Cure.

Last night I saw a program about a gay man who wanted to be “cured”. He wanted to find a wife and have some children so he could live a “normal” life. “I don’t see myself as a stereotypical gay man” he said, cutting the stems of fresh flowers in the kitchen of his houseboat. Ok, I may be seeing a stereotypical gay man there, but this bloke was just denying what he was. The program then followed him to America, where he joined a program to cure him of his evil gayness, and obviously god was involved heavily in this cure. The nasty part for me was some of the terms used. “Fixed” like being gay means you are broken in some way, and other terms that set a pattern of negativity. Thankfully the bloke wasn’t swayed by the religious fundamentalism, and left the program to find his own way. In the end I think he realised that he just wanted to lay off the sex for a while and not change who he was. I just hope that no one watching the program was swayed by all the negative terms and attitudes towards anything that wasn’t normal in the eyes of the church.

I’ve been listening to the news today, in particular the news that the licensing laws are being relaxed. A judge has weighed in with his opinion that violence will increase as binge drinking increases. This opinion has been echoed by a senior police officer. I have to say that I think removing the last orders will stop the usual five pints when one will do syndrome. One bright spark on the BBC suggested that the answer should be to trial the new laws in one place and see if it works. Yeah, great idea… where do you think everyone will go for a night out ? There would be coach trips to the new booze Mecca. It’s about time we dropped this nanny state nonsense, if we are really worried about binge drinking we have to look at why it is on the increase, just closing the pubs doesn’t stop people drinking. I have three litres of spirits in the bottom drawer of my freezer, do those opposed to relaxing these laws think I would be too bothered if the pub shut at eleven thirty ?

Drinking is bad for you; we all know that, in fact after smoking it causes the most drug related deaths in Britain. I find it very odd that the two most dangerous drugs in the world are acceptable in the eyes of the law, but those drugs that cause very few deaths and those that have never caused a recorded death in living memory should be banned and their use and supply punishable in law. In fact it makes me think there is another reason that smoking and drinking are acceptable…. I wonder if it has anything to do with the huge amounts of cash the government gets from duty ? No, it can’t be, because they care about our health, they wouldn’t put us at risk just to generate some cash….. would they ?