Mary Whitehouse

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Not to be confused with the late English singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse.

Mary Whitehouse (1910–2001) was a crazy Christian morality campaigner who advocated for censorship in the media and was against liberal reforms and the "permissive society". Among her many jaw-dropping achievements were the last prosecution for blasphemy in the UK in 1977, against Gay News, for publishing a poem which featured a Roman centurion having sex with Jesus at the point of crucifixion.^[3][4] Her prosecuting counsel in this civil case was evangelical Christian John Smyth QC who, decades later, was exposed as an abuser of boys and young men.^[5][6]

She was the subject of the third verse of Pink Floyd's Pigs (Three Different Ones) on their 1977 album, Animals..^[7] In 1992, on the Westwood One radio special Pink Floyd: The 25th Anniversary Special, Roger Waters told Jim Ladd that the "Whitehouse" mentioned had nothing to do with the home of the U.S. President, the White House, after Ladd told Waters he interpreted the last verse as an attack on Gerald Ford, who was US president at the time the song was recorded.^[8]

She was also referred to in the homoerotic film Sebastiane. In one scene, a group of Roman soldiers are holding a beetle-battle, forcing beetles to fight one another in a dirt ring, and naming them after famous women of the time, and implying they were embracing lesbians. But one beetle not named after a woman of the time was called "Maria Domus Alba", which is a literal Latin translation for "Mary White House".^[9] So essentially, the director of the film called Mary Whitehouse a lesbian. In Latin. Zing.

She's mentioned in the song Better Decide Which Side You're On' by the Tom Robinson Band on their 1978 album Power In The Darkness.^[10] Not favorably.

In 1980, she launched a private prosecution against the director of a London play, The Romans In Britain, for depicting homosexual rape, which you could say is fair enough. The case collapsed when a defending lawyer extracted an admission from the principal witness, who had attended the play for the sole purpose of being offended, that he'd been sitting so far back that he couldn't have seen what he said had offended him.^[11][12]

Quentin Crisp said she was quite attractive. In considering this, it should be kept in mind that Crisp was most famous for being camp as a flamingo sipping a Cosmopolitan in Mayfair.

Violence[edit]

One of her most frequent attacks was on violence in the media, including Doctor Who,^[13] forgetting that violence on television isn't real.^{[note 1]} Much better to leave your children in the hands of television presenter/DJ Jimmy Savile (now best remembered as a prolific pedophile) who won the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association award for wholesome family entertainment in 1977.^[14]

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