by Malcolm Clark, The Critic
Are there paedophiles within the LGBTQ+ movement? Is the Pope a Catholic? The question of whether predators are hiding in plain sight, in a movement graced by an unexplained plus sign, has always struck me as clinically naive. Who do you think the plus sign represents? Stamp collectors? People who own show poodles?
This question seems especially silly after Stephen Ireland, a major LGBTQ+ activist, founder of Surrey Pride and former head of the UK Pride Network was convicted of numerous counts of child abuse, including the rape of a 12 year old boy. He also exchanged hundreds of messages fantasising about, amongst other things, abducting boys from playgrounds, snipping their vocal cords and castrating them.
I’m only bothering to ask this question, to which everyone already knows the answer, because Ofcom has just launched an investigation into remarks by the comedian Josh Howie. On GB News he dared to suggest some of the blessed rainbow people might be a little nonce-adjacent. How very dare he!
Howie was making a joke about the church of Mariann Budde. You may remember that she was the pasty-faced bishop who berated Donald Trump in a sermon at the Washington National Cathedral. Howie quoted a statement from her Episcopalian Church that emphasised its support for “the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons”. He then added the dreaded words which must never be uttered: “that includes paedos”.
In the following storm, much of it pumped up by the ridiculous blowhard Jolyon Maugham, something curious happened. Thousands of gay men like me offered Howie vocal support online. Not just because comedians should be allowed to make provocative jokes that put people in a right tizzy. It was because Howie’s joke hinted at a dark truth about the LGBTQ+ lobby that it’s time more people seriously discussed. Whisper it gently: the LGBTQ+ lobby really does have a paedophile problem.