NO ROOM AT THE INN?

10-01-2007

It will soon be illegal to discriminate against gay people when providing goods and services after attempts to overturn the new Sexual Orientation Regulations were defeated in the House of Lords last night. Pete Millington asks a few tough questions of the religious groups who opposed thelaw.

Perhaps it should be cause for celebration that homophobia seems to have achieved what 2000 years of the Judaic-Christian-Islamic tradition hasn't….unity amongst God's sub-flocks

If ever I was still on the cusp about forcing my children to attend Mass every week to keep a long line of grumpy old single men happy, well, thishas just about clinched it.

Hundreds of misguided religious people showing their full unadulterated bigoted true selves last night, shining their little lamps on the side of the mother of parliaments and displaying the worst of human nature for the whole world to see.

As if it wasn't enough to hear the old bishop the other day, sticking up for hanging as if that particular commandment had just accidentally fallen out of his Good News Bible.

Funny how they get all literal about some ancient Dead Sea scroll obsession with sodomy: “oh yes that's the word of God that is, he hates gays does God, he don't have a problem with nasty old priests abusing orphans for centuries on end, but he won't tolerate them there gays…oh no!”

But when it comes to taking a life, oh yah, well that's suddenly up for re-interpretation that one is, the bishop can call a bit of a seminar with Him up high to debate that one, yes, well, thou shalt not kill unless in the name of atonement…

The thing which interests me about the current story though, was that a lot of the debate in the media seems to be around bed and breakfast establishments run by born again Christians.

Have I missed the latest trend in tourism or something? Or is this a cultural stereotype I never noticed before now? The new breed of overtly Christian B&B owners?

But what I really want to know is….How do the Christian B&B owners identify the gay lodgers in the first place?

I mean, ok if it's Quentin Crisp coming up the front staircase, but what if it's a covert gay person? A non stereotypical gay person who needs shelter from the storm?

And are we banning gay people per se or is it just couples wanting double beds?

How will we differentiate gay couples from ‘just good mates out for a stag weekend and don't mind sharing a bed to save money that could be spent on beer?”

We've all been there…. Well, I haven't actually… No honest I haven't.

Or elderly sisters? Old school friends?

How will the poor old Christian landlord know he's not being duped? What if the gay couple book separately and then one sneaks into the other's room when lights are out?

Or what if they pretend to be train spotters who craftily request single beds in the same room and then push them together?

Is it just ‘the act' that Christians object to? I did hear that expression on the radio last night from a member of the God squad being interviewed outside Westminster…

“My bed and breakfast is my home, as a Christian I wouldn't allow the act to take place in my own home”

The Act? The Act of what? The Apostles? 12 men in a boat, who knows what went on?

Is it purely the act of sodomy that these weirdos are upset about? Are all gay men and lesbians rampant fornicators then?

I have this vision of some mad Christian John Cleese character leaping around in the middle of the night pursued by Sybil,his glass against the wall in the vacant room next to the two incognito hotel inspectors, one of whom happens to have a large moustache

“I knew it Sybil, I told you they were batting for the other side… they're at it Sybil…”

“Don't be so stupid Basil, get off that chair immediately before you fall off it…”

Mind you, there is another side to this discussion…

I recently made contact with my gay uncle who runs a guest house in Blackpool with his partner, and hinted to him that me and my wife and children would be up for a cheap weekend next to the Pleasurebeach….

He emailed back to say the their establishment was not really a ‘family hotel'

Reading between the lines I think I understood what he was trying to tell me, fair play, as John Lennon said, whatever gets you through the night, horses for courses, we won't go where we're not welcome, etc.

But then, three children families aren't exactly welcomed with open arms in the majority of the world's hotels - maybe we need to have a demonstration.

However, perhaps that's a slightly different argument. The real point here being that the religious lobby are at best a bunch of ignorant bigots, at worse, are they really the true children of God that they have had us all believe for at least the past 2000 years?

After all, coming so close after Christmas, we don't have to think too hard about another occasion when some poor couple got turned away from every B&B in town…