Nigel Gordon

It may be barbaric nonsense and it is certainly theologically unsound, however, unless we can understand the thinking of these people we can never counter that thinking. That only leave two choices, either we destroy them or allow them to destroy us. I find neither alternative desirable.

Unfortunately the interpretation put on some sections of the Qu'ranic teachings by ISIS as described in the article is very accurate. It is not only in ISIS that this view is held. In recent years child sexual exploitation by members of the Islamic community in UK cities and towns has come to the public attention. Many of the men and youths who have found themselves in court in the last few months have seen nothing wrong with their actions as they believed they were supported by Islamic teachings, that because the girls were not Muslim they could be used as sexual playthings in any way the men thought.

Well ISIS also supports the principle of lex talionis so maybe we should consider applying it to them. I am sure we could find some volunteers from the darker side of gay society who would like to apply the like for like principle in punishing them for their actions.

There are I would submit two fundamental rights: The right to life, the enjoyment of life and to have control over ones own life. The right not to be discriminated against, in any aspect of ones life. ​The right to marry is, I would argue, a by product of the second fundamental right. All other rights I would submit derive in one way or another from these two. We have marriage equality in the UK now but I see many areas where gay men and women are still discriminated against - to some extent I see the provision of equal rights in marriage as something of a sop by the current prime minister as a way of keeping the gay vote happy whilst not having to tackle some of the more difficult questions, like the position of certain charities not to consider gay couples as adoptive parents.

Some of you may be interested in looking at the following: go.allout.org/en/a/oz-marriage-equality ​It is a petition to be delivered to the Aussie parliament in a couple of days.

​There are some stories that from the moment you start to read them you feel you know where they are going to take you, this story felt like one of them - the problem was that it wasn't. Where it takes you is someplace totally different and one that makes you think. A great story very well told. You can find it here: http://www.awesomedude.com/bi_janus/the-gulf/the-gulf.htm

This story tackles a difficult subject and does it well. It leaves one with questions that are not easy to deal with, that is why it is well worth reading.

By failing to put him in the year book they are implying that he did not play for the team, so I would submit implying that he is lying when he says he did. Might that be grounds for an action in defamation? Hope the kid gets the support he deserves. I find it interesting that a recent survey in the UK named the most popular male sportsman as Tom Daley who has come out openly as being in a gay relationship and it seems nobody cares.

I thought it was familiar but could not remember where from.

Not at all surprisings, the use of cannabis was quite common in Elizabethan England as it was till late Victorian times. The original pastilles known as Turkish Delights were made using a mixture of tinctures of cannabis and opium, and that had been around from about the time of Shakespeare.

With a lot of time waiting about hospitals and needing something to read I got the first of this trilogy from a special offer on BookBup (which if you are not using it and have an e-reader is good source of discounted e-books). The first book 'A Forbidden Rumspringa' grabbed me and kept me reading. I must admit I found some of the sex scenes a bit too overwritten for my liking but on the whole I thought it was a very good read. I was interested in the characters and the development of the issues between them. So much so that I went on and paid full price to get the next book in the trilogy, 'A Clean Break'. Whilst the first book 'A Forbidden Rumspringa' deals with how to young Amish men deal with the conflict between their own sexuality and the rules of their faith, the second book deals with how they adapt to life outside of the Amish community and the pressures that result from going out into the world. It particular it looks on how those difficulties impact upon the relationship between the protagonists. It also considers the Amish view of things and why the Amish take actions which those outside consider incomprehensible but from the Amish perspective makes very good sense. The final book in the trilogy, 'A Way Home' takes the story forward into a dramatic conclusion when we get the conflict between belief and necessity and an understanding of how one must live ones own life in a way that suits you. Too many books and stories I have read about the Amish and gays have taken a very negative attitude to the Amish and their ways. This does not. Keira Andrews writes about the community and sees the good aspects that arise out of their way of life and belief but also sees the conflicts and stresses that these must and do cause. Be warned, if you start reading the first book (which is still available discounted on Amazon I believe) you will almost certainly end up buying the other two in the trilogy.

I have complained to Mihangel about publishing all of his novel in one go, now I wish Cole would do that.

Ren has all the markings of being a classic Cole Parker story and one I am certain we will all be looking forward to reading. At the same time I sense there is something a bit different in this story, I have no idea where Cole will be taking us in his telling of the story but I suspect it is going to be somewhere different and interesting. I look forward to reading more.

We can survive global warming, although the cost will be high, it is doubtful if mankind can survive the bomb. There is an interesting speculation amongst some searchers for extraterrestrial intelligence that any intelligent species that gets to the point where they have the capacity for space travel will at the same time discover nuclear fission and will inevitably wipe themselves out, which is why we never find any signs of them.

The rights or wrong of what is done in war does not matter, all that is important is that we remember that in any war it is the innocent who suffer. The 6th of August is a good day to remember this.

There are no words which should be banned from Good Writing. By definition if the writing is good then the use of the words itself is good. There are a lot of words which should be banned from bad writing in the hope that it can be made good.

The is an informed school of thought amongst some historians of the period that even when Truman was presented with the arguments about dropping the bomb he was in too minds about authorising it. It was only when he was shown intelligence which indicated that Russia was planning to grab most of Europe that he went ahead and gave permission, seeing it as a demonstration to Stalin as to what the USA could do if Russia went ahead with its plans. It probably had little effect on Stalin as he already knew about the bomb, though it may have influenced his position over Austria and Finland. One can argue long and hard over the rights or wrong of dropping the bomb, especially whether, as was one plan, that it should have been dropped first on one of the uninhabited islands as a demonstration of the power of the bomb. All I can say is that one of my Sensei whose father was a palace functionary at the time said his father told him that if the bomb had not been dropped the Emperor could not have pulled off the palace coup which effectively put the military out of power. On the other hand we must remember that the Japanese had already offered a conditional surrender thirteen days earlier. Their only condition being that the person and status of the Emperor must be respected. In the end that was given anyway as MacArthur knew full well that without the person of the Emperor it would be impossible to control Japan after the surrender. This had already been told to Truman.

Mihangel, just to clarify what I stated, I state that the persecution started after 1951. There is a major change in the tenor of the relevant documents (where they have been released) from late '51 onwards, with comments about homosexuals being a danger to national security. The appointment of Maxwell-Fyfe as Home Secretary brought into a position of influence a man who had a hatred of homosexuals, but had no problem in taking sexual pleasure with thirteen year old boys, which he did not apparently consider a homosexual activity! Even with the attitude from the Home Office and the appointment of Chief Constables who were known to be homophobic, it is still quite common till the end of the 1950s to see magistrates either dismiss charges or impose minimum sentences. That the official attitude was not in tune with the publics attitude was quite clear in cases like Gielgud and Montagu where after their conviction the public showed support for them. There was a story floating around in some legal circles that when Maxwell-Fyfe enquired why Noel Coward had not be arrested and prosecuted he was advised that Coward was so popular no jury would convict him and the public anger at such an arrest could bring the government down. Although life was becoming increasingly more difficult for from 1951 onwards the real jump in prosecutions came in 1962 where the records show a massive year on year increase in the number of prosecutions. There was a determined effort on the part of a certain section of the Establishment to show to the public just how much a danger homosexuals posed to society. This is actual recorded in some Home Office memos of the period. The highest level of gay related prosecutions per head of population was in the years immediately before and after the change in the law in 1967. It is not till the appointment of Leon Brittan as Home Secretary in 1979 that there seems to be a real change in attitude of the police, no doubt brought about that the senior officers who had been appointed under Maxwell-Fyfe were finally all put out to pasture.

I am not sure that homosexuals were particularly persecuted during this period. I was involved in a oral history project for the homosexual community in London some years ago and the impression I got talking to many older gays was that unless you were caught doing something like soliciting in a public toilet the authorities generally turned a fairly blind eye to things, at least in London. One chap I interviewed told me that a local beat cop called in at an East End pub that was a known haunt for gays and was a place where those on leave could pick up a rent boy for the night, to tell them that they were going to be raided later that night as a complaint of 'immoral activities' had been made. It was also a fairly common practice for people to be advised to get the night train to Calais so as to avoid arrest. One woman who I knew told how the police would stand on the doorstep of her boarding house stating in a very loud voice that they had a warrant to search, in order to allow her tenants' guests to leave by the back door. The persecution really arose during the post-war years, especially after 1951 and the Burgess and Maclean affair. It is quite clear from the documentation that the authorities were fully aware of Turing's homosexuality right through the war and had no problems with it. It is only in the post war period that they start to see it as a problem. After 1951 there is an increasing clamp down on homosexuals but it is not till the late 1950s early 1960 that an all out persecution starts - it seems that this was very much a reaction against the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (as it was to become) pressure to get the law changed. In the late 1960s I was for a time secretary of a branch of CHE in London and was aware that I was being followed by Special Branch. In one incident a man I had been having a lunch meeting with entered the public toilets on his way to the underground station and was approached by younger man apparently offering a sexual encounter. The younger man, who turned out to be a DC with Special Branch, was rather surprised to find himself being arrested by his target, who was a Chief Superintendent for a County Police Force. During the interwar years and the period of the 2nd world war the general attitude was so long as homosexual activities were not openly visible they should be left well alone. Something of the feel of homosexual society during the war years can be found in Mary Renault's book "The Charioteer", a book which along with the film "The Victim" did more for the cause of homosexual rights than all the campaigning that was going on.

With my writing I think up an ending, then work out a start that might get me there, then start writing from that start towards the ending I have thought up. In 1/3 of the instances I can't get from the start to the end, so the story ends up in my waste bin. In 1/3 I get from the start to the end I have thought up and have a finished story. In the final third I find the story goes off in some completely different direction and I do not get to the end I wanted but have something different and often a far better story. The best piece of advice I was give during a creative writing class was 'just keep writing, as long as you are writing you have a chance of writing something, if you are sitting around waiting for inspiration you are writing nothing.'

A great story Sam, very well told.

A new Chris James story, that is a reason to celebrate at any time. This one though is in a very different style and voice to what you normally expect from Chris. From this first chapter it appears that Chris has not only mastered the style he has also got the voice that goes with it. I look forward to seeing where it is going.

This has turned up in the Dude's Pick of the Past and I am glad it has. I have really enjoyed reading this, both book 1 and book 2, and would recommend it to anyone. A great story well told. A number of the links in the text do not now work, which is not surprising as it is nine years old and few web sites manage to stay up more than five. My advice is ignore the links and just read the story, it it is well worth it.

I have noticed that two new topics have been started for this amazing piece of writing. Can I request the Dude to move the posts to this, the original topic and delete the duplications. It is nice to see such a great piece of writing acknowledge but let's try to keep all the praise in one place.

I can say that when my scout master found out that I was gay in 1962 he suggested I transferred to a different troop, which he said was more accommodating to our kind. It was, the scout master was gay but made sure nothing went on, but was prepared to answer questions and provided a useful shoulder to cry on at times.