Robert Hampton

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18th July 2013

La Reyne le veult
Posted by at 11.27pm | Gay, In the News | No responses

Rainbow flag fluttering in sunlight50 years ago, homosexuality was illegal. In an amazing turnaround, by the middle of next year, gay relationships will be on an (almost) equal footing to heterosexual ones, as the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill 2013 is now the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, after Royal Assent was received on Wednesday afternoon.

I’ll be honest – there were times when I didn’t think it would happen. From the minute the plans were announced back in 2011, a formidable campaign against same-sex marriage was launched, unleashing old-school attitudes and opinions that I naively thought had disappeared from public discourse. Certain sections of society are not nearly as tolerant and accepting as we thought they were.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland (or, as he is now known, the disgraced former leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland), Cardinal Keith O’Brien, launched an astonishing diatribe, describing same-sex marriage as a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”. The Telegraph and the Daily Mail were vociferous in their opposition.

The Coalition for Marriage – which described itself as a “grass roots” campaign despite being launched by luminaries such as the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, and reality TV star Anne Widdecombe – set up a petition which, at the time of writing, has a rather pleasing 666,493 signatures. The Government’s own consultation ignored the organised petitions and form letter campaigns, but still revealed widespread opposition.

The cynical view was that this bill was David Cameron’s attempt to “modernise” the Tory party image. If that was his goal, it failed – more Conservative MPs voted against the bill than for it, and Tory MPs have been the most vociferous in their criticism of the bill. Political commentators talked of divisions in the Tory party and rumours swirled of leadership challenges to the Prime Minister. The very real lives and loves of LGBT people were rather lost amongst all the punditry.

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24th March 2013

Ecce Homo

Rainbow flag fluttering in sunlightGay rights and gay issues have always interested me, and you’ll find reference to them throughout my blog, right back to the earliest days. Nowadays, the reasons are obvious. However, for the first seven years of the blog’s life, I was hamstrung by the fact that I was out to almost no-one.

I thought I was being quite clever, carefully wording my posts in such a way that I could demonstrate I was a champion of gay rights without actually coming out and saying that I was gay myself. However, when I was finally brave enough to start coming out to people, a response I got more than once was, “I know, I read your blog.”

Waiting until the age of 27 to come out is not ideal, and it’s something I regret bitterly (especially as a lot of my friends and family already knew, or at least suspected). There are many reasons that I left it so late, but discussion of those reasons is something more appropriate for a revealing therapy session, rather than the blog. So, on with the flashback!

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6th February 2013

Hampo Vlogs: Gay Marriage
Posted by at 11.34pm | Gay, Politics | No responses

Once more, I have stared awkwardly into a camera and edited the results together for your viewing pleasure. Today I tackle the tricky subject of gay marriage with my usual tact and sensitivity.

If you wish to comment, please go to this video’s page on YouTube.

5th January 2013

Plenty-Twelve

Continuing on from yesterday’s review of the year-type thing.

BBC Television CentreJuly (actually, the end of June, but I wrote the blog post on 1st July) saw me make a trip to the legendary BBC Television Centre to watch a recording of Pointless. It was a most enjoyable experience, even if the Central African Republic didn’t come up as an answer. I’m seriously tempted to go back as a contestant.

Liverpool’s Festival Gardens reopened after many years of dereliction. The government announced a whole load of railway improvement schemes, coupled with further plans to price-gouge passengers. I bemoaned the tendency for reviews to oversimplify things with a simple score.

I fretted about Global Warming (and now, after experiencing a week of unseasonably mild weather, I’m even more worried). Heat of a different kind in Liverpool city centre, as preachers continued to claim everyone was going to Hell.

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4th January 2013

Ring In the New Year, Wring Out the Old

Hampo in front of the Berlin WallA little later than planned, here is a look back at the preceding 12 months, as seen through my jaded eyes. As January began, I wrote a blog post looking forward to the treats that 2012 held in store. How did the year pan out? Let’s have a look…

The year started on a downbeat note for my family as we mourned my dad’s sister Betty, who had been a part of all our lives for as long as I could remember.

The government announced that High Speed Two, a new TGV-style railway line, would be built to link London with the Midlands. Middle England quickly took up against the plan, as Tory MPs lined up to denounce the line that was due to slice through their constituencies. David Cameron had succeeded in alienating his Conservative base, and it would not be only time that happened this year.

Web sites participated (or didn’t) in a protest against SOPA, a draconian anti-copyright law in the US. Elsewhere on the Internet, Twitter caused a minor kerfuffle by announcing that it would censor Tweets on a country-by-country basis.

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27th December 2012

Goodwill to all men (but not those who love other men)
Posted by at 3.40pm | Gay, In the News | 1 response

With all the crass commercialism, overeating and excessive drinking, it’s sad to see that people have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas. I refer, of course, to some of Britain’s religious leaders, who chose Christmas Day, of all days, to attack their favourite target of the moment: teh gayz.

Exhibit A: Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales:

The head of the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales issued his strongest attack yet on the government’s plans to introduce same-sex marriage, lambasting them as “shambolic” and accusing the prime minister of “shallow thinking”.

In the most divisive of a host of Christmas Day comments from religious leaders, the archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, questioned the democratic credentials of the plans, which could see the first gay weddings take place in 2014.

Exhibit B: The Bishop of Shrewsbury:

Bishop Davies believes the government’s decision to introduce equal marriage rights in England and Wales in 2013 is similar to how Hitler and Stalin tried to undermine religious freedom.

The senior Catholic will say: “Past generations have gathered in this cathedral on Christmas night amid many shadows which seemed to obscure the future for them.

“We think of the ideologies of the past century, Communism and Nazism, which in living memory threatened to shape and distort the whole future of humanity.”

The Nazi allusion is particularly offensive, given the number of homosexuals slaughtered by Hitler’s henchmen.

With war, poverty and oppression still commonplace around the world, it’s amazing that church leaders are focusing so heavily on gay rights. Their obsession with the issue is troubling and out of step with public opinion, with the latest poll showing a clear majority (60%) of the public in favour.

In any case, if church leaders did feel the need to speak out, could they not have left it alone for just one day? A Christmas truce, maybe?

8th May 2012

Why it’s important
Posted by at 11.02pm | Gay | 1 response

Stop what you’re doing and take ten minutes to watch this video (embedded below). It’s the story of Shane Bitney Crone and Tom Bridegroom, a couple who were torn apart by Tom’s sudden death, and of Shane’s bereavement, which has been compounded by ugly prejudice and an unforgiving legal system.

It’s a story from the US, where gay rights can be patchy, depending on which state you’re in. As Shane says: in the eyes of the law, he and Tom were no more than roommates. In many countries the situation is much worse – in many parts of the world there are no legal protections for gay people at all.

In Britain it’s important to remember how fortunate we are to have a full raft of gay rights legislation, especially civil partnerships, which confer most (but not all) of the protections and rights of marriage. We should not settle for second best, however, and as certain factions wage a bitter war against full marriage rights, stories like the one above should be foremost in our minds.

Marriage is a right and a privilege – it must be opened up to all couples, regardless of gender. And even when that battle has been won, there is still a mammoth task of stamping out ugly prejudice like that described in the video above.

12th April 2012

You wait ages for one, then 1,000 come at once…
Posted by at 11.56pm | Gay, In the News | No responses

THIS IS A BUS bag from The ApprenticeLast month, when the Government launched its consultation on equal(ish) marriage, I predicted “three more years of unpleasant rhetoric from opponents of equality until the law is passed.”

I’ve been proved right, but I didn’t expect it to get this unpleasant this quickly. I’ve previously mentioned Cardinal O’Brien calling gay relationships “grotesque”. We’ve also had a Kent MP claiming that Shakespeare’s plays will have to be rewritten, and the Daily Mail screaming that terms like “mother” and “father” will be replaced by “progenitor”(?!).

The campaign took a new twist on 3rd April, when gay rights group Stonewall relaunched their “some people are gay, get over it!” ad campaign on the back of the current push for equal(ish) marriage rights. The advert is on 1,000 of the capital’s buses, ensuring that the equality message is brought to every community of London.

A response came today from the misleadingly-titled Anglican Mainstream, a Christian organisation which claims to support “traditional” teaching on the family (and you know what that usually means). They booked a smaller ad campaign on 26 London buses, claiming that sexual orientation can be changed with therapy. The ads, which were due to appear from next week, were a spoof of Stonewall’s design and slogan: “NOT GAY! EX-GAY, POST-GAY, AND PROUD. GET OVER IT!”

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6th April 2012

Bradshaw’s Misguide
Posted by at 2.22pm | Gay | No responses

Ben Bradshaw MP has got it badly wrong by mocking the Government’s same-sex marriage plans.

“This is pure politics on their part. This isn’t a priority for the gay community, which already won equal rights with civil partnerships. We’ve never needed the word ‘marriage’, and all it’s done now is get a bunch of bishops hot under the collar. We’ve been pragmatic, not making the mistake they have in the US, where the gay lobby has banged on about marriage.”

One part of what he says is true – I think this is a political move on David Cameron’s part. However, while he’s entitled to his view I wish Bradshaw would have thought a little bit before speaking out and making comments that anti-marriage campaigners would jump all over. Like other prominent gay people who have opposed marriage equality – Christopher Biggins, Brian Sewell et al – he seems to have looked at his own life position, where he’s happy and settled and doesn’t want or need to get married, and concluded from that that no other same-sex couple anywhere could possibly want or need it.

It’s also worth pointing out the civil partnerships do not confer exactly the same rights and responsibilities as marriage – there are several important differences, mostly in the areas of inheritance and pension rights.

Oh, and you have signed the petition and submitted a response to the Government consultation, haven’t you?

16th March 2012

Power of 2
Posted by at 9.24pm | Gay, In the News | 2 responses

When David Cameron told the Tory Conference in October 2011 that he supported marriage rights for same-sex couples, I wonder if he expected the reaction to be as vociferous as it has been? He didn’t just open a can of worms; he put the can in a microwave, programmed it for full power, and watched the sparks fly.

I will admit that – while I wasn’t surprised by the reaction of certain religious leaders – I was surprised that their views were allowed to dominate the debate, especially on TV and radio (that politically correct liberal media at work again, I guess). I was also surprised – shocked, in fact – at how vicious some of the anti-marriage commentary has been. Some comments have been reminiscent of the nonsense that comes out of the mouths of the religious right in America. I naively hoped that Britain would be above this kind of thing.

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