Life of Liam

This is a topic which has been plaguing my mind for the past few months due to a number of events happening around the world and it is one which I have no clear or satisfactory answer to. I am growing up as part of the millennial generation, who is often the butt of people's jokes and criticism, and something we have become known for is our extreme political correctness and ease of being offended. In our eyes, however, we are just humans who believe in equality for all and will do our best to tackle injustice wherever we see it. The line between free speech and hate speech initially seems quite obvious. As soon as it comes to discriminating against someone then it is hate speech, right? However, the more I think about it, the more arbitrary it becomes and the more I notice that people can often shift the line depending on the argument at hand. Those who are often criticised for their controversial and offensive views use free speech as a way to argue that it is essential in order...

As the days get closer to Glasgow Pride, I find myself reflecting on my own sexuality and how much life has changed for me in the past few years. To make a long story short, my personal experience with being gay is not exciting, or tragic, or painful. From personal memory, I realised I was gay over a period of time and there was no one moment where I had a gay epiphany and Lady Gaga came down on a rainbow unicorn to throw glitter over me (although that would be awesome). But I suppose my story is still important to tell because it is important for younger LGBT people to understand that being LGBT does not have to be a big or dramatic realisation. Life for an LGBT person does not have to be a struggle and you are not always going to be persecuted for it. I became more comfortable with being gay as I grew older, but there was a period of time when I thought I would grow up, have a wife and kids and live in a perfect white picket fenced house in a nice neighbourhood. That was most lik...

This post looks at the Paris terrorist attacks and my views on the aftermath of it. Throughout writing this post, my opinions have swayed vastly and I have found the post has taken the form of a conversation/debate with myself – you can very clearly see my thought process changing a lot throughout this piece of writing. I don’t think any point can ever 100% correct because the topic is so controversial and sensitive but the discussion certainly opens up some points to be considered or to be looked into – enjoy! On the evening of Friday 13 th November, Paris was brought to a standstill as a series of coordinated attacks were carried out which resulted in the death of around 130 innocent civilians who were simply enjoying a Friday night out. The attacks were claimed responsibility for by the extremist group ISIS who claimed the attacks were in retaliation to French attacks on ISIS in Syria and Iraq. And how did the French government respond? They bombed Syria, by targeting the ...