I think the title "However much I love my gay friends, I don't want them running the country" is a pretty good place to start with it. The author's general argument can be summarised quite neatly in her own words "Their [the gays] lifestyles are too divorced from the norm. They are not better or worse, but they are different". The delightful Ms Turner goes on to explain that because men are unable to give birth and gay men are somewhat unlikely to be in a relationship with a woman, they are incapable of understanding "normal" people. She uses the age-old argument "I'm not a homophobe, I have gay friends", then goes on to make vast, sweeping and quite insulting judgements. She says her gay friends face troubles no more complex than deciding on a colour of sofa.
Using this argument of lifestyle, are we to assume also that other childless people are also incapable of making "good party leaders or Prime Ministers"? Must one mindlessly contribute to the cancerous growth of the human race in order to truly understand "normal" people? Apparently if you don't have children your life is one big stress-free party.
Ms Turner seems to completely miss the idiocy of what she is saying. She says she has lots of gay friends because she works in the media, and appears oblivious to the fact that the sample size she is basing her conclusions on are both minuscule and completely biased. One could just as easily say that all people who work in the media are shallow and purely self-interested, or just that gay men who work in the media are like this -- but you can't draw any wider conclusions than this.
Aside from a wholly unrepresentative sample on which the author bases her misguided opinions, she completely ignores the idea of adoption (which I suspect she is against for gay men, because as she believes they are too self absorbed) and conveniently doesn't look at straight people without children. It's idiotic, a gay couple can raise a child perfectly well -- and then her points about them never having to take a child to the hospital or make a decision on childhood vaccinations are no long relevant. How she believes a gay couple with an adopted child would compare to a straight but childless couple is never addressed.
So how does this relate to politics? Again, her argument is fundamentally flawed by the people she singles out. A politician disgraced after it turns out he has been cheating on his wife with a rent boy. His sexuality to my mind has absolutely nothing to do with the matter whatsoever. The man is clearly a twat for cheating on his wife, the gender of the sex worker I don't think is relevant. He is a liar and a cheat -- but this is hardly surprising from a politician. Another she criticises for not saying he is gay but that he has previously had homosexual relationships. Again, a bit of a bastard since he previously campaigned on the strength of being heterosexual and therefore better than a homosexual opponent. But once again, no real surprises there. We can draw any number of conclusions from this -- all men are bastards, all politicians lie, or that people who are inclined to lie and cheat are particularly drawn to politics.
Where I end this post and begin my own personal rant is with this little gem:
"...A person's sexual orientation is a little more fixed than their taste in end-of-the-day pick-me-ups.
Frankly, I don't trust a man who says he swings both ways, unless he is a spotty teenager who hasn't sorted himself out yet. Oaten is 41 and Hughes is 54. If they think they are old enough to run the country then surely they are old enough to work out which gender they fancy?"
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