I recently had a letter published in The Spectator, one of the world’s oldest news and politics magazine, first published in 1828. I was responding to an article by Lionel Shriver, an author I like, famous for We Need To Talk About Kevin, and Mania, who was writing about how Pride is now redundant. This may be so, but her argument consisted of a number of fallacies that I felt compelled to address (her original article is behind a firewall, unfortunately.) I thought you might like to read my reply:

Sir: In ‘The War on Normality’, Lionel Shriver does precisely what she accuses gay people of doing. She reduces relationships to mere sex and then equates sex with only reproduction (or lack of it.)

Does she not know that both ‘heteronormative’ and homosexual people have sex for pleasure; most sexual activity in the world is for this hedonistic purpose, not reproduction. She next repeats the fallacy that homosexuals couples cannot reproduce. I can assure her they can, if not with each other, and play their part in advancing human evolution.

More than this, homosexual people value relationships, from which they derive companionship, affection, fulfilment and yes, intimacy, just as much as their heteronormative counterparts. Why Ms Shriver thinks gay people are any different in this respect is a mystery. Perhaps she realised she couldn’t write quite such a condemnatory column unless she did so.

Yours, happily (and proudly) in a same-sex relationship,

Neil Robinson

The intelligentsia’s misrepresentation of gay people makes it easy for more extreme bigots to advocate for their suicide and execution. It’s a small step then for some to take matters into their own hands. Looks like we do still need Gay Pride, after all.