The Sutton & Epsom Advertiser

[ambersalamander]

My villain of the week is our lovely homophobic local paper!

I don't know anyone who reads it, actually, but the MAIN FRONT PAGE HEADLINE is as follows:

"LESBIAN MUM TO "WED" LOVER"

Followed by the sub-heading:

"And daughter is in a gay relationship too."

Oh my God! Filthy dykes exist in Sutton! I thought they'd all been burnt at the stake years ago. What a scandal to tarnish the innocent and blameless citizens of Sutton and Epsom!

(In fact, I just had a shufti at Sutton's crime figures for March of this year. In just the one month: 248 counts of violence against the person, 17 sexual assaults, 45 robberies, 118 burglaries, but apparently NO homophobic crimes. No wonder, really. Who'd want to report one with this kind of attitude prevailing?)

Now, local papers are often very silly, but it's usually in a fluffy kind of way. I have a problem with this one, for the following reasons:

1) What business is it of theirs?
2) What business is it of ours?
3) Two people who presumably love each other are wishing to make their union official. Why belittle this by referring to it in inverted commas?
4) I personally have no time for this "same sex parents cannot bring up a child as well as mixed couples can" bulls**t. Anyway, if the daughter is old enough to have a girlfriend then what difference could it make?
5) How could this possibly be the MAIN EVENT, i.e. worthy of the main story, among a population of over 200,000? The London Borough of Sutton's estimated population is 179,768 while that of the Borough of Epsom and Ewell is 27,065. They might as well make next week's headline, "MOTHER TO MARRY MAN! DAUGHTER HAS A BOYFRIEND TOO!!!" SCANDAL! People are having sex!

All right. Rant over.

[medibot]

The advertiser still exists!

How hard would it have been to have written a nice article about how nice and fair and modern it all is now there is not a lot if any difference in marriage now because of the gender of the person you love enough to want marry?

[ambersalamander]

That would have annoyed me as well! Because I think that ALL people, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to have an EQUAL right to make their union official- so what if lesbians are getting married?! I didn't read the article itself; maybe it WAS all "Ooh look, gay people are getting married, isn't it nice?" I'm sorry Botty, but that is completely patronising. The very fact that it was considered worthy front page news just goes to show that homosexual people's marriages are not considered equal to heterosexual ones, which they bloody well ought to be.

How would you feel if, for example, a prominent sports newspaper (NOT the NLP!) had a front page headline: "CHELSEA FAN SPEAKS TO SUTTON UNITED FAN! SUPPORTER'S SON HAD HEARD OF THEM TOO!"

[medibot]

My point was, they heard about this, there was no way they weren't going to write about it however newsworthy it actually is, so the least they could do is not act like they are offfended by it.

I don't see a problem when people write about the first in their area as it is a milestone and an interesting debate, maybe have a few opinion articles, congratulate them and then leave it. The Argus down here in Brighton mentioned in on the first day and that was that. End of story, get on with yer lives.

[ambersalamander]

medibot said:

My point was, they heard about this, there was no way they weren't going to write about it however newsworthy it actually is

Why?! Why write a front page article about two people getting married? Anyway, what got me was the "wed" in inverted commas, as if it means less than the traditional Mr and Mrs marriage, and their making a song and dance of the fact that the daughter of one of the people involved also appears to be a lesbian, which is irrelevant to the marriage.

They're not the first, anyway. My two female friends (from the borough of Epsom and Ewell) tied the knot in February. I can hardly believe that when same sex marriages have been legally recognised for what is it? Five months? nobody in a population of over 200000 has taken advantage of it until now!

Think about it. There were thousands of same sex couples who'd been together for YEARS and would have done anything to be able to get married. They are hardly going to ALL wait so long, are they?

Anyway- they haven't even got married yet, so it would be pointless to mention it in that context at this point. They're just trying to stir up prejudice.

[medibot]

Ok, well i think i can be excused for not tracking all the marriages in that area since the start of the year cos i don't actually care if people i don't know got married.

I also think there is no need for the article and especially not in the way that article was written but...

I was just trying to see if they could have somehow weaseled out an angle on the story WHICH THEY WERE GOING TO RUN WHATEVER that didn't make it look like the editor or whoever heard about got offended and decided they would put it on the front of their paper. It's pretty obvious they can't though.

[ambersalamander]

Yeah, fair enough, but the point I was originally making was... well, WHY are they running the story in the first place?

Two people are getting married!

I'm sure something marginally more exciting has happened in Sutton and Epsom lately, e.g. the bobbins getting relegated.

[medibot]

My mum bought me some chips to go with the gammon steak she cooked me the other week, that was pretty exciting and argubably more newsworthy. Get that on the front page.

ambersalamander said:

I'm sure something marginally more exciting has happened in Sutton and Epsom lately, e.g. the bobbins getting relegated.

Get this girl the editors job!

Bobbins going down, now THAT is a news story

USELESS TEAM ARE PROVED USELESS IN HILARIOUS RELEGATION

[ambersalamander]

Mmm, useless team being useless isn't exactly news. I think your idea is better

MEDIBOT'S MUM IN CHIP-PROCURING SHOCK

would make a much better tabloid-style front page, especially with colour shots.

Medibot's Mum is a Milf.

[medibot]

Excellent

[Col ISIHAC.]

ambersalamander said:

Medibot's Mum is a Milf.

Minstrel In Lime Flares?

[ambersalamander]

Oh do go away, you foolish child.


















Marvellous! I Love Fish!