NOW I'VE nothing against gay people. I think I've made it abundantly clear that as long as they keep their practices private, and don't do it in the street and scare the horses, then it's up to them.

I'm also one of those tolerant people who doesn't automatically assume that all homosexuals are predatory perverts. At a push, I'll even accept that gay "marriages" fulfil a need in law, namely to safeguard both sides of a partnership.

My view is that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. And while the insistence of the Loony Left that gay couples must be accorded every right available to normal couples is usually just irritating, we should not ignore the tragic consequences that can occur when this pink bandwagon gets out of control.

So we must head to Pontefract, West Yorkshire, where some Guardian-reading, leatherelbowed, right-on social worker decided that it was perfectly OK for gay couple Ian Wathey and Craig Faunch to become foster parents.

In fact, it probably wasn't even a conscious decision in favour of the idea; more likely a politicallycorrect, panic-stricken paranoia about the consequences of saying "no".

So Messrs Wathey and Faunch became foster parents, and were subsequently fed a steady supply of children, many of whom they went on to sexually abuse.

They even specifically requested boys aged five to 12 years old, and still no one twigged something was amiss.

Last week, the pair were sentenced to a total of 11 years in prison, so they should be out in a fortnight or so. But there was someone missing from the dock at Leeds Crown Court - the idiot who thought it was perfectly alright for two gay men to become foster parents in the first place.

Let's think about this logically.

Vulnerable, damaged children need stability and normality. To me, that means a surrogate father and mother, and possibly some siblings as well. A normal family environment; one we could all recognise.

What they don't need is to be abandoned to a life of sexual abuse just so some dimwit at Wakefield District Council can stand up at the next equality seminar and boast about how inclusive their policies are.

It's not just me, is it? You agree that this absolutely stinks? Heads should roll, but don't hold your breath. These brain dead drones tend to look after each other.

A PARTICULAR irritant at the moment is women who think they can talk with authority about football. Everyone's wife is expert at matters metatarsal; everyone's girlfriend can discourse at length on the need for a holding midfielder.

Some women can even explain the offside rule without resorting to shuffling the salt and pepper cruets which, it must be admitted, is more than some of the referees.

It's not so bad in the privacy of your own home, but when you take them to the pub it's downright embarrassing. Shouting "Shoot!" when a player is about to take a corner, for instance. Or blatantly not realising that the teams have changed round at half-time. Or discussing David's hair when we're running out of time against a team of South American no-hopers.

I don't talk to you about shopping. Kindly desist from talking to me about football. Especially when it's on.

WE MUST have been innocent souls not to snigger at the names Fanny and Dick when we were first handed a copy of one of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books in the school classroom. Modern teachers need no longer worry about that, as the PC brigade have been tampering with these childhood classics and have changed the names to Frannie and Rick.

For some perplexing reason, "biscuits" have also been changed to "cookies", the boys must now do household chores along with the girls, and the dangerous elements of any adventure have been eliminated so as not to show a bad example.

What next? A revised edition of The Railway Children in which Bobbie, Phyllis and Peter are fined £50 and ASBOed for playing on the tracks? A Christmas Carol in which the Cratchit family and Tiny Tim have their festive season funded by a consolidated loan from Carol Vorderman? An Oliver Twist in which the hero is taken into care by social services before being sent to stay with a pair of gay foster parents in Pontefract?

It's enough to make a cat laugh.