He had twenty-seven children, yet he never had a wife

What is it with this country?

Not to detract from the seriousness of the issue of gay couples adopting, but it has become a massive issue in the UK over the last few days.

But what about more important things, like a little thing called “war”. It amazes me that we can spend column inches upon column inches in the newspapers debating this, that, or the other, but the larger issues remain largely unspoken of as the public has bored of them.

The real reason why this has become an issue is the rise of the fundamentalist Christians in the UK. Copying tactics used in the US by similar groups over there, they have made issues out of Jerry Springer the Opera, abortion and now gay adoption. These are all issues which merit some attention and debate but let’s not go overboard. Let’s just say that they have some very good PR people who are able to create outrage at the drop of the hat.

Some of these organisations are completly insane. As an aside, in America they have an organisation which has decided to list all of the bands which propagate gay issues, so you can choose to not buy their records. Great. Somewhat surprised by the inclusion of Wilco, but hey they do criticise Bush, so it's all the same. Check out the list here. Nice question mark around Morrissey, which did make me laugh.

Anyway back to the issue. I predict that we’ll see a rise in this kind of thing in the UK with the Christian groups stating that we are fundamentally a Christian society (despite the fact that hardly anyone goes to church anymore) and using more and more Americanised PR-tactics to a media which laps it all up. But it’s all a false debate – most of the country don’t really care, and see no problem in gay couples adopting.

I mean Iraq is nearly at civil war, Afghanistan is still a mess, Osama Bin Laden remains at large and we’ve not even touched on North Korea, Iran or Zimbabwe, but the debate on gay adoption goes on and on.

My views on this issue are that gay couples should be allowed to adopt. There are too many orphans who don’t find any home that surely it would be better if they were in a family, however unconventional that you may find that unit. So it could be viewed as a common-sense argument, not a moral one. And I mean no offence to gay people, but seeing as around 6% of the UK is gay, and not all of them in a relationship, how can this dominate the news for days on end? It's all because of a bunch of nutters hell-bent on returning society to a time and place which no longer exists, and one which I think didn’t even exist in the first place.

Rambling, Gambling Willie