"The penis stands tall in the conservative imagination"

[Guest fountainhall]

If nothing else, the arguments about homosexual emancipation have taught us that the penis stands tall in the conservative imagination. Like the dark tower of Mordor, it looms over all else: filling the mind and blotting out the light. Those who attempt to pretend otherwise always stumble over their own flat feet.

 

This is the start of a mildly interesting article in today’s Observer from London. It deals in part with the frequent conflict between the public utterances and private behaviour of some of the most outspoken critics of homosexuality.

 

Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery of Alamein tried to stop the repeal of the criminal laws against homosexuality in the UK -

 

by bellowing that "one may just as well condone the devil and all his works" as allow gay sex.

 

Then his biographer revealed that Monty had “passionate, if unconsummated, relationships with young men.”

 

The ever-sharp pen of the late Christopher Hitchens was more direct –

 

In the US, the path from the pulpit to the gay massage parlour is so well trodden by evangelical preachers it is a wonder there is a blade of grass left on it. Faced with yet another scandal, a weary Christopher Hitchens wrote: "Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner, rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some dreary motel or latrine."

 

The writer of the article generally concludes that men who are secure in their heterosexuality have “little interest in what their homosexual friends do in bed and our difference is reciprocated.”

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/13/why-cant-homosexuals-have-sex-life

[KhorTose]

In a very real sense these latent homosexuals are fighting the devil, but the sad truth is the devil resides in them.  While I never condemned homosexuality, as a closet case I use to hate that I was gay, so I do understand these people and in some ways kind of pity them.

[Rogie]

The writer of the article generally concludes that men who are secure in their heterosexuality have “little interest in what their homosexual friends do in bed and our difference is reciprocated.”

I thought at first the writer meant to say "diffidence", although that probably carries a different meaning to what was intended, then I checked and what he really wrote was "indifference". That makes sense now.

[Rogie]

Taken from the Comment is Free site referred to in OP.

 

"Jerry Hayes, an exuberant Conservative backbencher, bounds into a Commons bar in 1986. The Department of Health has decided that the only way to deal with the new threat of Aids is to speak to the public in the most sexually explicit fashion. Being frank with the voters also means that some luckless wretch has to be frank with Mrs Thatcher.

 

He finds Willie Whitelaw, looking haggard and downing neat whisky. "What's wrong?" he asks. "I have had to explain to Margaret about anal sex," comes the reply."

 

Priceless!