Spotted in today's Observer: B&B law sparks bible backlash.

'We've had a lot of correspondence from Christian B&B operators who don't want to be forced to accept Satanists, Muslims, gays and even unmarried couples as guests,' said a Home Office official. 'Protestants have been writing in saying they shouldn't have to admit Catholics because they have an issue with their religion, Catholics saying they didn't want Jews under their roof and objections from followers of other types of faith.'

I've lived in an area of Scotland with very heavy Rangers/Celtic rivalry, so I am under no illusions about Scotland's sectarian shame; I also know that Jesus, at least how he's portrayed in the New Testament (consorting with prostitutes and Roman tax collectors), wouldn't think the same way.

This whining about "people you don't like" making use of your services really is just childish; it's scary that people providing a public service (B&B rooms) feel they can discriminate how they like for no particular reason. What very much interests me, however, is this section of the article:

The new protection for gays and lesbians is partly inspired by the case of Tom Forrest, the proprietor of the Cromasaig B&B in the Highlands, who, in 2004, refused to let two gay men share a bed in a double room. Forrest has condemned the new regulations as 'atrocious'.

Google can tell you quite a lot about a person. This is his personal website, note horrible design and link to a "petition" against the Equality Bill; this is the website of his B&B, note only slightly less horrible design, a gag about discriminatory single supplements, that they "accept UK based dogs" only, and another petition link coupled with, incredibly, a Martin Luther King quote. This is the story: he refused a gay couple, one of whom works for VSO, even the chance to book a room because "he didn't condone their perversion".

Forrest then, according to quite a good Sunday Herald article, and a gay media monitor:

…church-goer, Tom Forrest used The Observer as a platform to air his views on gays: “At the end of the day, a poof is a poof and I will not have that kind of sexual deviant staying in a double bed in my house. Nobody – not the tourist board, or tourist police as they should be called, or the trash who have been bombarding me with emails all week – will tell me who I can or can’t let into my house”.

As for Stephen’s work with the VSO, Forrest pouted: “I used to contribute to VSO for years. But I’ve stopped because they’re out there fighting against AIDS in the world and it’s mainly his sort of creature who’s spreading it around”.

What an absolutely lovely man; what's scary is that he's not even the worst uninformed homophobe in Scotland. Thankfully, his unfriendly guest house and his shitty web design are in the middle of nowhere; but incredibly he's got over 80 signatures on his petition, the thankfully late John Tyndall of BNP founding infamy wrote an article applauding him (which I'm not linking to), he's still crowing about the equality bill, and VisitScotland fed his martyr complex by kicking him off their website.He's also doing the traditional far-right thing: making up probably phantom gay 'supporters', whilst referring to them using even viler terms in interviews (most recently: "in the same category as paedophiles".) People shouldn't encourage him.

However, there is hope; the Guardian did a look at UK B&Bs around that time and discovered that only one (on Jersey) refused them. It does look like Forrest is, thankfully, in the minority now. There's an irony for you.