Why has Tesco thrown its enormous weight behind a gay pride event?

Typo: born – not borne!

Ah, the newspapers you site are typically noted for their liberal attitudes.

They are no impartial contribution to any argument.

These papers are also into Catholic-bashing and The Guardian, in particular, spared no vitriol in their abusing The Holy Father, and The Roman Catholic Church, prior to his visit to England and Scotland last year.

If the same vitriol and abuse was used against LGBT, there would be hell to pay.

So spare me the Gay-bashing angle, why don’t you???

Christians of all denominations are being bashed, tortured, murdered, martyred and maimed every day of the week around the world - and the secular media don’t bother to make time in their schedules to report these incidences!

That just about sums it up…

Emma – we don’t get tempted to find men sexually attractive. That’s not going to happen if one is heterosexual. Therefore those who are gay must be made to be that way, so being gay is not a question of free will.
If being gay has been inflicted on these people, surely God would correct the situation?

i wonder now:  would a ‘straight pride’ march be allowed?  If not, why not?

So then, by your logic, if Tesco really wanted to promote “diversity” and “inclusiveness” and eliminate “prejudice” (e.g. your type of viewpoint), it should sponsor World Youth Day. But as we all know, no one really cares about actual diversity, what is really promoted is sexual license and destruction of traditional family structures.

It’s a big sex/drugs party, everyone knows that, how naive do you think we are…

In what sense do LGBT people not have equal rights in the UK?

To support gay rights isn’t to say sodomising is or isn’t a sin: it is to say that people with homosexual preferances are children of God just like the rest of us. Love the sinner, hate the sin. This is very much taking the log out of your own eye situation – we are all sinners, commiting sins in different domains, yet God loves us all. It is a sin, however, to judge a person - only The Lord can judge us, and that’s after we’re dead too. I love my homosexual brothers and sisters if anything more than my Christian brothers and sisters who chose to prejudice and condemn. So stop casting stones unless you can genuinely say you’re totally sin-free

I was offered neither….. Who do I write to complain to?? 

In most areas today they do have equal rights and the UK should be proud of that. A couple of areas where they don’t are marriage (although same sex marriage is being introduced in 2015 I think), and adoption in Northern Ireland. Many of the rights they do have, have only been gained in recent years after campaigns by them and other groups. I should have added earlier that as well as campaigning for equal rights, they campaign against prejudice, which sadly still exists.

In the Old Testament Lot offered his daughters to the townspeople rather than handing over the male visitors in his home. So the church approves of rape and gang banging females but shakes its head at.homosexuality? Go figure!

Whether or not sodomy is only a gay thing the point is that it is a sinful thing

Probably would be.  Why? Because everyday is “Straight Pride Day” – in the hetero-normative world we live in it is assumed that everyone is straight.  You do not have to come out to say “I’m straight”.  Everything is aimed at “straight” people. Yet, we ask for one day to have the freedom to be ourselves, whatever that may mean, in public without as much condemnation, and we get “political” “unnatural” etc plastered about the place. We aren’t asking for SPECIAL rights, we are asking for EQUAL rights….the same ones you have.  There isn’t anything special about them aside from the fact we don’t actually have them yet….and funnily enough most of them are human rights as well.
Let us have our parade, for one day, and then we’ll get back to Straight Days….

I’m confused that this man associates the word Christian with his personal beliefs.  I too am Christian.  I take a different stance on human rights and in particular the rights of the LGBT community and the right of Tesco’s to serve the whole community. 

However i disagree with him about Tesco’s “remit … to sell good-quality food and other items at very reasonable prices, and in this it has been hugely successful”.  I think there are significant and more fundemental issues about such large conglomerates selling cheaply to the West to satisfy our greed.  I believe that this issue is way more significant and raises some fairly significant questions for ‘Christians’ arguing that they are following a Christ like example – there is no such thing as cheap.  Somebody pays.  And if it isn’t us then its the person producing it.  To deal with these more fundemental issues of morality is what I want to hear about as they affect a significant proportion of our planet.  Family values – whose family?  We are all one family.  Start focussing all the energy on something worthwhile.

ps I’m gay and Christian.

I’m confused that this man associates the word Christian with his personal beliefs.  I too am Christian.  I take a different stance on human rights and in particular the rights of the LGBT community and the right of Tesco’s to serve the whole community. 

However i disagree with him about Tesco’s “remit … to sell good-quality food and other items at very reasonable prices, and in this it has been hugely successful”.  I think there are significant and more fundemental issues about such large conglomerates selling cheaply to the West to satisfy our greed.  I believe that this issue is way more significant and raises some fairly significant questions for ‘Christians’ arguing that they are following a Christ like example – there is no such thing as cheap.  Somebody pays.  And if it isn’t us then its the person producing it.  To deal with these more fundemental issues of morality is what I want to hear about as they affect a significant proportion of our planet.  Family values – whose family?  We are all one family.  Start focussing all the energy on something worthwhile.

ps I’m gay and Christian.

Gerard as the world turns we are all being exploited – certainly we a not as abused or oppressed as those in the developing world; nor are we more prone to become victim to the consequences of those actions – be they economic, social or environmental. But we’re all being screwed-over – and where there’s injustice it’s the Church’s job to speak out – not accomodate or conspire with it through silence [Ye gods - you should hear all the recent Papal pleas to the world to act more justly in its trade and treatment of the nations workers and peoples - which invariably falls on deaf ears]

I’ll concede that a lot of the time we fight the wrong battles – Myself and Francis have been engaged in heated discussions regarding the ideology-driven systemic dismantlement of the Church, the parish community and Catholic schools with their inherent community-building, socio-cultural influence etc.

Elsewhere on the Telegraph blogs you will see me attacking indiscriminate economic libertarianism which is destroying our country [and world] around us – how since the time of Thatcher greed has systemically destroyed the family, the neighbourhood, the local community, local trade etc [one example - look at work hours - a lot of women now work in retail which demands weekend shifts - or in factories with unsocial continental hour shifts - and the family falls victim; we could also look at a government ideologically determined not to fund the public sector and rather the workforce became an underclass working for agencies or consigned to the unemployment scrap-heap by falsely going on incapacity to keep the unemployment figures artificiallly low] the list is endless – the injustice endemic.

I’m a shelf-stacker so know exactly what you mean in regard to so many issues – just like everywhere else there’s the profit obsession, the exploitation of suppliers – the blind-eye to the oppression overseas and the destructive economic consequences of intensive farming and priice-bullying/fixing etc.

But when Tescos moves from one type of charity like cancer research to another like London Pride?
It’s not joining an effort against global homophobia or expressing its concern for gay teen suicides – it’s atavistically abusing its ‘charity work’ to glean a fast buck by declaring itself ultra gay-friendly and gaining more of the Pink pound through its checkouts.

Certainly Tescos is a profit-oriented organisation and can do whatever it wants to gain more of it – but we also have a responsibility towards our neighbour [wherever they live] in recognising that this merely compounds and aggravates everything else they’re up to in the exploitation of a workforce and producers to gain more of the market.

Being gay – would you have preferred it if the organisers of London Pride had told Tescos to ‘get stuffed’ until it stopped parasitically feeding off the developing world’s poor farmers and clothing sweatshops?

Being Christian – would you prefer it if London Pride – and the mainstream gay businesses – stopped having any association with anything which exploits and degrades the dignity which should be afforded to any homosexual?

Being a Citizen who just happens to be Gay and Christian – wouldn’t you just prefer it that you lived in a society which didn’t exploit you as a means to an end just so they can gain a fast buck?

Just as I am invariably suspicious of anyone who claims they want to be accepted as the same as everyone else while they deliberately go out of their way to exaggerate their difference – I am HIGHLY suspicious of those expressing ‘concerned sensitivity and supportive promotion’ of that exclusivising , compartmentalising difference – for usually you’ll find a power hungry money-grabbing scoundrel.

Most gay men and women want a world where homophobia has vanished and their sexuality is glibly dismissed with a ‘so what?!’ – so they should be VERY wary of any group which shakes their hand vigorously and introduces them to a new exclusive range of LGBT organic yoghurts and gay-friendly luxury cooked meats and isotonic health-drinks…where if they buy a 50p dearer pound of sprouts 10p will go to the Terence Higgins trust.

Have you ever actually *been* to a pride event?  If you have then I think you might have missed the point rather.  Yes, I admit that there is a bit of a carnival atmosphere – people are dressed up, and in some cases dressed down – but while the parade is a fun, the actual point of the day is wrapped up in the name.  Pride.  It’s a festival to encourage Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people to stand up and have pride in themselves – to negate the oppression and inequalities that happen to this day, here and abroad.  To show those that are stuggling with their sexuality that you don’t have to stay in the dark.  And it gives a place where the friends and family of LGBT people can also show that we can all live together, and that we’re all equal.

If God’s adoration is key, why not use this enormous power that the Catholic church has to do some *real* good – Why don’t the thousands of you write your letter to Tesco, but instead ask them that their spare food and end-of-line clothing, or medicines be donated to homeless or childrens charities.  Why isn’t this a rallying cry to help others in need, rather than removing the charitable donations that are going to result?

On a personal note, I find your automatic assumption that homosexual sex is not lovemaking quite offensive.  In the past two weeks, I have been working through the culmination of several months of planning.  I have left my job and moved house over 400 miles so I can live with the man I love.  The moments of tenderness we share together should NOT be seen as inferior simply because we are both men.  I don’t consider my sexuality a ‘cross to bear’, but rather take joy in the fact that I have found a kindred soul to spend the rest of my life with.  I’m not a believer, but should I find myself being judged, I’ll be able to hold my head up and say that I loved, was loved, and tried my hardest in life to make others happy, regardless of creed or colour.  I’m not sure that this is something Ms Phillips or Mr Skinner will be able to do with a clear conscience.

I can only think how appalled the Pope would be to hear of this hatred that you are attempting to spread.  The Catholic Church is not opposed to homosexuals or any sexual orientation.  It simply does not approve of gratuitous sex – by heterosexuals or homosexuals!

In the same way without all the hype and condemnation as it does adultry or heterosexual fornication and abuse of the wonderful gift of our sexuality.  Let’s start demonising the majority hetero community; if not, then stop targetting others!

Such generalisations about Gay Pride show how ignorant you are.  If you joined in at Gay Pride you might learn something, including how foolish it is to make such judgmental statements without the facts. 

Our minds are open…

You people tolerate NOTHING!

That’s a brilliant idea!

How about a ’single-and-not-in-a-hetrosexual-relationship-because-I-like-it-that-way-and-I’m-not-fricking-gay’ pride march?

I’m sick to death when people who are not in a relationship are automatically regarded as not normal or gay. It’s downright offensive!

The Roman Catholic Church believes marriage is between a man and a woman. Gay marriage is OUT OF THE QUESTION.

Thanks to these ‘gay rights’, Catholic adoption agencies have had their right to religious freedom trampled on.

What about our hard-fought freedoms purchased by the blood of martyrs?

To imply that what we say is different to you is hatred is not inviting discussion. It is twisting things to suit yourselves.

I was being sarky when I said ‘that just about sums it up.’

And…no thanks. There’s enough ‘pinkness’ and rainbow flags in Manchester that would knock Dublin into a cocked hat!

So, I do not need invitations to Gay this or Pink that from anyone.