This Sporting Life

by Les May

ACCORDING to the teachings of the Roman Catholic church my wife and I are adulterers.
According to an Australian rugby player called Israel Folau the doors of Hell await us, along with ‘Drunks, homosexuals, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolators’.  As that covers most of the human race I assume the place is going to be a bit crowded when I get there.


Personally I don’t take this sort of stuff very seriously so as to avoid encouraging them.

Unfortunately some people do take it seriously including rugby player Billy Vunipola who ‘liked’ it on Instagram, the English Rugby Football Union who have ‘summoned’ Vunipola, his club Saracens, and Channel 4, which has decided not to employ him again as a contributor to its match coverage.


Now I don’t think that the decision by these organisations to pillory England’s number 8 is an attempt to pledge their undying support for we adulterers, atheists, drunks, fornicators, idolators, liars and thieves. It’s more likely to do with a Times headline of ‘England rugby star defends post telling gay people hell awaits’.


Which rather prompts a question about why homosexuals are thought more worthy of protection from comments like this than than the rest of us.  And please don’t tell me that homosexuals are a persecuted minority.  Forty odd years ago my wife lost her job because the life she had chosen did not meet with the approval of her church.


Will the English Rugby Football Union and Saracens behave like the Roman Catholic Church did all that time ago, and how Channel 4 have behaved just recently?  Quite likely, but what strange bedfellows they make.


As far as I am concerned those who feel offended by this kind of thing are what my Dad would have called ‘mard-arses’.   It’s a pity they’ve nowt better to do with their time.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mard

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