all know what God does when he’s angry.

Now, even as Cameron sheds crocodile tears on behalf of destitute flooded homeowners, playing at advocate against the very local councils he has made cash-strapped, it is his fault that large swathes of the nation have been afflicted by storms and floods.

Since the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, the nation has been beset by serious storms and floods.

Silvester told the Henley Standard.  Similar claims have emerged from the US, with shock jocks saying that the polar vortex is obviously the result of girls kissing each other.   One brave soul was so enraged by the fact non-straight people could get married that he went on Hunger strike until it stopped.  Unluckily for the rest of the world, the Governor of his home state of Utah has put a freeze on gay marriage and Trestin Meacham is eating pizza once more.  God has also now unfrozen most of America, so he’s clearly pleased with the outcome, or something.

Meacham has apparently had his pizza supper. What a trooper.

This raises interesting questions, say what you like about the almighty but if Genesis tells you anything it’s that he’s big on timing.  So I’m a wee bit confused as to why he was so scatty in relation to Equal marriage.  If I were a vengeful deity, I wouldn’t turn up weeks late and start flooding random parts of England, I’d send a plague of locusts to eat the House of Commons at exactly the moment the vote was passed.  If I was angered by what was happening in Utah, I wouldn’t rock up weeks down the line and start freezing the arses off people in New York.

My theory is as follows:  the floods happened at New Year, on the day we’d been warned Britain would be flooded.  UKIP had been predicting a New Year deluge for ages and we got one.  The only difference was it was just water, not millions of Bulgarians & Romanians, who seem uninterested in a biblical style Exodus and don’t suddenly see the UK as the promised land.  Is it not more likely God would express his anger in a relevant, witty and timely fashion?  Could this not be revenge for all the talk about being flooded? Are the floods a punishment for UKIP? This theory might also explain why Scotland has been spared the worst of it.

Is God ragin with Nigel Farage?

All joking aside, we should be concerned that diddies like David Silvester (and UKIP in general) are in positions of power.  Local councils are the ones who dish out the cash at the end of the day and while Silvester is ranting about sending gay people to be cured, we should remember councils control the funding for most LGBT* charities and spaces which provide support for LGBT* people.  The economic illiteracy of austerity politics has resulted in council funding being slashed and increasingly councils are treating essential services as luxuries they can no longer afford.

UKIP obviously have their own theories about councils and their apparent motives.  Their Scottish chair,  Arthur Misty Thackeray has had his coupon in the papers today, after the Herald published a selection of his social media musings,

No wonder the blue half of my city say G.C.C actually stands for the Glasgow Celtic Council for Gays Catholics Communists eh.lol. NS!

being a personal favourite.  Regular readers may be acquainted with just how many times we have lambasted Glasgow City Council.  But let’s deconstruct these particular “criticisms.”  I don’t consider gleefully enforcing Tory austerity to be a mark of a Council intent on Communism, if anything the Council’s main concern is shopping, shopping, shopping as our city is slowly gentrified and de-Coneyfied to make sure troublesome Glaswegians don’t get in the way of visitors buying things.  I don’t consider constantly rolling over to the Lodge to be a mark of rampant Fenianism either.  So that just leaves us with “gay.”

The last two council leaders, Stephen Purcell and Gordon Matheson, are both openly gay.  But aside from the gender or sexuality of the people they’ve allegedly been found in compromising situations with, what’s actually changed for LGBT* Glaswegians?  If anything the reigns of these two total arseholes has been characterised by the destruction of LGBT* services and increasingly frosty relations between the Council and the LGBT* community.   Under Purcell, the Castro Centre debacle (we’ve ranted many times about) saw loads of money disappear in mysterious circumstances, perhaps not unrelated to the fact Purcell’s bezzie, former Lolidarity councilor, Ruth Black was in charge of it.  The centre was forced to close despite no-one seeming to know where all the money went.

Since Purcell was bumped and replaced by Matheson, things are no better.  In a rather comedic spat last year, the organisers of Glasgow Pride told the council not to fly the rainbow flag during the event, essentially because they do nothing for LGBT* weegies.  Comedy has now descended into farce with the news that this year’s Pride event is to be held in a car park and cost a fiver (the first time there has ever been a charge).  The organisers insist the main march will remain free and are basically blaming it all on the Commonwealth Games and…the council.  Charging us a fiver to be marched off out of sight to a car park is not my idea of Pride. So despite the head honchos being homos, our council has done little, if anything, to promote the much vaunted gay agenda. Then again, UKIP never let facts get in the way of their fantastical outbursts.

We’re still waiting Gordon…

While Scotland is gearing up for the referendum, we should remember there are also Euro elections in just over four months and the British media will be in full on kipper frenzy; giving totally undue airtime to a party who’ve been chased out of Scotland repeatedly both at the polls and on the streets.  Local elections on the same day in some parts of England could mean many more councillors talking about non-existent immigrants or rain sent by omnipotent homophobes. The rise of UKIP creates the perfect side-show for the mainstream parties – the Tories blaming the economic misery they’ve created on those they’ve forced onto benefits seems mild by comparison to the nonsense we get from UKIP.  This allows the Westminster parties to drift ever further to the right, to pander to voters who’re rightly pissed off with the state Britain is in.  Thankfully,  we have another narrative, or more accurately another series of narratives about what’s wrong with Britain and what we’re going to do about it, that don’t revolve around lack of Jam Jar Golliwogs or longing for a time when we all kept calm and shut the fuck up.

We also have a vote in September in which we have a chance to get away from the Britain of the Tories and UKIP as fast as our wee legs can carry us. That doesn’t mean that we should pretend that xenophobia and homophobia don’t exist in Scotland to try to win votes – we’d also not be doing our jobs if we didn’t point out that anti-Irish racism gives UKIP another hate-filled calling card in Scotland that simply doesn’t have the same potency down South.  We need to be clear in the run up to the Euro election that not just UKIP but all the horrendous ideas they perpetuate simply can’t be allowed to gain any ground here.

If Equal Marriage means it rains a bit more then I’m sure Scotland of all countries will probably manage – it’s unlikely Scots are particularly frightened of UKIP’s late and rather off-target deity. Dealing with UKIP and their ideas is serious business, even if I must confess I find some of their outbursts hilarious. We should always be mindful that talk of queerhawking floods and the relentless mincing march of Glasgow’s Marxist/Papal Council are merely the more blunt expressions of a British political class who’re scared of losing even more of their unearned power.  We need to make sure they do.  They also serves as a distraction from the (non-fantasy based) attacks against being carried out by the Tories and Labour at a local and national level. We need to put forward a credible alternative to relentless austerity, xenophobia and bigotry. That applies regardless of what happens at the polls in May and/or September  – but there’s no harm in pointing out that a No vote could mean a Scotland stuck in a Britain that stinks of kippers.  God knows, we could be doing without that.

Michael’s Fish Forecast

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Further Reading:

WEEKLY WANKER #007: UKIP WANK HOLIDAY BONANZA

Queers, Flegs and Glasgow City Council

11 Tales from Glasgow’s Quality Council

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