What Are You Really Worried About?

Ah, the ‘anti-gay posters’ Mayoral kerfuffle:

Just days before the posters were due to appear on buses in the capital, Johnson ordered his transport chiefs to pull the adverts booked by two conservative Anglican groups following outrage among gay campaigners and politicians saying that they were homophobic.

Thus proving Bojo is every bit the politician with an eye ever to the media or as Angry Exile puts it, 'illiberal twat'), as much as any other.

Johnson, who contacted the Guardian to announce he was stopping the adverts within two hours of their contents becoming public, said: "London is one of the most tolerant cities in the world and intolerant of intolerance. It is clearly offensive to suggest that being gay is an illness that someone recovers from and I am not prepared to have that suggestion driven around London on our buses."

When did we become so damned fragile that we couldn’t bear the idea that someone might have differing views to the mainstream?

First we had the ridiculous idea that a university may decide to dispense with its bars because a significant minority dislikes alcohol and considers it immoral. The idea that they should simply not drink it themselves is never suggested; no, it must be removed from their sight, to make them more ‘comfortable’ and emphasise what a diverse and tolerant lot we are (where ‘tolerance’ no longer means what it used to).

Now this, where once again, we can’t simply expect anyone to frown, shake their heads at the silly beliefs of others, and get on with their lives.

No, it mustn’t be allowed to trouble them, they must be ‘protected’ from seeing it as if the very glimpse of this beguiling Medusa might turn them to heterosexual stone...

Of course, since we’re in the middle of a Mayoral race, we

His main rival in next month's mayoral election, Ken Livingstone, said Johnson should never have allowed the adverts to be booked.

Eh?

Does NewtBoy think that the Mayor personally vets each and every one of TfL’s proposed bus ads? Crikey!

The Christian groups insisted the advert had been cleared with Transport for London (TfL) , which is chaired by the mayor. Davidson said: "I didn't realise censorship was in place. We went through the correct channels and we were encouraged by the bus company to go through their procedures. They okayed it and now it has been pulled."

Well, cheer up. They’ve given you far, far more publicity than the adverts would have given you, and all for free!

Both openly-gay MP Chris Bryant and Ben Summerskill, Stonewall head honcho, condemned the ad, but did not agree with it’s banning:

Both men said the advert should not be banned, however, because they believed in freedom of speech.

*sigh* I wish we still had politicians who did…

The decision to pull the adverts is being seen as a potential boost for conservative Christian organisations attempting to become more politically active in the UK.

"Banning this is usually a fairly good way to encourage a sense that people are being marginalised and persecuted," said Simon Barrow, co-founder of the Ekklesia thinktank which has tracked the progress of what it calls aggressive conservative Christianity. "It could be part of a developing tactic to draw attention to themselves and a way of using victimhood to galvanise sympathy and support."

And so the UK continues to fragment along tribal lines and the great English reputation for ‘tolerance’ slips ever further into the mists of time…