Priest Proclaims Potter Poofter

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1813617,00.html
Teacher expelled 'offensive author'
By Simon de Bruxelles

ONE of Britain’s bestselling children’s authors has been thrown out of a secondary school for offensive language and describing Harry Potter to children as “not the only gay in the village”.

Graham Taylor, author of the fantasy novel Shadowmancer, was giving a talk to 120 pupils at a secondary school when Barbara Vann, the head teacher, stepped in and stopped him. Mr Taylor, a former vicar, said that he was shocked when asked to leave the premises during a questions-and-answers session. Mrs Vann said that he had used inappropriate language, including such words as “crap, tits, fart and arse” and was “on the verge of using the F-word” when he stopped himself. She also said that the comments he made about Harry Potter, the chief rival to his books, were “homophobic”.

Mr Taylor’s books are second in popularity only to the Harry Potter series, written by J.K. Rowling. The 47-year-old author from Scarborough, a former police constable and Anglican priest, was giving the talk at Penair Secondary School, in Truro, Cornwall, as part of a nationwide tour to promote creative writing among schoolchildren. He was speaking to the children in a language they understand, he said. “The language I was using is the sort that you hear in playgrounds. In any playground you will hear language that is far in excess of that.”

He also denied being “homophobic”, although he admitted to describing Potter villains as wimps. “I said that Harry Potter was not ‘the only gay in the village’. It was a joke. A joke from Little Britain that the children would know. I was having a bit of a laugh and the children laughed.”

Mrs Vann said: “We know that children use inappropriate language but we don’t have staff using that language. He was very over the top.”

 

It felt just wonderfull to use a pastiche of a cheesy British tabloid headline.