There is a group in the UK called “Straight Pride UK” and they are up to all kinds of typical nonsense, such as trying to get straights to tell coming out stories about being straight, claiming that the gay lifestyle is a choice, promoting ideas that gay rights will oppress everyone else, that gayness is a choice and gays would best be served by turning back straight and shutting up etc, but it’s totes not hate speech, just PRIDE about being straight! The usual, we’ve seen it all before.
A blogger/journalist, Oliver Hotham (who is currently my new online crush and hero), emailed them and they sent their press release to him rather than answer his questions, so he used their own (public, press release, words) in a post which received a lot of attention, and I suppose because of that post, THEY received a lot of attention for their bigotry, fear, and desire for superiority in relationship model.
This bothered them so they pulled a DMCA at the fellow’s WordPress. Here’s that whole story.
Then came the email from Straight Pride UK’s press officer, Nick Steiner:
“It has been brought to my attention that you have published the email that I sent you to, you did not state this in your email request, nor you did have consent to do this.
I therefore request that you take down the article that you have placed on your blog.
You have 7 days in which to do this, failing this I shall submit a DMCA to WordPress to have it removed.”
I laughed this off, and responded to the email arguing their case was absurd:
1) There was no indication on the “press release” they sent me that it was copyrighted material. Nor did they make any mention of the fact that anything they gave me was copyrighted.
2) I wrote “I’m a journalist and I’d like to ask you some questions” in my first email. If you’re a press officer and you don’t know what this means, then you really aren’t qualified to have your job.
3) In my email about the questions they didn’t answer, I made reference to “the article”. If that isn’t an indication that I’m going to publish something then I really don’t what is.
I thought this was a good enough defence, and I assumed this would all be swept under the carpet, and that their rather sad attempts to remove my article because it made them look stupid were all for naught.
I was wrong – within a few days WordPress caved to them without question, removing my article and telling me if I tried to publish it again I’d be suspended, but that I could challenge the takedown of my article. I responded that yes, I very much would like to, and was emailed a form I’d have to fill in. One of the requirements was that I “consent to local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial body”.
Amazing to me how a group who feels that straights are “oppressed” by a small minority of folks who don’t even have the global right to marry, feels ok censoring someone reporting on it.
It’s almost like they know something is a bit amiss in what they are doing.
Look, I’m all for pride for all the orientations, I guess. I’m straight appearing, married to man, have loads of privileges in this world. I have a multitude of legal rights. But I no more chose my sexual identity than I did my eye color. And there are lots of people out there who are gay, bi, not straight who didn’t choose that either. It’s a cruel mockery and predjudice based and borne out of fear to claim it’s all just some casual choice.
I long for a day when people don’t have to actively worry about how their genitals respond to people. That we could just acknowledge that we have sexual drives and base our relationships on consensuality, ethics, patience, and kindness.
That day is not here yet, hateful words and groups blossom up like mushrooms after a spring rain, and justify their behavior out of fear and terror of difference.
Currently, there is a bit of a campaign to republish the original article because Straight Pride UK can’t go after everyone, ala The Streisand Effect. So this has been my contribution to the cause.
