Time to Retire the 'Satire' Defense

Seems every time someone sticks their foot in their mouth on a blog site, they come back with the lame satire defense. Well, if you're going to say something ridiculous, make sure you note up front you're being satirical. Better yet, if you think like this guy, just keep your idiotic thoughts to yourself.

This way you can avoid incredibly embarrassing moments like this.

The chaplain to the London Stock Exchange is under pressure to quit today after demanding gay men should be forced to have 'sodomy' warnings tattooed on their bodies.

The suggestion is contained in a series of comments on the internet blog of the Rev Peter Mullen.

The Bishop of London today branded Mr Mullen's comments 'highly offensive' and Stonewall, the gay rights charity, said he should resign.

Mr Mullen, 66, wrote on his blog: 'It is time that religious believers began to recommend... discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets.

'Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS.'

In the same blog, Mr Mullen, who is also rector of St Michael's Cornhill and St Sepulchre without Newgate in the City, also calls for all gay pride parades - which he brands 'obscene' - to be outlawed.

In another internet posting, the rector wrote a poem condemning the blessing of two gay priests at a 'wedding' which the Rev Martin Dudley performed at his church St Bartholomew the Great in the City.

The poem begins: 'The Bishop of London is in a high huff, Because Dr Dudley has married a puff; And not just one puff - he's married another: Two priests, two puffs and either to other.'

Of course, now he claims some of his best friends are gay, so everyone should know it's just a gag. OK. Good luck selling that.

When confronted over his comments yesterday at St Michael's Cornhill the rector claimed they were in jest.

He said: 'I wrote some satirical things on my blog and anybody with an ounce of sense of humour or any understanding of the tradition of English satire would immediately assume that they're light-hearted jokes. I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion.

'What I have got against them is the militant preaching of homosexuality.'