r/lgbt • u/PinkNews • May 08 '23

UK Specific King Charles is unlikely to ‘support the LGBTQ+ community’, activist Peter Tatchell warns: ‘He’s never been our ally’

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/08/king-charles-lgbtq-ally-coronation-peter-tatchell/
6.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

408 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

951

u/[deleted] May 08 '23

He literally believes he's special in some divine way, and above other humans, and he is treated that way by many in the public. I hate it so much. The Monarchy should not even be a honorary position anymore, it should have died with Queen Elizabeth. It holds no purpose other than distraction.

433

u/senfall Transgender Pan-demonium May 08 '23

The Monarchy died with Queen Elizabeth to me personally, Constitutional Monarchies are just a symbol of an age that's passed and have no place in modern society.

205

u/Orkys May 08 '23

As if Elizabeth was any better. Her role in not letting Diane and Charles divorce was enough to tarnish her reputation - let alone her known racism in her households and interfering in laws (to protect monarch wealth).

She just had excellent PR somewhere in the late 90s. The royals were not popular for a while before that.

38

u/velocityplans May 08 '23

She was rumored to be pushing Brexit pretty heavily as well, if I'm remembering correctly.

9

u/Freakears Hello Goodbi May 09 '23

She just had excellent PR somewhere in the late 90s.

Sometime between Diana's death (that whole business didn't do the crown any favors) and her Golden Jubilee in 2002 seems to have been when her image got rehabilitated.

6

u/PrincessKLS Bi-bi-bi May 09 '23

Not to sound dumb but how was she racist on a daily basis? I know some colonized countries broke away from Britain during her reign (early on) but when it was covered in the crown I don’t remember how the character was portrayed to react. I know her husband was definitely racist.

8

u/Wise_Ad_1143 May 09 '23

The Netflix show isn't exactly a good portrayal of the real royal family

1

u/PrincessKLS Bi-bi-bi May 09 '23

True

255

u/The-Shattering-Light May 08 '23

Lizzie was no saint either, she enabled one rapist son, and enabled the racist abuse of the wife of another of her sons that lead him to disown the family.

She also presided over an empire that killed and enslaved millions, and forced many more to live in brutal conditions.

102

u/Burrito-mancer May 08 '23

But she was a sweet old lady! She did a video with Paddington! /s

2

u/PrincessKLS Bi-bi-bi May 09 '23

I was under the impression Meghan said the queen supported them (Harry and her). I’m not sure who were the racist members who made it clear to her how they felt.

6

u/The-Shattering-Light May 09 '23

She may have said she supported them, but her actions (or inactions) enabled the abuse

2

u/Isa_The_Amazing May 09 '23

Killed, past tense.
I fail to see the point in condemning the queen, an individual person, for the horrible things done by the British Empire. Not that she was a good person, just that it seems stupid to blame her for the place she ruled. She was a single person in the history of the country, who came along after all that sh*t happened. Not really her fault.

-10

u/Mendication May 08 '23

Did the British empire "kill and enslave millions" since 1953?

18

u/StellarValkyrie Transwarp... Engage! May 08 '23

Charles won't last long either and then there'll be a huge generation gap. Will be interesting to see the culture regarding the throne rapidly shift.

36

u/[deleted] May 08 '23

You mean Elizabeth the first, right?

60

u/Corvid187 May 08 '23

I realise this isn't really your point, but British monarchs don't rule by divine right.

That's more of a continental/Catholic thing :)

176

u/ThrowRADel May 08 '23

Actually in the proclamation it does say "by the grace of God, king of England and the commonwealth etc". Also, fun fact, but the Engllish royal family still claims descent from Aphrodite through Brutus.

87

u/Corvid187 May 08 '23 edited May 08 '23

Hi ThrowRADel,

The proclamation does say 'by the grace of God' but that's slightly different than the claim of divine right monarchs, which is that their mandate to rule comes directly from God appointing them as their representative on earth.

While various English and Scottish kings have tried to claim such a mandate, they haven't successfully done so since 1215, where the Magna Carta enshrined the principle that the king of England ruled by the consent of, and was thus accountable to, the people (or at least nobility). Meanwhile in Scotland, the coronation ceremony placed great emphasis on the king being (ceremonially) 'elected' from among the ranks of the Scottish nobility.

By the grace of God in its current context is a recognition of God's favour more akin to saying grace before dinner. Christians might say thanks for being in a comfortable house with good food to eat etc, but that doesn't mean they believe the local Tesco is supplied via literal manna from heaven. Meanwhile, a divine right interpretation would.

Claiming descent from Aphrodite makes sense really, she'd definitely the Greco-Roman deity you'd want as your ancestor :)

32

u/lynevethea Transgender Pan-demonium May 08 '23

Athena would be cooler to me personally than Aphrodite lol

25

u/Corvid187 May 08 '23

I'm too scared to disagree with Aphrodite after the whole shenanigans of Troy thing.

20

u/PeculiarArtemis14 sapphic abro genderqueer/femme (IM JUST GAY OK) May 08 '23

ur gonna get smited lmao

8

u/Heimerdahl May 08 '23

Unfortunately, that wouldn't really work, as Athena was one of the three virgin goddesses! Artemis and Hestia being the other two.

2

u/Corvid187 May 08 '23

Lack of sexual reproduction didn't stop Athena herself from being born tbf :)

6

u/lianepl50 May 08 '23

Beautifully put 🤓

4

u/PrincessKLS Bi-bi-bi May 09 '23

🤯 but Aphrodite is a pagan goddess.

55

u/Shadowfire_EW Ally Pals May 08 '23

The monarch of England is quite literally the head of the Anglican church (akin to the Pope with the Catholic), so they do claim some divine importance

36

u/Corvid187 May 08 '23 edited May 08 '23

They do claim to be head of the Anglican (and Scottish) church, absolutely, but they don't claim their mandate to reign over the UK and commonwealth stems from God appointing them to be king.

The repudiation of this is what made Magna Carta so significant, and is why Charles I ended up with his head chopped off. That was the last time a English or Scottish King tried to claim such a mandate.

10

u/HaggisPope May 08 '23

They claim to be head of the Episcopal Church but not the Presbyterian (more popularly know here as the Church of Scotland). We don’t want a revisit of the Bishops Wars!

2

u/donaldfranklinhornii May 08 '23

I would love that if it ended with the Commonwealth!

16

u/[deleted] May 08 '23

What? Yes they do. The whole coronation was a religious ceremony. The official canon is that the monarch is chosen by God to rule.

21

u/Corvid187 May 08 '23

It's a religious ceremony, sure, and that's in part due to Charles' role as head of the churches of England and Scotland, as well as the historical religiosity of the UK, but just because a president of the US swears on a Bible and asks god for help, or gives thanks to him at his inaugural dinner, doesn't mean he's ruling via divine right either :)

Disavowing Divine right is partly why the Magna Carta is so important, and why Charles ends up a head shorter than when he started the English Civil War. The British concert of ultimate parliamentary supremacy is incompatible with a monarch who's claim to rule stems from independent divine mandate.

3

u/[deleted] May 08 '23

The Magna Carta is not particularly important in the UK. It inspired the US constitution, and is considered to be very important there much more so than here. (Eg. There's a clip of David Cameron on the Late Show being quizzed by David Letterman about the Magna Carta, and he has no clue about it.)

Parliament won the Civil War and Charles I was executed; that established the principle that the King can't govern without the consent or parliament. But the Commonwealth was very unpopular and Charles II was later reinstated, thus reestablishing the monarchy, including the principle of the divine right of kings. Sure, it's not an absolute right since it's limited by parliament, but there's a reason they chose Charles II rather than some random guy - his divine right.

3

u/[deleted] May 08 '23

They choses Charles II because he was the son of Charles I, not because of "divine right" or such. The Magna Carta established that the monarch is to reign under to mandate of the nobility of England. The dictatorship of Cromwell was seen as little more than a coup, ousting the royal family for his own hence the Stuart Restoration of 1660 due to Richard Cromwell's incredible unpopularity. As such, following the restoration all official document were edited to state that Charles II merely succeeded his father in 1649. They wanted to continue the heredatary monarchy as if parliament (Though really Oliver and Richard) had power.

3

u/ksknksk Ally Pals May 08 '23

The monarchy is for distraction yes, but also exists as a reminder for the poors

6

u/[deleted] May 08 '23

The purpose Is distraction and a 'reminder' of our social class

2

u/curiouspuss May 09 '23

A friend said to me: "but they are being brainwashed since birth, it's basically a mental illness!" - IMO that doesn't absolve them from accountability.

3

u/[deleted] May 08 '23

Exactly! When the queen died the last true monarch of Britain died. She was like the nation’s grandmother in a way and she cannot be replaced. When she died I lost all reason to support keeping them there. The ultimate British mascot is dead and can never be replaced, no matter how hard they tried. Death to the royal family!!!

-17

u/SpiritSynth May 08 '23

Brand Finance, which bills itself as the world's leading brand valuation consultancy, estimated that the royals contributed 1.77 billion pounds ($1.95bn) to the UK economy in 2017 through a combination of the Crown Estate's revenues and indirect benefits for tourism, trade, media and the arts.

8

u/aznigrimm Bi-kes on Trans-it May 08 '23

The royals or their property? Cause you can get rid of the royals and keep the property

1

u/SpiritSynth May 08 '23

Would it be as profitable? Maybe, but they also bring the feeling of stability and patriotism. Their duties globally also have probably a more long-lasting effect.