September Issue 2010 - Unity Column

It is well known that the Pope is visiting the UK this week. It is, however, a little known fact that a group of Catholic’s have been hosting a ‘gay friendly mass’ in one of their churches. This is a surprising event as the Catholic Church actively condemns homosexuality as immoral and Pope Benedict XVI seems specifically set upon declaring it as evil.

The clergy at the London church Our Lady of the Assumption andSt Gregory has established a mass where homosexuals can celebrate mass without fear of condemnation. It has become a place of pastoral care, tapping into the core belief of Christianity that is ‘Love thy neighbour’.

The very existence of this mass is just one of several signs that British Catholic’s seem to reject the Pope’s teachings on homosexuality and instead follow their own consciences.

We are now a decade into the twenty first century and institutional hatred of a group of people should, after all, be recognised for the appalling abuse of power and trust that it is. Yet there are some traditionalist parishioners who pray outside the church whilst the mass goes on, holding firm to the rotten dogma of the Pope.
The Archbishop of the diocese supports the mass and has said that “Anybody who is trying to

cast a judgement on the people who come forward for communion really ought to hold their tongue.” The Pope himself has declared a similar statement in the past stating that “Everyone

has a place in the church , every person without exception should be able to feel at home and never rejected.” The hypocrisy that resonates throughout that quote is, frankly, astounding

as this Pope has been one of the harshest and critically reviled of recent times. With his non-inclusive attitude, he has stopped the Church, with the aid of ‘traditionalists’, from moving forward. Female priests, homosexuality, condoms and the audacity to brush the child abuse scandal under the carpet ‘for the sake of the Church’ are all issues which show this man to be an ignorant bigot if not a fool.

The hope that a mass such as this brings to me is amazing and I’m not even religious. If religion can accept people for who they are and move on to help them, and those in need all around the world, regardless of any trait then they will live up to their promises. For an LGBT person who is Catholic I couldn’t even begin to understand the difference this must make. This mass had to be sanctioned by the Vatican and if the hierarchy of the Church can finally allow a safe haven for homosexuals who want to take part in their faith, it is a wonderful opportunity and an example to be made.

More and more parishes need to adopt a mass like this if there is to be any significant progress made. The Church is its much professed billions of members. Without believers it would have nothing. The power is in the people of parishes all over the UK and, hopefully, this will begin to push through into Europe and beyond. A grassroots religious movement based around love and acceptance: the morals that a young carpenter from Galilee preached of. Maybe His Holiness will then, finally, see the light.

May Issue 2010 - Have a break, not a KitKat

Nestlé has never had a good reputation yet, until recently, I had no real idea why. I remember

learning about the Baby Milk horrors in the 1970’s from my liberal year six teacher but had considered it a part of the past. Unfortunately for the world it is far from being a piece of history.

If you were to draw up a list of the top ten contentious and boycotted corporations, Nestlé would be up there with arms manufacturers and insurance companies, but why? It supplies chocolate to millions of people and what can be greater than chocolate? Fair trading and the promotion of

human life maybe?

In the 1970’s Nestlé began selling powdered milk, or baby formula, to the third world. The astounding problem with this was the way in which they went about getting the local population to buy their product. Giving out free samples to mothers, the babies would become used to the formula and would not revert to the far healthier and free breast milk. In a destitute environment wherein the parents could not afford to buy this product that their children were now dependent upon, the babies died. Even if the parents could gather together enough money to continue buying the formula, without proper nutrients found in breast milk, the babies became malnourished.
This eventually came to the attention of the international community which, obviously, declared that it could not continue so laws preventing this method of sale came into effect. As well as this, many activists created a public boycott of Nestlé products in the developed world. However this was forgotten when the news cycle changed and the world moved onto another issue.
In Ghana, today, Nestlé give doctors prescription pads with adverts for the formula on them. People see this as a medical endorsement that this is a good product to buy for your children and do so. How can anyone see this as ethical? Nestlé apparently can.

I could write an entire article on this one crime but I would like to talk about another which has brought Nestlé back into the limelight of controversy. Nestlé uses palm oil in the production of innumerable products, including the Kit-Kat. Palm oil is one of the greatest threats to the environment as countries have destroyed huge swathes of rainforest in order to plant thousands of crops. Madagascar, a country once dense in rainforest, is almost completely bare because its

government found that palm oil was vastly more profitable. The ecological ramifications of deforestation on this scale are catastrophic. Animals such as the Orang-utan are losing their homes.
This endangered species is being wiped out because of money.
Babies have died because of money.

Some of the more cynical people in this world could say that babies die of starvation in African

countries every day. Whole campaigns have been run to save them so why should we give a damn about a few children dying from baby formula?
1.5 million children a year die from the malnourishment that the lack of the expensive and addictive Nestle products brings.
1.5 million people.
This is premeditated murder and it is vile and abhorrent that a mere corporation is still getting away with it.

Nestlé is a corporation which is actually clueless about ethics and the common good. There is a reason that people boycott its products and that Greenpeace saw fit to create a rather disgusting but informative video on the death of orang-utans making your chocolate. If you forget about the environmental and ecological abuses there is still the human rights abuse.

People trusted Nestlé but lost it when they revealed their dark side. People trust their doctors but their doctors give them adverts and free samples of products which are detrimental to

children’s lives. Nestlé have no trust in people and seemingly do not care about their human rights violations and support of environmental destruction.

People need to boycott a company which deserves neither their trust, allegiance nor money. Nestlé, your cover is blown.

Visit www.greenpeace.org/kitkat for

more information

April Issue 2010 - Unity Column

As the campaign machines of the political parties are smiling, promising and debating their way to May 6th, the LGBT members of the electorate have no doubt been wondering how the Parties rest on issues of equality, protection and unity. LGBT students are no diff erent and this is aimed as an overview of how each of the three main parties work for our rights.

It is a well known fact that the Labour Party has done a vast amount of work over their last thirteen years in power to ensure British law has entered the world of modern thought. Equalising the age of consent, repealing Section 28, allowing gay couples to adopt and enter into a civil partnership; all of these were passed under the Labour government and all of them have improved the lives of those concerned immeasurably. Yet there are still issues that have fallen by the wayside such as the lifetime ban placed upon gay men so that they can never give

blood and the rather contentious issue of same sex marriages. Maybe Labour has run out of steam with its fight on LGBT issues as there are certainly no signs in their manifesto that we are a priority. Their contribution to the world we know today though, cannot be forgotten .

The Conservatives have never been a popular party with the majority of LGBT

people. The introduction of Section 28 in the 1980’s did more damage to the progress

of equality than any other piece of legislation in known history and their voting record is, frankly, shameful. However, David Cameron has stated time and again that the party has finally modernised with regards to LGBT rights, with the LGBTory group being established in the last decade and even several Tory MP’s actually coming out and declaring that the old Tory Party ideologies were just that, old. Yet this claim has begun to stumble recently a er Mr Cameron expressed ignorance over how his MEP’s have voted against LGBT issues in Brussels. Add to this, reports of Conservative councillors and candidates publicly, if accidentally, being homophobic and the image of a modern Party is failing fast. In an attempt to reclaim their

ground, a press conference was called in which greater equality was promised. Peter Tatchell, the famous LGBT activist, said of the Party aft er the press conference that they were “full of good intentions but very weak on very speci fic gay rights policies. The best [they] could do on gay marriage was say [they] would consider it."

They have never been in power yet the Liberal Democrats have the best voting record on the Acts that have passed through Parliament. As the Party of liberality they have, obviously, always been involved in the ght to gain LGBT rights and they have stated that they will fight

for same sex marriage because “it is impossible to claim gay and straight couples

are treated equally until then.” In spite of this, there is the fact that they have never even been in opposition. A party which has been out of power for so long can find it easy to make promises which could be a far greater challenge to achieve than when they were campaigning. If there is a

Party which can deliver on promises to the LGBT community, though, it would seem

that the Liberal Democrats could follow Labour’s decade plus work on equality.
This is only a very short and simple presentation of the major Parties LGBT

policies. I urge you to read even just a little deeper into theirs and other Parties policies. The website www.mygayvote.co.uk is a concise source of each of the Parties voting records on LGBT matters; see some examples below.
Whatever you do, however you defi ne yourself, please vote.

April Issue 2010 - The end of the mpfree

On the 8th April 2010 the Digital Economy Bill received the Royal Assent, meaning that it is now an Act of Parliament; a law of this country. For its entire run through the Parliamentary system, this Bill has been criticised and deplored by the public, experts and even companies such as Google and Yahoo, all the while the government intent on getting it passed.

The uproar surrounding the Bill is due to one of its main agendas - to establish

stricter laws on copyrighted material being downloaded and shared over the internet. is is a fair point, as the artists and companies that have created the material lose money because their copyrighted material is being given out for free. The flip side of this is that some artists believe that as their music is spread for free, a greater audience will hear it and purchase other products such as merchandise or a ticket to a concert, therefore putting what money they would have used to buy a single or album back into the industry. Building on this, campaigners against the Bill said that it was far too radical and thus needed greater discussion.

The law, as it now stands as of the 8th of April now means that internet users caught illegally downloading music and videos will be cut o ff , and their names handed over to the copyright holders so that they can be sued for illegal use of their content. Internet service providers (BT,

Talk Talk etc) could be forced to block sites which contain illegal material. Th ose held accountable will be the account owners. This means that if someone, for whatever reason manages to use your wireless connection to illegally download any media will see your account blocked as a result of their actions.
Any law which changes the social environment so drastically would normally take far longer to go through Parliament; Select Committee hearings and discussions in the House of Commons lasting for months. This Bill was rushed through in a ‘wash-up’ period in the Houses before

the General Election closed Parliament, meaning that it did not receive as detailed an examination as other Bills do.
Over 20,000 people wrote to their MP’s in protest of the Bill’s content and its complexity. The Bill was, and is now as a law, thrown together and political pundits have said that it will cause more problems in the long run as people try and apply it to the many varied situations that can, and will, occur on the internet. Despite this, the Government has said “ The Digital Economy Bill has been extensively debated and scrutinised in the House of Lords, with seven days in Committee and three days in Report Stage”. They have claimed that articles of it were changed for the better during the stated stages and that it will benefi t those who legally download music,

as well as the artists.

The key to this whole situation is the lack of public debate. The internet is a public domain where people are, within certain limits, allowed to do whatever they want. The Government suddenly changing that and ignoring all of the criticism is being viewed as yet another break in the trust the public puts into their MP’s. On the flip side however, those who download

content for free are breaking the law and it is for the government to make sure that

the law is enforced.

For now we will have to live with the law when it comes into eff ect sometime later this year. There is no doubt, though, that the debate will continue - in Parliament, on the streets and in the online forums

February 2010 Issue - Unity Column

[Looking back, this is quite poorly written :/]

Did you know that it is LGBT History month throughout February? No? Neither did I until a few weeks ago. Somehow it has managed to pass most people by and considering it was established in 2005, in the age of readily available news and information, this is quite surprising.

According to the LGBT history month website there are four events happening in Wales over the whole 28 days and that’s it. Of course, there will be more which aren’t advertised by the website but they will likely draw a meagre crowd of people who were already interested in the progression of gay rights over the past fifty years. So I’m going to give you a summary of what the month is all about and what Unity is doing here in Bangor.

The idea for the month sprung from the repeal of Section 28 in 2003. It quickly became apparent that people hardly knew anything about the LGBT community and their fight for civil rights. The month was chosen as a time to raise awareness for the

general public, especially in schools where it was also used to try and combat homophobic bullying.

Backed by prominent figures such as Sir Ian McKellen, marking this month has been successful within schools but the wider population still don’t seem to know much about events like the Stonewall riots, Harvey Milk’s campaigning in America, the fight against Section 28 here in Britain and how all of this has a affected LGBT people over the years.

What really needs to happen, in my opinion, is for either the BBC or Channel 4 to run one of their seasons of programmes over the month; interesting documentaries about the social and personal implications of criminalised homosexuality, LGBT celebrity talking heads revealing how diverse

the community actually is; entertaining films that deal with said issues.

Here Unity can help you. We are running a series of film nights throughout February in Blue Sky Cafe. Each week the film will be based on one of the initials: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. They are all educational, entertaining (yes, you can have both) and range from a British film from the 1970’s to a 2009 Oscar winner.

There are still many people to inform; the story of LGBT people is centuries old. For it to work, people need to pass on what they have learned. If thirty people come to see the films Unity is showing, learn something new about gay rights and pass it on, soon everyone will

learn something new and interesting about LGBT history. Eventually the month might only be needed for re flection upon a time when LGBT citizens across the globe did not hold the rights they deserve, eventually it might be a purely historical lesson against discrimination and the fight for equality.

Let's Begin

Hello folks.

Well I say "hello" but that's a bit redundant as no one knows about this yet. So basically I'm talking to myself...

Anyway. I've created this blog so that I can post the articles that I have written for my Uni's student newspaper over the last year.

Hopefully I'll be posting some more off of my own back to keep in the habit but, for now, here they are starting from February last year. I hope they're not too bad.