Rev Peter Mullen is chaplain to the London Stock Exchange (I don't know why a stock exchange needs a chaplain but I imagine there's lots of praying going on there right about now).
He also has a blog (Google cache here), where he posts solutions to "problems" that would make the one-eye veil Saudi cleric proud:
It is time that religious believers began to recommend specific utilitarian discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets: Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS.Rev Mullen now says the post is a "light-hearted joke."
Gay men should be forced to have 'health warning' tattoos, says Stock Exchange chaplain
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Hope Rev. Mullen enjoys this, his last day as Chaplin of the London Stock Exchange.
Has science ever answered the question of what causes homophobia? Is it genetic, or is it a choice? Can it be cured? Is it a disease or a crime? Should these people be locked up in mental hospitals or in prisons?
Wow, fellatio kills?
So that's what keeps happening to my girlfriends.
Perhaps he needs to have "listening to my BS has been know to inspire fear, launch wars, and generally warp minds. Listen to at your own risk" tattooed on his forehead
clergymen should be forced to get tattoos that say "religion can seriously damage your mental health"
:(
this smells very much like a similar sentiment of wearing the star of david on clothing and identification numbers on the skin.
how loving of him.
So I guess they should be fair and tattoo priests with "Warning: I might teach your 8 year-old what biblical means".
One should read the blog entry which contains the quoted material. Context is important in most circumstances, and I feel it is in this one as well.
#4, I agree. For the good of mankind. And damn, what a farking moron.
Wow. Offensive, stupid, and just screams how tattoos were used in World War II to identify specific individuals in groups. I'm all for jackass humor, but that was just dumb. How very Christian of him to say such things. Stupid man.
#8 - Wigwam Jones. Good call, I went through the links and read his original blog entry. If anything, its worse in context than by itself.
The barbed wire around the upper arm isn't enough warning? Next he'll be demanding that wanton women get butterflies tattooed on their lower backs.
Wigwam, I read the blog entry. And it is worse in context.
It's not even just that I disagree with him, becuase I do. It's that the kind of things he's suggesting tend to result in violence and discrimination. And for that reason, I think he should carry a warning label so that people know his opinons and suggested actions tend to result in evil.
#8 One should read the blog entry which contains the quoted material. Context is important in most circumstances, and I feel it is in this one as well.
If you see a higher context we failed to notice, please share with us.
"fellatio kills" lol
We should force all shirts that could show cleavage to read "Breasts cause shin splints!"
That way anyone with way word eyes could be reminded of the terrible danger of breasts.
I guess what he is ultimately saying is that if you are a true believer you can't catch AIDS, even if you are married to a woman that catches AIDS (perhaps from working as an EMT) and you have beget with her biblically only.
#8: You're right, I read the original entry and he is even more insulting and mis-informed there then in just the quoted section.
He doth protest too much, methinks...
What a horrible human being. Just simply outright a bad person. I feel sick.
Yup. The original entry - in context - is even more hateful, vicious and nasty. What a spiteful busybody.
My sex-geek friend tells me that having butsecks dramatically reduces the risk of colon or prostate cancer FWIW.
Terrific. Now people will take his advice, run out, and get some ironic tattoos.:-)
As usual, The Daily Mash has one of the best responses to this article:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1306&Itemid=59
If you don't already read The Daily Mash, you really should. It frequently gets to the heart of an issue much better than the regular media. A kind of British, online, version of The Daily Show.
Does anyone else find it a bit depressing that most of the genuinely insightful commentary on the news comes from comedians? The news media really are in bad shape these days.
I wonder how he thought claiming this was a "light-hearted joke" would make things better. OTOH, I can't think of anything else one could say if you were trying to pass this kind of writing off as not being serious.
"I don't know why a stock exchange needs a chaplain..."
FYI, Toronto's Financial District has its own chaplaincy too. It's called the Bay-King Chaplaincy.
Wigwam, only a true believer can feel so good about feeling so bad about others.
hp h ds n fr.
whch s, f crs, lght-hrtd jk.
Well, I've heard that fellatio is, in the context of sexual acts, one of the most dangerous things you can do.
Wait, actually, no.
I would bet that if you dug deep enough, you'd find Rev. Peter to be either in the closet or a very repressed homosexual.
I would never mock anyone for medical problem, but still cannot help wondering what set of circumstances led the chaplain to have partial face transplant.
anyone have any info on this?
Since no one else is going to say it, I will: What the fark is wrong with his face?!?!?!
I think clergy like this should have a warning tattoo as well ...
Warning: Objects may appear closer to heaven than they actually are.
I think I am going to print out his words and every time someone asks me why I am an atheist and why I have a problem with religion I will instruct them to read his words and then ask the question again with a straight face - if they can.
Not as if more ammunition is needed really but it would be nice to see Dawkins detractors (attempt to) discuss this with him.
Don't sink to his level [and start talking about his face] as that would be detracting from the real issues.
Lets talk about his inhumane nature and prehistoric views. And lets talk about branding the men of cloth who seem to be involved in more scandals then gays ever were...
@#30 and several after -- damn, you beat me to the face thing while I was reading my IRC backlog.
I will not suggest that the author's opinion is my own - it is not. Nor would I go so far as to say that his blog comments are intended to be as ironic and intentionally outrageous as Swift's 'A Modest Proposal,' but I think it shares some elements of that.
It seemed to me that he was taking issue with another person's complaints about the response of some organized religions to homosexuality. He believed that the statement was outrageous and he responded by saying, in effect, "If that's not outrageous, then neither is this."
Basically, I don't believe his statements about tattooing were meant to be taken seriously, nor was he actually advocating that. Again, I'm not taking his side, I don't agree with it. But I'm trying to read what he said dispassionately.
What the fark is wrong with his face?!?!?!
Tattoo removal gone wrong?
"ah, dear , fair Fellatio. Didst thou but know of the death and destruction strewn in thy wake?" "But nay! Oh gentle and learned Mercutio. If only thou wouldst explain to me, in thy vapid tongue, these misdeeds of which thou doest speak. For thou art truly a cunning linguist."
I think he's that way because he's a fat, ugly man who no gay man would look at twice.
Of course, so am I, but I have some perspective on it.
@all: What the fark is wrong with his face?!?!?!
Obviously, hes Harvey Dent and/or The Phantom of the Opera.
Well shit, I wasn't going to say anything, but if you guys are going there... yeah, he does have a touch of McCain face, doesn't he?
Alternatively: teh ghey! it burns!!!1!
Let's tattoo this on Rev Peter's forehead:
WARNING: MEN OF THE CLERGY WHO DOGMATICALLY PURPORT TO RESIST NATURAL GOD-GIVEN SEXUAL DESIRES TEND TO MORE OFTEN BE CLOSET PERVERTS WHO WILL MOLEST THE YOUNG AND INNOCENT, GIVEN HALF A CHANCE. NO NOT LET YOUR ALTAR BOYS KNEEL BEFORE THEM.
How's that for a "Surgeon General's" warning? Can I get an amen?
As for clergy in the stock exchange: See how well it's helping?
Ah, but what of the transgender or pansexual or bisexual or hermaprodites or whatever one must necessarily include in demonifying? It is quite rude of him to ignore the terrifying threat to our world's morality and sex-just-to-make-babies lifestyle! I reckon that he must be including bisexuals with homosexuals without realizing that they are an entirely different danger to us!
But Wigwam, he went too far. The "outrageous" thing he quotes wasn't advocating Godwin-invoking tattoos or anything of the kind; all it says is basically "Gay marriage, whatever, like I care what the Church thinks." This fathead says something roughly equivalent at the end of the offending post, when he says "why should I expect homosexuals to be anything other than sinful," and if he'd left it at that it would have been just another churchly jerk being a churchly jerk.
But he didn't: he advocated doing terrible things to gay people, and suppressing their demonstrations and community activism. Ha ha, just a joke. And even if we turn around and say "well he should be branded with HOMOPHOBIA MAKES YOU UGLY AND STUPID," it's not the same, because we're not in a position of authority, we're not public figures, and we're the oppressed minority here.
Surely British law allows prosecution for this kind of behaviour?
His face either has a birthmark, or he got a sunburn while resting a hand on his face. I don't think it's a good thing to attack him for.
OK, I said he was fat and ugly. That probably wasn't the best thing for me to do either. But IME the guys who make the most noise about homosexuals are the ones who feel unattractive, and if no gay man ever hits on them they feel they need the excuse of "I drive them away because everyone knows what would happen if they tried anything!"
Takuan 45: Surely British law allows prosecution for this kind of behaviour?
Prosecution? Of highly-placed clergymen? No, not ever, not even if they rape a sheep in Westminster Abbey.
And I don't know about British law, but that sort of speech would be protected in the United States. British law does, I believe, prohibit inciting hatred, but whether there are certain protected classes, or whether homosexuals are among them, I have no idea.
@ #44 Xopher
I'd agree with you there. But stupid is not necessarily evil. It just reads that way sometimes.
As for context, read the other posts that were on the same page. Almost all of them are filled with hateful bile directed against different groups (calling overweight people "fatties" is the least of his offences). In one of them, he even suggest that Britain withdraw from the UN Convention on Human Rights. Seriously.
I'm not Christian at all, but there are many things about the religion I admire (dedication to non-violence and a premium on forgiveness, among them). It blows my mind to see these modern-day so-called pious people say stuff like this. I mean, does he even understand what Jesus was saying? Seriously, how is it that I, an atheist, follow the spirit of the religion more than this fucker?
"A Church of England clergyman who wrote that gay men should be forced to have "sodomy" warnings tattooed on their bodies has issued a "full and complete" apology for his remarks.
The Rev Peter Mullen said in a statement that he did not intend to cause offence when he made "some joking remarks" about homosexuals. He said, he was "not actually meaning to criticise individual homosexual persons, but the promoters of gay culture."
Mr Mullen, 66, who is rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London, made the comments about homosexual practices on his internet blog. The comments were removed after talks with officials at the Diocese of London who said they were "highly offensive."
hate breeds hate breeds hate
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/03/21/do2102.xml
A huge "thank you" to Paul (commenter #23) for providing the link to The Daily Mash. I cannot recall the last time I laughed so hard out loud at work and it didn't involve someone walking face-first into an open cabinet door.
Perhaps the damage to his face was caused by a horrible fellatio accident...
...could kinda see where he got the idea then, poor guy.
Wow. This guy and Phelps should get together. What a party that would be ehh?
Although Peter Mullen has pulled his blog, you can click the "cache" links to view his postings, as well has his reader responses. Many are quite amusing. :)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fpetermullen.typepad.com+comment&btnG=Search
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding"
-They Might Be Giants
#49 posted by Oskar , October 7, 2008 1:03 PM
You beat me to it.
His blog has the highest bigotry-per-screen-of-text coefficient I've ever come across.
A True Christian indeed.
He took an awful lot of pleasure decorating his hypothetical pogrom with a lot of hateful invective. Maybe he thought he was being funny, but satirical? Doubtful. he's a hateful bastard, obviously.
A more helpful tattoo, would be on the small of the back: 'Did you remember the lube?'
@Wigwam So the clergyman is protesting that the openly Gay former Conservative UK politician Parris didn't argue theology in his opinions about equal right to marry for gay people and was so angry by this that he brought what he thought was the "big guns" of the utilitarian perspective against of male homosexualility?
If Parris is gay he will speak from personal experience not engage in some theological closet farting contest.
These UK politicans seem to have a habit of calling for the sabotage, humiliation, and death of groups they do not like. I can't even believe how often I hear "decapitation" as a rhetorical device from that side of the pond. Parris elegedly called for the decapitation of cyclists, believing they are the source of the most roadside litter.
PC these men are not.
I'm with Oskar. Read the cache of his whole index page and you can best judge where his sentiments lie.
It ain't pretty.
gay people are still murdered on a daily basis by hate-incited killers. Mullen is unquestionably stupid AND he does evil. His hands are stained with innocent blood. He suffers under no burden but self imposed. He is evil.
He may choose to change, but I doubt it.
Reg: #59
I should have made it more clear the first time.
The victim of this saint's wrath, the openly gay politician Matthew Parris, is also a twat. He is for calling for the decapitation of cyclists throught eh use of piano wire.
They are all rotten apples in the same bag.
Link
This guy and Phelps should get together.
Michael?
His face?
Damaged by acid, thrown at him when he refused to give fellatio to a fellow homosexual clergyman.
Or, he accidentally set himself on fire to "feel God's wrath in hell".
Your choice.
"Fellatio KILLS" t-shirts are the new black.
LOL @JAMES DAVID - Then I want 5 of them! And a hooded one!
@Takuan:
Not unless he were saying 'go out and forcibly tattoo gays' arses'. There needs to be an incitement to commit a crime motivated by religious/sexual/racial factors, so far as I know.
. . . it looks like he already had his "Fellatio kills" tattoo removed from his face.
Fellatio kills...my erection...temporarily. I think that's what he meant to say.
"Hey, You Guys!"
"Rocky Road?"
Okay, that's enough.
And he's chaplain of the London Stock Exchange? And we thought the markets were in enough of a trouble, alrerady...
Priests should be tattooed with the warning NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CONTACT WITH CHILDREN.
theological closet farting contest
WIN
I'm not sure who should be more offended by this guy, gay people or utilitarians.
It's weird pointing out his face as others have said. To me it looks like damage from fire or acid. His left eyebrow is partially missing.
Now, how is someone who goes through life at such a disadvantage so intolerant?
Judging from that fact alone, I'm guessing it was just a (poor) attempt at humor. Nobody like that goes through life wishing hate on other people. At least, I would HOPE his disfigurement has taught him humility. This post is not humble, however. That's why I think it was in jest.
Either that, or this guy is totally crazy.
I don't think there is anything wrong with his face except that some people pranked him by shaving off his left eyebrow while he was passed out.
Otherwise, 2 words: "Reaction Formation".
half of his face seems to be turning into a painting of bud cort.
weird.
It bugs me when people call AIDS a "gay thing". Just as many people out there are propagating HIV through vaginal intercourse as anal; ever heard of Africa?
It's also nice how the reverend makes a post damning gay marriage one day, then makes another post calling gays evil for "treating their fellows as sex objects and as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves." Which is it, Rev Mullen?
The backside? Isn't it more traditional to get the mark right in the middle of the forehead?
I'm sure the biblical Cain (or even better, DC comics' Cain) wouldn't approve of this at all, though it'd be fun to think of the Land of Nod as San Francisco.
That photo of him looks like a painting by Pablo Picasso.
Well, that seals his fate. He's got 6 months before he's arrested for propositioning an underage male prostitute.
He has creepy ass pedophile written all over him.
Apparently, the right Reverend is an adulterer. See Vardy, Peter (1999). The Puzzle of Sex, p. 194. He moved from Yorkshire to London after the affair. I don't recall "homosexuality" in the Ten Commandments, but I do seem to recall "adultery" mentioned somewhere in there...
Where does Sloth from Goonies get off making those sort of bigoted comments? And who the hell let him out of his room in the cellar?!
You don't think the Reverend Mr. Mullen is smart enough to have come up with this sort of thing on his own, do you?
William F. Buckley Jr. proposed tattooing people with AIDS a long time ago, and he wasn't joking, either. His intention was to alert potential sex partners that they were about to have congress with a diseased pariah, but if you have the legal right to tattoo someone with an illness, why would you stop at a discreet tattoo on the buttocks? Why not just tattoo their faces, as Mullen suggested?
As George Orwell once said, "At 50, everyone has the face they deserve," and Mullen is living proof: as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside.
Sure, okay, if he wants to do that, then he should get the "creepy pedo" tattoo on his forehead. Weirdo.
It's ironic that he has a tattoo on his own backside, which is a portrait of his face. I should know, I'm a bishop.
Because no straight people engage in fellatio or anal sex.
Bonus for points for basically creating an auto-Godwin.
And all priests, chaplians etc should never be unsupervised alone with minors, especially young boys.
How I love bigotry and stereotyping! It's shocking that anyone in such a public position would still think it's even remotely okay to say anything like this, "light hearted joke" or not.
I think the best thing about this is that the church came out and said his views were in absolutely no way related to their own. So that's a plus, right?
no, they are just doing damage control.
INFIKITSUNE (#78): Alarmingly, for the U.S, HIV is rapidly becomming an injecting drug users' disease... which gives it a massive platform to spread to the heterosexual community and their very loose use of infection control devices (note: not contraception).
It's alarming how many young kiddies I talk to from the U.S. who think the pill will not only stop you getting pregnant, but also stop the transmission of STIs.
Who needs sex ed, anyway? It's better to have knocked-up, diseased teenagers. Rather than possibly encouraging them to have sex by telling them of how it can really fuck their lives around. Right? I mean, you can adopt HIV out, too, right?
"Fellatio Kills". I can't stop giggling at the idea that fellatio kills. What on earth did this guy's mother tell him about the birds and the bees?
I'm giggling hysterically imagining all of the ways one could die by fellatio. Impaling?
#82, Andreajames: "don't recall "homosexuality" in the Ten Commandments"
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's ass.
has someone photoshopped half his face from a photo taken at a completely different time and place with very different lighting?
A nasty, bad hearted , two faced bigot who is dressing up his prejudice in his faith and even then can't get his sh*t straight.
The AIDS pandenic was caused by rampant promiscuity, says he. Then decries gay marriage.
Which is it?
I know you hate the gays, but you can't denouncce their supposed promiscuity then out of your other face deny them marriage.
You can contact the good Reverand yourself to voice your displeasure at the following address:
ctychrchs@pmlln.frsrv.c.k
From:
http://www.st-michaels.org.uk/contact.htm
There's also PDF files of all his sermons going back several years, if you feel like some light bedside reading.
@ #84 pyramus
His comment on the controversy, some 20 years later, was that he was referring not to all people with AIDS, but to people who have AIDS, know it, and refuse to inform their partners or protect them from exposure.
He cited a case about such a person, whom he gave an alias to, who was a quandary for NYC health officials because he indeed continued to pass his infection to new partners, of which he apparently had many, and he showed neither remorse nor concern for his actions, nor would he promise to refrain from having unsafe sex, protect his partners, or even inform them.
The question Buckley asked - what to do about such people? Does the government not have an obligation to protect the public from such health risks? If it were another disease, but equally deadly, the man would be quarantined without his consent if he intentionally knowingly spread his disease, and too bad if he didn't like it.
But AIDS has a political component, and Buckley recognized it. His 'tattoo at the site of entry' comment was a half-joking concept in the nature of shrugging one's shoulders 'what can be done in such a case'?
Reference to Buckley's infamous column:
http://www2a.cdc.gov/phlp/quarantine.asp
#63 DesiredUserName:
I don't want to start an argument here, but I think it's unfair to describe Matthew Parris as "a rotten apple in the same bag" as the Revd Peter Mullen.
Anyone acquainted with Parris's writings and broadcasting over many years will know that he comes across as kind, intelligent, courteous and, for that matter, quite the antithesis of most British politicians. Yes, he made one joke/comment about cyclists in a newspaper column in 2007 that was evidently a misjudgment (he suggested among other things that wearing Lycra should be a capital offence and that cyclists should be decapitated to teach them to stop throwing empty drinks bottles into hedges - not things he probably expected any reader to take seriously...?), but to say that "he is calling for the decapitation of cyclists" is not true.
On the other hand, what I've read of the Revd Peter Mullen's blog seems to me to be loathsome from start to finish.
To my everlasting comfort, the internet will brand and remember this bastard forever, to be read as a bigot or hero, depending on the mood of times to come. In my mind, he's an animal.
Wigwam,
You are talking about a twenty-five year old health meme that is primarily responsible for the spread of HIV throughout the world: the notion that some people are clean and some people are dirty and that there is any possible way to tell the difference. If you have un-rubberized sex, you're at risk. It doesn't matter what they look like or what they say. You have no way of knowing. Thus the idea of universal precautions. In consensual sex, you are solely and completely responsible for your own protection.
perhaps a good thing Mullen shows the poison at the heart of his religion, people need reminders to keep vigilant.
@ #99 Antinous
I absolutely agree. This is why I was speaking to Buckley's take on the issues as a public health issue and not a gay, IV drug user, or other type of issue.
The point Buckley was trying to make, which I would agree with, is that AIDS is a deadly communicable disease, and if a person has it - no matter how they got it - and they refuse to notify potential sex partners of their infection, as well as to take precautions to stop the spread of the disease, the authorities have the right to lock them up as a public health menace - but not when the disease in question is AIDS, because of the political component of that disease.
I agree that AIDS is unlike most communicable deadly diseases in the way you mention - the people who might be recipients of the disease have the ability to avoid it. Your point is well-taken.
In matters of public health, the government generally reserves the right to protect the public from the person infected, even by mandatory and involuntary quarantine. The question is, since people can avoid contracting AIDS, as you said, by insisting on safe sex with their partners, does that relieve the government of their public health protection mandate, and does that relieve the infected partner from the requirement of notifying potential partners?
Let's say a person does insist on using condoms when having sex. They're still at risk - even condoms are not 100% effective, against AIDS or pregnancy, or other STDs. Now on whom does the responsibility fall?
In some cases, I believe criminal cases have been brought against people who knowingly attempted to infect another person with AIDS (not positive if that's true, but I think so). Is the case of a person who knows they have AIDS, and does not notify their partner, who then contracts AIDS despite their use of a condom, any different?
I recall the case of a prostitute in Denver, many years ago (when I lived in that area of the country) who had full-blown AIDS and refused to stop working as a prostitute. The courts and the newspapers agonized over whether or not they had the authority or the right to lock her up to keep her from continuing to spread (potentially) the HIV virus to her Johns. Yes, I agree that they should have a) not used prostitutes and b) used a condom if they chose to do it anyway, but presuming they did and the condom failed, then what? Is it their own fault for becoming infected? What if they then give it to their wife or another lover? At some point, is is a public health problem that the government has a responsibility to try to stop by involuntary internment of the people such as the woman I described above?
I think that's what Buckley was talking about. I know we're way off topic here, please forgive. I was originally just responding to the assertion that Buckley had something to do with the hateful statements made by the reverend in the original post.
they refuse to notify potential sex partners of their infection
Supremely irrelevant. The overwhelming majority of people worldwide who are infected with HIV are unaware of the fact. Unless you're prepared to mandatorily test every human on earth, on a weekly basis, with instantaneous results, you've raised the argument that furthers the spread of the disease. Wear a condom and you don't get infected. Take someone's word for it and you might get infected. As long as you perpetuate the meme that confession is a health precaution, people will become infected. Disclosure is irrelevant. Reliance on disclosure is a recipe for spread of infection. I worked in a hospital in San Francisco through the 80s and 90s while health care professionals flailed around trying to figure out what to do. I've seen each of these scenarios play themselves out and I know which one works and which one doesn't.
it is also true that people who go to prostitutes for sex and fail to protect themselves from HIV infection should be liable to be locked up to protect the general public. Strange there are no john jails.
Dan Savage, gay sex columnist, suggested that people who knowingly give others AIDS be required to pay for part of their treatment - the equivalent to child support, essentially.
A straight man knows that if he knocks a woman up, he's on the hook for child-support payments for 18 years. He's free to have as much sex as he likes and as many children as he cares to, but he knows in the back of his mind that his quality of life will suffer if he's irresponsible.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=20643