The former MP for Chingford did not always feel this way. When Latifah signed with Tommy Boy Records in 1989, he was initially impressed. During a late lunch at Chequers, he was overheard to remark of Latifah's debut album All Hail the Queen: "That bitch is legit. Her flows are off the hook. Word is bond."
Silly pop songs, over-the-top costumes and dance routines, and a (possibly) fake sense of intra-European bonhomie. Yes, it's easy to dismiss the annual Eurovision song contest. But wait. This year might be a little bit different. Eurovision might actually get political - and not just political in the usual sense that neighbouring countries vote for one another in a show of regional support... What better time to demand equal rights than when you have the eyes of much of Europe on you?
We aren't going to take this lying down- we are going to campaign and raise awareness until our Union ratifies us. I am here for at least two more years, and by the time I leave, our University will have a ratified FemSoc. I hope that our Union deigns to give us a good answer why they have decided not to support feminism on campus soon, and I hope that they reconsider our plea.
As tennis player and gay rights activist Billie Jean King has suggested, this news item is great, but it's also a shame in a way - it would be better if people didn't need to come out, and if instead everyone were accepted for who they are. We shouldn't have to defend ourselves, but since the world isn't yet at that stage, unfortunately we still need people such as Jason Collins.
Maybe Glenn Greenwald can stop blaming gay people for the merchandising of America's Left, and find his own progressives who don't mind being ostracized or murdered. Short of that, a radical makeover of SF Gay Pride is necessary, if only so Glenn has something to strum about when he's musing on his acoustic Gibson after one too many Starbucks cappuccinos from his Notting Hill local.
Obviously, I don't mean Margaret Thatcher was a man in women's clothing. That's not really what drag is about: it's about drawing attention to the public performance of gender. Like many drag acts, her performance slid between the glamorous, the parodic and the grotesque, but there's no question that it was sensationally successful.
In the era when AIDS was becoming more prominent and education about LGBTQ issues was needed more than ever, Thatcher's government decided that gays were not full citizens worthy of respect and that they were too much of a threat to be allowed equal rights. Thatcher thus became not only the 'milk snatcher', but also the 'gay dispatcher'.
We have to consider the impact that allowing these organisations to speak in schools has on children. While these speakers don't necessarily express homophobia in their presentations, it would be very easy for students to come across the materials of their organisations which argue against same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights on the internet, radio, TV, etc. SPUC for example regularly appears in mainstream media.