The Guardian reports …
Stonewall said its 10,000 members had voted “decisively” to give the title to O’Brien, head of the Scottish Catholic church, after he described gay marriage as a “grotesque subversion” of the universal human right which defines marriage as solely heterosexual.
Oh, so he claims that marriage is a universal right for those that are heterosexual … yep, naming him a bigot is indeed a factual observation.
How has the church reacted, where they delighted by the recognition and thrilled to receive the award … er, not exactly …
A church spokesman said the award showed Stonewall was intolerant of its critics. “Stonewall and others have promoted terms like ‘bigot’ and ‘homophobe’ relentlessly, in order to intimidate and vilify anyone who dares oppose their agenda,” he said.
What a load of bollocks, but then they do excel at that. Stonewall responded …
Stonewall insisted the award was entirely justified since O’Brien had been consistently abusive and intolerant about gay marriage. The cardinal had likened it to relegalising slavery, said it was an “aberration”, and claimed it might clear the way for polygamous marriages and would cause “further degeneration of society into immorality”.
Colin Macfarlane, the director of Stonewall Scotland, said: “We’ve never called anyone a bigot just because they don’t agree with us. But in just the past 12 months, the cardinal has gone well beyond what any normal person would call a decent level of public discourse.”
Some might indeed argue that it is “simply wrong” to call people names like bigot, for example Ruth Davidson (the first openly gay leader of a major political party in the UK) commented on it by saying “The case for equality is far better made by demonstrating the sort of generosity, tolerance and love we would wish to see more of in this world,“. She got booed when she said this, and rightly so, this religious loon is indeed a bigot, calling him that is not simply calling him names, but rather is a statement of well-established fact. Pretending that he is being civil and extending tolerance to his ongoing homophobic behaviour is simply tolerating his intolerance, it is far better to name and shame him.