Does Winnie the Pooh support Gay Marriage?
Ding ding. Round 28.
We have 2 online petitions.
The Coalition for Marriage have one at c4m.org.uk, which at the time of writing has 250,237 apparent supporters for the slogan (incorporating an ABBA song):
DON’T PLAY POLITICS,
ONE MAN + ONE WOMAN,
WITH MARRIAGE
This is the Green Site.
- Coalition for Marriage
The Coalition for Equal Marriage have the other one at c4em.org.uk, which currently has 32,690 apparent supporters for the slogan (incorporating an Irish rugby player, but if I mention that Laurence and his fellow muckrakers at Political Flapbook will start flapping again):
Don’t Let Bigotry Stop
Two People In Love*
Getting Married
This is the Pink Site.
- Coalition for Equal Marriage
The problem is that neither petition is running on a website that allows it to be audited independently by someone we can all trust, or alternatively linked irrefutably to a real identity.
So we have no authoritative idea who has really signed, whether they are real, whether the signatories are actually legitimately able to be part of a UK political process, and all the other problems associated with Flatpack Politics.
- Make the Pope Pay
If you think these ‘process’ points don’t matter, then consider the Make the Pope Pay petition from early 2010 run by the National Secular society on their own website.
A great flapdoodle followed about 28,000 ‘signatories’ demanding that the UK Government not fund that particular State Visit.
There was even a PR stunt in Downing Street.
No one mentioned, and I suspect that the NSS themselves didn’t notice (or chose to ignore), that the petition was heavily ramped.
For example, on February 3rd and 4th, following a pointer from the US Pharyngula blog, the petition jumped from 5800 signatories to 11,400 signatures in one day, as recorded at the Internet Archive and in the comments on the blog post.
I have no idea how many of those were valid UK signatories, but Pharyngula receives roughly Guido levels of traffic (100k visitors a day or so), and the inability to prove who the objectors are makes the whole project a farce.
The petition had been launched on February 1st, and the run rate including ‘wow, lookee here’ media stories was around 700-800 signatures per day (28,000 in February, minus the extra 4,000-5,000) .
How many others were questionable beside the 20% cast into doubt by that single incident?
For the current ‘marriage’ petitions, we do not even know whether one person has signed either the “Equal Marriage” or “Coalition 4 Marriage” petition 948 times under different identities.
And neither petition appears to do even a reasonable mininum to ensure even that email addresses are genuine, which means that each email address should be validated and not accepted until a confirming link has been followed, and that signatories should be reviewed.
The C4M petition sent me an email confirming my signature, but not requiring that I prove that I had access to the email address I had given. The Equal Marriage petition didn’t even send me an email.
So does Winnie the Pooh believe in gay marriage?
I’d say he’s equivocal about it.
I signed both petitions on behalf of the Winnie the Pooh about 10 days ago, with my mattwardman AT gmail DOT com email address. Neither has issued a peep of protest about how I’m mocking their marketing-publicity efforts. Screenshots are at the end of this post.
So, never mind the reality, feel the width, and we are back with the problem that makes most web polls risible.
It looks as if I could have signed both as all the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White, every character from Lord of the Rings, and Jesus H Christ (who signed to Make the Pope Pay) and it would just have added to the numbers.
Whatever your views on marriage, and who should have access to use of the word, these petitions (and nearly all other online petitions) are not worth the paper they aren’t written on, and are a cross between a social media penis-size competition and a parlour game.
But they will serve up many gossipy stories of factional competition of interest to our mainstream media, who on the whole are probably too boneheaded to notice.
Expect a Polly-rambulation any day soon.
With luck we may even have the amusement of some of our sillier politicians quoting them in Parliament.
My serious view is that the Roman Catholics and their friends have chosen the wrong side on this debate, both theologically and politically, and that they are barking uncomfortably far up the wrong tree with no rescuing Fire Engine in sight.
This is not a battle which will be won, and losing this one may cause others to be lost.
- Marry me, Mrs Winnie
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1
March 21, 2012 at 06:52 -
A number of anaesthetic medications are known to effectively suppress the gag reflex. At the time of writing, such prescriptions are neither compulsory nor are they considered to be chemoprophylactic…but times change.
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2
March 21, 2012 at 07:13 -
There was until recently a lesbian couple and a male homosexual couple in our small village, each pair living together in an unremarkable way, forming part of village life. I am struggling to find any way in which my life would have been affected had they been married.
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3
March 21, 2012 at 07:40 -
Cute Winnie pics.. although I missed the one where the 100 Acre Wood opened a gender dysphoria clinic and Winnie became a woman.
I can only imagine Piglet’s and Eeyore’s reactions…
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4
March 21, 2012 at 09:38 -
Just so long as they don’t go walking down a Church Aisle I can’t say I care all that much.
However, the thought of such happenings does raise some interesting pictures in my mind
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5
March 21, 2012 at 09:47 -
Interesting that both appear to be using a screen design that has a common template. The dotted button surround, text positions etc.
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6
March 21, 2012 at 10:17 -
I know this is very politically incorrect, but I find the whole idea of ‘gay marriage’ to be rather risible. I’m sure the idea is a slightly cynical political manouvre to ‘detoxify the Tory brand’ (or whatever the current buzz-phrase is), and not really based on a deap-seated desire to right a great wrong.
For me, marriage is a unioun of a man and a woman for the purpose of begetting and raising children, in a stable and supportive emotional environment. It doesn’t always work, but has been shown to be a generally better way than all the others.
Now in a gay marriage, there may well be begetting going on (rather not know the details, if you don’t mind), but there isn’t going to be any issue to as a result. (Adoption is a different question – no begetting involved.) So the whole thing is pointless, especially as civil partnerships now safeguard the property and next-of-kinship rights of same-sex couples.
However, it’s no real surprise that it has ended up being used as a political football. The ‘gay rights’ lobby is currently far more powerful than the Churches with their ‘old-fashioned’ ideas about morality and social cohesion. The rights of the minority shall trump the rights of general society in this case, and our political ‘betters’ know full well which way the political wind blows.
I suspect that a full national debate and subsequent referendum would give something more like the result of the two polls above, but that isn’t necessarily what matters in Parliament….
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7
March 21, 2012 at 10:47 -
Its less about equalisation and more about normalisation, theres a bit of a difference and that is what many in the gay lobby are about.
Personally, I don’t care but I support it because it does need to be normalised. The thing about it is, for you; two chaps (or chapettes) living together in matrimony (holy or otherwise) probably isn’t normal, but for them it is and that needs to be recognised & understood (but not necessarily accepted, its a universal right to not accept as long as you do no harm off the back of it, so to speak.)
As adults that isn’t an issue, we’re all big and ugly enough to fend for ourselves. But when you’re growing up its a proper issue, what many in the religious lobby can’t/refuse/are-not-willing-to accept is you can’t make a person gay, its got nothing to do with nurture, its preprogrammed in the genes (fleeting dalliances mean nothing.) For that reason, marriage between a man and a woman will never be under threat from this, from other things? Yes, but from this? No.
Online polls are a waste of time and because of all the wind and piss doing the rounds on the internet (my post included) are not to be taken seriously.
A point on the gay lobby versus the church lobby. The latter is far more powerful and pervasive than the former. The gay lobby support very specific areas that only ever get into the news if it offends the church lobby. Where as the church lobby erm, lobby on a far wider variety of issues that have a far greater effect on everyone. The gay lobby for example don’t have any heriditary peerages, the church of England has 26 (wiki says 24) permanent lordships in the H of L’s. That doesn’t count all the rest who may have strong religious convictions anyway.
As far as I can tell there is only one openly gay lord, Baron Waheed Alli who does good things for gay rights. (Reading around, it seems the H of L’s generally support gay marriage.)
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8
March 24, 2012 at 19:08 -
So two chaps or chapettes living together is normal for them even if it is not for heterosexuals, therefore it should be normalised.
There are other things that people do which is normal for them, but not for the mainstream person.
How far away is “normalisation” for those who like sex with children or animals? And what about “normalising” burglary, assault and one or two other nasty attributes.
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9
March 21, 2012 at 10:42 -
Both sites are registered to individuals with addresses in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
As to SSM, you don’t fix a problem by changing the definition, especially when the ‘problem’ has already been fixed by Civil Partnerships.
There is no equality issue with marriage, any man or woman can essentially get married, it is open to all. That you don’t have the inclination or ability is not an issue. Does the state have to provide a single man with children? What about his right to a family life?
This proposal WILL introduce a real inequality. Same-sex couples get to choose between nothing, civil partnership or marriage . Conventional couples have the choice of nothing or marriage. What about ‘couples’ in a non-sexual arrangement? Why are they excluded from the inheritance tax benefits? What is so special about the sex act.
The whole thing is a mess. A gang of political pygmies running mad destroying any semblance of structure and replacing it with chaos. Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, Mother of Parliaments, Coronation Oaths, Judicial and Parliamentary Oaths, Wedding Vows all trashed as they follow their marxist dogma.
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10
March 21, 2012 at 10:53 -
Straight couples can have a civil partnership too, no inequality. (Which isn’t the point as it happens.)
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11
March 21, 2012 at 13:02 -
No they can’t. Which is what shows this up for the distraction activity it is.
If it were totally about equality/normalisation then both marriage and civil partnerships should be open to all. But they won’t be.
This is the Tories doing what they did with Section 28, albeit from the opposite angle – using the gay “issue” to create a storm of boring (non) hysteria to distract from the complete balls up they are making of everything else.
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12
March 21, 2012 at 13:56 -
I dare say its only a distraction if it doesn’t affect any issues you’re interested in yourself.
In terms of civil partnership, straight people can have a civil marriage which to all intents and purposes is the equivelent of a civil partnership. Indeed the only difference (again) boils down to the word marriage. (There’s the church lobby in action.)
In terms of equality, it seems to me to be moot. A bit like arguing over identical oranges.
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14
March 21, 2012 at 15:41 -
The civil partnership thing never made sense to me except as a half-way house on the way to civil marriage. I am very civily married (kahboom cha…. I’ll get my coat), it had bugger all to do with any church or cardinal (foaming about slavery an optional extra). I can understand why church’s are getting their vestments in a twist about it but they are onto a loser. This is about civil… CIVIL…. marriages. Kick the civil partnership into touch and just get on with it for goodness sake.
I am beginning to wonder if a certain Cardinal is really an undercover militant athiest with a mission to make the catholic church a laughing stock.
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15
March 21, 2012 at 21:03 -
Winnie the Pooh brings children into a wonderful world of imagination where their dreams can shine! See Pooh at his happiest gorging on a bellyful of brains on the Zombie Walk of Fame at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/03/zombie-winnie-pooh.html
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16
March 24, 2012 at 21:03 -
It all comes down to the definition of the word “marriage”. Is it a religious one or not? You can have all the legal benefits from a civil partnership for gays or a registry office ceremony for agnostics/atheists, so it’s all about the meaning of the word.
The church is made to look silly by arguing about that, but it does matter if the ECHR is going to demand that churches “marry” gay couples in churches.
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