In recent years, it’s not only independence for which the Scottish National Party has demonstrated an inexhaustible obsession. LGBTQ activism is also high on the list, especially how activists might force their preferred policies on school-aged children. Indeed, the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has boasted that her party’s LGBTQ curriculum is the most progressive in the world. I saw it up close when I trained as a teacher, and it’s packed full of dangerous nonsense.
Awkwardly, the SNP’s Finance Secretary, Derek Mackay, fell from grace last week after the Scottish Sun revealed that he had made sexual advances toward a 16-year-old boy, inundating him with inappropriate Facebook messages and inviting him to meet up. Because Mackay’s resignation came on the day he was supposed to read the SNP’s new budget, Kate Forbes, a 29-year-old public finance minister, stepped in to fill his shoes. This then led to tips that Forbes might formally replace MacKay as Cabinet Secretary for the Economy.
But to some people, Forbes’s appointment — rather than Mackay’s resignation — was the real controversy. For while Mackay might be a power-abusing creep, Forbes is a Christian. And that’s much worse, obviously.
Josh Mennie, National Executive Committee, and the national co-convener of the Out4Indy group, wrote on Twitter that “the last thing our party needs is @KateForbesMSP climbing the ladder when she has such questionable views on equality.” As evidence of these “questionable” views, he linked to a letter published in The Scotsman last year, authored by fourteen MSPs, highlighting their concerns over the Scottish government’s proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act (a law that would replace the legal definition of sex with gender self-declaration).
“I’m always concerned when politicians conflate their personal religious beliefs into their work life to the detriment of others,” Mennie tweeted, indicating zero self-awareness.
Mennie’s mindset is the mindset of a zealous monomaniac. For only a zealot could storm past an actual scandal — i.e. a 42-year-old minister, tipped to be the next leader of Scotland, forced to resign for creeping on a child — to confront an imaginary one — i.e. a church-going minister, tipped to be the next Finance Secretary, who happens to believe, as other ministers who do not go to Church believe, that the legal definition of male and female ought not to be changed overnight.