They Haven't Gone Away, You Know
DUP gay-phobia is reaching out into Europe through the aegis of the self-styled Caleban.
Eamonn McCann, 02 Oct 2012
The Northern Caleban are on the march across Europe. They have already reached the outskirts of Austria.
The Caleban want children taught that the sun, the moon, the stars and all thereon were created over a six-day period beginning at dusk on October 23, 4004 BC; and “young earth theory” given equal billing with evolution in facilities such as the Ulster Museum and the Giant’s Causeway Centre; and Sabbath opening of pubs and picture houses made a crime; and rape, incest and foetal abnormality ruled out as reasons for abortion; and gays banned from adopting children or giving blood; etc.
Fossils, say the Caleban, are just debris deposited by the flood that drowned the dinosaurs. They’d like that taught in schools, too.
Supporters of the Caleb Foundation – it’s they who call themselves “Caleban” – are lightly scattered across the North, heavily concentrated in the DUP. They include Health Minister Edwin Poots, Culture and Arts Minister Nelson McCausland, education spokesperson Mervyn Storey, MPs Gregory Campbell and David Simpson, and more.
The group declares in its mission statement “The Bible is the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God. It is final in its authority. None may add thereto or take away therefrom except at their own peril (of) eternal conscious punishment in hell.”
The Caleban have to be considered in the context of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement requiring us all to “respect” the DUP as the embodiment of one of the “two traditions” entitled to “parity of esteem”. On this basis, the DUP has a veto over any measure it finds particularly offensive.
Since no DUP leader, even of the relatively secular sort, will risk a rift with the Caleban, the crazies wield a veto, too. Thus, there’s been not an inch of movement on the issues the Caleban obsess about since the reinstatement of the Stormont institutions in May 2007.
Looked at objectively in any sensible context, the Caleban are clowns. But in relation to equality for women and for the rights of the LGBT community, the clowns of the North retain a measure of control. This is one of the reasons gay couples in Austria may continue to be deprived of adoption rights.
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