The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Harry Kane, David Beckham – you let us down. Today, I am German
Iused to think it was wonderful when all these big corporate organisations, from coffee shop chains to world sporting tournaments adopted the rainbow flag. Sure, there was always something of the kitschy bandwagon to it. But it made me feel, as a gay woman, happy, accepted and included. All small gestures with a big message.
That’s fine and dandy until it’s not, and this week’s World Cup demonstrates how quickly these big gestures fall apart and the wreckage of pain and ill-feeling they leave behind.
Look at the pre-match build up to England’s game against Iran and the contrast it represents. In refusing to sing their national anthem in protest at their country’s political regime denying women their most basic human rights, some of those players may now have to claim political asylum because it’s not safe for them to go home. They’ve just endangered their lives on global TV to stand up for what they believe. Meanwhile, the England team abandon their pre-announced plan to wear a rainbow one love armband for fear of getting a piddly yellow card.
The same card that can be dished out for a thoughtless tackle, an over-celebration post goal glory, or for taking too long with a free-kick. They were all worth it, but my rights are not? England’s captain Harry Kane has had 36 yellow cards in his football career, but he wouldn’t take one for me.
Until this World Cup he was an LGBT ally, as was David Beckham. Both laying the groundwork to eradicate homophobic behaviour from the beautiful game, slowly but surely creating an environment that would allow gay footballers to come out.
But you’re no friend to me if you’re not there when it gets tough. Could there be anything shallower than a principle so readily abandoned? Beckham has cashed in. His sponsorship deal with Qatar leaves him, reportedly, the wealthiest footballer in the world. To paraphrase Dolly Parton, it takes a lot of money to look this cheap.
Pride. That’s what the rainbow represents. It’s what you are signing up to every time you carry a rainbow cup or drink in our bars or nightclubs. The opposite of Pride is shame and that is something the LGBT community was forced to carry for decades. So apologies if we’re a bit sensitive.
Lets be clear, no one is asking Harry Kane, or Gareth Bale for that matter, to face down the Emir of Qatar, it was just a wee armband that said to every gay fan watching, you’re OK because you’re with us. The German team know it matters. Ahead of their first match against Japan, they posed covering their mouths highlighting they’d be gagged with the instruction not to wear an armband. That’s being an ally. To paraphrase Fifa chief, Giovanni Infantino, today I am German.
For years we knew this sporting event was talking place in a country where a man would get up to seven years in jail for having sex with another man. Sport is supposed to be one of the best tools in the soft global power box. Yet in Qatar we’re watching fans refused entry for wearing T-shirts with the slightest hint of a rainbow on them. We’re not just capitulating, we’re condoning it with both our inaction and the broken promise made to fans by players who said they’d take a stand until they wouldn’t take a yellow card.
We’d be on our own, were it not for heroines like BBC presenter Alex Scott who happily broadcast her armband to millions. She didn’t need to say a word but it was worth thousands. That’s what it means to be an ally, everything else is vacuous showboating and sadly that’s what these World Cup teams now stand for on LGBT rights.
There were at least three potential outcomes to the Supreme Court case on Indyref 2 ahead of yesterday’s judgment.
The first was a yes – that the Scottish Parliament had the power to hold a referendum without the consent of the UK Parliament. The second was a fudge – leading constitutional lawyers like the former Tory MSP Adam Tomkins predicted that the judges might rule this was not a matter for the courts but for Parliament, kicking the whole issue back to elected Members of Parliament.
They opted for the third – an outright no. No need to pass go, a clear unequivocal no.
The judges have said, as the UK Government argued in its own pleadings, that the Scotland Act very clearly states what matters are reserved to the UK Parliament and that Schedule 5 of that same law states the constitution is one of them.
That gives us clarity. There won’t be a referendum next October now. That’s definitive. But that doesn’t mean the debate over Scotland’s constitutional future is going away anytime soon. In fact, if anything, the court has also ruled that this debate is set to continue indefinitely and dominate every aspect of Scottish politics for many years to come. Ho hum.
You’re no friend to me if you’re not there when it gets tough