Future Concerns
Some months back, CAAN discovered that a petition regarding the display of sexually graphic newspapers and magazines is being considered!
The good old Scottish Women Against Pornography are behind this one. This petition is aimed at (as the petition says): "The Sun, The Daily Star and The Daily Sport newspapers and magazines such as ‘Loaded’, ‘Zoo’ and ‘FHM’." They also seem to feel that, in addition to bondage and domination, "lesbian activity ("girl-on-girl action")" is obscene enough to warrant the attention of the Scottish Government. Would you like a little homophobia with your tea?
The Scottish Government has seemed reluctant to pursue this petition, but the SWAP are quite tenacious. Several meetings have been held on the topic, but apparently the Scottish Government are following the Home Office on this one. Independence my arse!
Bill Butler of the Justice Committee (20 Apr 2010): John Wilson is correct: we should defer a decision. We should write to the Scottish Government to ask whether it welcomes and supports the recommendations of the Papadopoulos report—I hope that it does—and we can bring the petition to the attention of the Home Office, asking it whether it supports the recommendations and will do anything to endorse them. Until we get that information back, we should hold fire and defer any decision.
So for now the decision to even do research is deferred. Wait and see, wait and see. But as I said, the SWAP are quite tenacious and have been chasing the matter since mid 2008.
Scottish Petition Blog: http://scottishparliamentpetitions.blogspot.com/2009/10/phew.html Petition PE1169: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/petitions/docs/PE1169.htm
Please send letters commenting on this petition to:
Fergus D. Cochrane
Clerk
Public Petitions Committee
The Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP
petitions@scottish.parliament.uk