Possibly as a result of John Smeaton’s blog, Archbishop Peter Smith has clarified what I was intimating yesterday, namely that his statement was a specific response to the government in which he was making no wider comment about the morality or advisability of civil partnerships.

Ben Trovato makes an interesting and challenging point in terms of ‘gay identity’ but I would agree with Lazarus’ comment; the term ‘gay and lesbian’ is not necessarily a loaded one implying lifestyle or entire identity, I formerly understood it solely in terms of orientation and don’t have a problem with its usage in this context, although I understand that in today’s world the term gay or lesbian implies someone with an active romantic and sex life which is problematic, not to mention oxymoronic if it prefixes the word ‘Catholic’.

It’s difficult to know quite what the right word should be, I absorbed the phrase same-sex attraction after listening to numerous Catholic Answers podcasts and reading Jimmy Akin; intellectually I am persuaded that this should be the preferred term. That said, many of my same-sex attracted friends baulk at the phrase, they find it derogatory and loaded, others don’t like the term LGBT and therefore while ‘same-sex attracted’ is the most helpful in a Catholic context, basic courtesy dictates that if someone doesn’t like you referring to them using a certain word or phrase, then you really ought to avoid doing so, not least out of respect. Finding the correct terminology is a minefield, but gay and lesbian seems to be the most universal term.

There’s a delicate balance between rejecting the idea of an all-defining identity and yet being aware of and respecting other people’s sensitivities and dignity. So much is not about what you say, but how you make people feel and there needs to be some way of allowing people to feel comfortable, so if someone identifies to me as being ‘gay’, I’m certainly not going to correct them by barking “I think you’ll find it’s really same-sex attraction”! Precision and clarity are important, but language policing is a dangerous road to go down. Do we care that same-sex attraction perhaps sounds derogatory and signifies disproval? We need to speak the truth in love, but perhaps by respecting someone else’s choice of descriptor demonstrates love, which will then open them  up to the truth. In any event I’m not sure that using those words does necessarily cede ground or accept an implicit premise. We aren’t saying ‘yes we accept that you only define yourself as gay’, but accepting that same-sex attraction exists and that a person identifies as having it.

Archbishop Smith was writing a response to a secular authority trying to use plain English in the terms that would be easily understood, especially as civil partnerships and gay marriage are pertinent to those who would define themselves as gay and lesbian and for whom Archbishop Smith was trying to advocate. Had he replaced the words lesbian and gay with same-sex attracted it may not have been so effective. The sentence would have been rather clunky.

“Some same-sex attracted Catholics do not wish to enter into civil same-sex marriage because of their deeply held belief that marriage is between a man and a woman only, but still wish to have the legal rights that are contained in a civil partnership.”

I can’t get too riled about it, there are more important battles to be fought, especially as this was not a formal teaching document.

With that in mind, Ben’s response was cogently argued and he has a right to criticise a bishop as a private individual where he believes him to be error. He wasn’t uncharitable, I wouldn’t necessarily agree that this statement was proof of  a ‘shameful failure’ on the part of the  CBCEW but that’s about as strong as Ben ever gets and it certainly wasn’t nasty or personal in any way, nor did it cast aspersions on anyone’s authenticity as a Catholic.

Ben was highlighting an issue for Catholics to think about and this is kind of the purpose of blogging – to share material and put ideas out there. The Catholic blogosphere shouldn’t be just one shiny happy everything’s perfect in the garden place, but a place to disseminate and dissemble ideas. Neither, is it in any way orthodox to jump to the defence of bishops, simply because of the office they hold. To do that is clericalism at its worst. The office of holy orders should always be treated with respect, but it does not make one immune from criticism.

So I don’t agree with Ben on this one, (I’m sure he’ll get over it in time), just as many people won’t agree with me. Catholic or Christian blogging doesn’t mean that these types of public discussions shouldn’t take place, but that they should be conducted respectfully, if robustly.

Although John Smeaton was discussing civil partnerships as opposed to descriptors or implicit acceptance of an identity or agenda, I found Ben’s post far more thought-provoking as a wider-issue. I’m still mulling it over and oscillating at time of writing. This is what good commentary should do, namely challenge and stimulate.

I still maintain that had John written the same as Ben, it still shouldn’t have appeared on a Spuc-director blog and it seems that there is a general consensus that a private blog would be far more helpful in order to separate out his personal views from that of the organisation. Some of my  friends and family who are far more sympathetic to spuc than I am, felt that the post was counter-productive for both the Catholic church and pro-life and yet another unnecessary attack on good people of faith.

Domestic violence, poverty and adultery damage and undermine family life and pose a threat to the unborn. Perhaps SPUC doesn’t articulate these concerns because it feels that the public already perceive them to be immoral and damaging. Equally we don’t hear much about cohabitation which is in the same league as people in same-sex relationships, i.e. having sex outside of marriage. Maybe just maybe if we could hear more in these areas in relation to the unborn child, then the relentless  focus on Catholic politics and homosexuality wouldn’t make one’s teeth itch, quite so much?

My postbag and email inbox can testify that Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General is right, Britain is a Christian country  founded upon over 1,500 years of heritage which have shaped this country’s ethics and values and Christians are increasingly reluctant to express their religious views.

Prior to the Question Time brouhaha, I regularly received correspondence in which people thanked me for speaking up in the public square, for expressing what they believed to be a solid Christian viewpoint and for articulating or standing up for certain values, which they were prohibited from doing for a number of reasons. One of the nicest letters was one received from an Anglican, who while he didn’t agree with certain Catholic points of doctrine said how refreshing it was to actually hear someone confidently state the basic Christian Trinitarian belief on live TV.

Following on from Question Time, this is the type of thing which has featured in my mail. That I know that by publishing it I am taking a risk of being reported for hate crime, is very telling:

I’ve also received several other comments from people stating that I ought to get off TV  for the sake of my career, that I’ll never work again, I am pigeon-holing myself into some sort of  hardline ‘right-wing’ niche and that I will struggle to ever get mainstream work.

It seems fantastical to believe that speaking out can make one an ‘untouchable’, the stuff of a dystopian or totalitarian society, but this increasingly seems to be the case. I first discovered this a few years ago cutting my apologetics teeth on the mummy forums of doom. I was such a naif, it hadn’t occurred to me that calmly and rationally setting out a mainstream orthodox Catholic point of view would be perceived as an act of subversive radicalism or would cause such anger. Neither did I realise quite how theologically illiterate we as a nation have become, or that many self-proclaimed liberal progressives have the most closed-minded and totalitarian mindset that I’ve ever witnessed. The cries of ‘bigotry’ are all projection. It was the atheists wishing to close down discussion or promulgation of a Christian viewpoint, crying out that it shouldn’t be allowed, especially not in schools. The prevailing view was that anyone who took a non relativist position, while they were entitled to do so, should be disbarred from ever expressing it in case it caused offence or upset.

As I migrated from what I believed was a non-representative microcosm niche forum, I was dismayed to discover that this is indeed the prevailing view in society, this is what most people seem to think and are prepared to violently expound. If you have a Christian point of view which encompasses a belief that marriage consists of a man and a woman or that life should be protected from the moment of conception to the point of natural death, then you are ripe for derision, a bigot or a homophobe . You should not be working in any profession with any import or influence, especially not near children or vulnerable people, and should keep your big trap firmly shut as you scan the next item of groceries through the till.

This time last year I witnessed a pro-life Catholic GP be bullied off Twitter after hardline feminists reported him to the GMC and his NHS employers for having the temerity to express that he did not agree with abortion. He is not alone. A few weeks ago, feminists in conversation with Clare Mulvany, a colleague and friend of mine, spotted that she was a qualified midwife and made a point of tagging the nursing and midwifery council into the tweets, in an attempt to threaten and intimidate her. It was, once again thought inappropriate that someone within the health care system should offer a point of view which defended the right to life of the unborn child. Then, a few days ago, another NHS employee has informed me that they too have been reported to their board after expressing a pro-life point of view, despite the fact their sphere of work does not involve direct patient contact.

It makes the mind boggle that doctors can break the law and put women at risk by recommending abortion without ever seeing or examining a patient and thus not being able to form an opinion in good faith and escape prosecution or professional consequences; and yet anyone who wishes to protect women and their unborn children is deemed ‘judgemental’ and unsuitable to be able to offer a satisfactory standard of care, even if they have an impeccable previous professional record. It should not be assumed that having a pro-life point of view makes one hostile towards others who have had abortions – most pro-lifers understand that abortion is a difficult moral choice for many; they simply wish to exercise and defend their right not to participate in the procedures as well as offer alternatives. My doctor will not routinely offer antibiotics. I understand why and feel defensive every time it is explained to me why this is a last resort. Being judgemental is part of a doctor or nurse’s remit, no-one likes being made to feel ignorant or uninformed but it is perfectly possible to politely state that you are against abortion or euthanasia on conscience grounds and still provide great care. We shouldn’t pander to narcissism or insecurity complexes by removing rights to freedom of expression. It is nonsense to assume that a medical professional’s clinical judgement will not include an element of their own personal ethics. By offering abortion on demand, the NHS can hardly be claiming to be taking an impartial view on the matter.

In terms of attitudes to Christian views same-sex marriage, we need only to look at the case of Adrian Smith, the housing officer from Trafford who was eventually vindicated but financially ruined after being demoted from his job for expressing his point of view about marriage on his Facebook page. A friend of mine attended a work course last week in which she was informed that expressing any sort of religious or social views on the internet which could cause offence would amount to gross misconduct. Employers are in effect codifying and prescribing what people can say even outside working hours. You can think what you like, but woe betide should you dare to advertise it.

Like it or not, Christians with a certain viewpoint are already feeling uncomfortable and socially constrained and are constantly being informed that their views have no place in politics or the workplace. Yet even Tony Benn, the non-Christian arch-socialist said the following in an interview with Mary Kenny:

 “How can you separate yourself From the world you live in? I can’t imagine a world where people have their religion in a water-tight compartment. Religion can’t just be a private matter.”

But that is exactly is what is being expected of Christians unless we hold ‘acceptable’ views, which is where Dominic Grieve’s remarks grate. Christians are afraid to speak up, but not because of the fear of being tarred as religious fundamentalists but  because they are afraid of the consequences for their jobs and families. Instead of being helpful, the Attorney General has increased the divide between liberal and conservative Christians, by using the broad-brush term ‘fundamentalist’ Christians which can be used as a weapon to attack anyone who doesn’t conform to the consensus.

There’s a whole other essay or blogpost in terms of comparing Catholicism to Christian fundamentalism, but it doesn’t stop people from waving it around as some kind of pejorative label. I was both amused and horrified to find myself the subject of someone’s recent Facebook status update in which they said “Caroline Farrow is not a religious nutjob, while her point of view may be homophobic, she is in fact only speaking what the Roman Catholic Church teaches” and went onto to quote Cardinal Nichols and other members of the episcopate to prove his point.

This goes some way to explain the huge amount of personal vitriol which has come my way – it’s far easier to paint me as some kind of oddball bigot, or indeed try and claim that Catholic Voices is a creepy Opus Dei led sect (despite the fact that most of us including the leaders and myself are not Opus Dei members, nor is Opus Dei the organisation portrayed by the likes of Dan Brown) because that makes it easier to dismiss what is actually being said.

By isolating and attempting to portray individuals or organisations as being in any way less than perfect (not that any public Catholic I know claims to be) it’s a great way of deflecting accusations of anti-Catholic or Christian prejudice. “You aren’t like the nice normal ones and thanks to you, you are making life very difficult for them. I don’t want to be a member of a Church which espouses the likes of you”. The point that the church is a field hospital, open to all sinners, not just an exclusive club of nice socially acceptable people with the ‘right views’ seems to have escaped them. Far easier to scream bigot, despite the fact that myself and many others have gone on record defending the rights of homosexuals to make their own private moral decisions without facing criminalisation or fear or reprisals.

But by attempting to point the finger or wave the blame at ‘fundamentalism’ without specifically identifying what he means by this term, Dominic Grieve has just pushed those of us already feeling alienated further onto the margins.

And of course any post like this, draws the inevitable ‘playing victim’ or ‘making a mockery of those who face real persecution like in Syria’ meme. Which is like telling someone who is suffering in any way to cheer up because there are always those who are worse off and whose plight is worse than yours. While this is often true, it is not always helpful, nor does it go any way to alleviate the cause of the original suffering by denying that it is not happening and is not serious.

When people believe that they cannot express a certain point of view for fear of losing their jobs or facing some sort of sanction, then we are in scary territory, even if the threat is not as real as the perception.

I received the above email, prior to going on to Sky News outside Brighton town hall on the weekend that same-sex weddings were legalised. I didn’t actually want to be there, I was shaking with nerves and in tears, it would have been much easier to stay in the garden enjoying the sunshine with my children rather than turn up like Hove’s Fred Phelps brandishing a ‘down with this kind of thing’ banner on people’s big day. It was my husband who told me to keep going, saying ‘look you’ve put your head above the parapet now, you have to continue to speak out for those people who can’t’.

I’m no great martyr for doing so, the worst thing I’ve faced, aside from the horrible person spitting at me and an unprecedented online smear and hate campaign was an aggressive man in Waitrose telling me “look you may have been on the telly but that doesn’t mean that you can block the aisle with your pram. Yes, I saw you – QUITE UNFORGETTABLE”.

But nonetheless at times I am scared and overwhelmed by threats that my children should be removed, attempts to interfere in my husband’s vocations process, malicious green ink letters sent to professional associates (fortunately always by the same set of people and known names) and I am also disappointed that the career which I had hoped to pursue either in teaching or midwifery (my dream vocation) when I set up this blog a few years ago, will no longer be open to me and neither will normal mainstream employment, once people google my name.

It is massively disappointing not to mention frightening to learn that a future career is not going to possible in a few years once my children have started school, because I have been stupid enough to open my mouth on the internet and on the media. Certainly it wasn’t my intention to build a ‘Catholic profile’ when I began blogging, I just wanted to present the vision of a happy well-adjusted woman who loved life, loved her family and above all loved God and the Church. I’ve not always managed to succeed thanks to being bogged down by trolling and smear campaigns which I should have realised were inevitable. Sometimes I wish that I had not been quite so forthcoming.

But if I feel like this as a so-called ‘professional’ Catholic, being a relatively well-known name, then goodness knows how someone else without the confidence, protection or supportive spouse that I have, must feel. We are called to live and proclaim our faith, to stand up for Gospel values which often include truths that are unpalatable to society, but this is getting increasingly more difficult for the laity, who do risk consequences. When you look at Catholic comments boxes the overwhelming majority of posters choose to remain anonymous for a reason.

This is the way of the cross, we should remember that Christ warned us that it would not be easy when analysing at Dominic Grieve’s remarks, regardless of whether or not he categorises us as fundamentalists. I suspect that is what keeps most of us going.

Yesterday, after two years of a prolonged smear and abuse campaign I took the decision to finally delete my Twitter account.

Social media plays a big part in my online life, it is an extremely useful tool in many respects, I use to keep up with the latest news, views and developments, both in terms of the world at large and the more niche Catholic community. It helps me in terms of formulating column ideas, as well as providing a useful medium in which I can disseminate my views and contribute to a wider debate.

I have always commented under my own name in order not to be summarily dismissed as a faceless troll – such is the disbelief expressed by those encountering an orthodox Catholic mindset for the first time, the instinctive reaction is that the commentator must simply be trying to provoke a strong reaction.

My hope in using social media was to present an image of an ordinary faithful Catholic woman, a wife and mother, not some theological genius, but to demonstrate that loving God and leading a happy and fulfilled life were not mutually exclusive, but that the latter would automatically flow from the former. I also wanted to dispel the dour image of orthodox Catholicism; when I first started commenting from a Catholic position online, some people equated my lifestyle to that of a joyless puritan or membership of a bizarre cult. It was assumed that I didn’t drink, wouldn’t appreciate bawdy humour, wore shapeless floral dresses obliterating any hint of feminity and subjected my children to hours of forced bible study and corporal punishment.

As people got to know me, the dissonance grew, they couldn’t reconcile the picture of an outwardly normal woman with beautiful children, with the crazed extremist bigot of their imagination so instead picked on my weaknesses or any perceived flaw to pull me to pieces and indulge in character assassination, build up a different monster, in order to de-humanise and dismiss anything I had to say.  Had I been of an unprepossessing appearance, their job would have been made a lot easier. We shouldn’t fool ourselves that we are any different to the Victorians, most people prefer their monsters to manifest repellent physical characteristics and I guess that’s why a lot of the abuse that’s come my way from the odd alliance of self-professed Catholics and a particularly bitchy gay man, has focused on my appearance, with the Iggy Pop jibe, or the gay man happily preening that his hair is natural whereas my is “rank, dyed” and my face is “chubby and tangoed”. We see the similar phenomenon with the demonisation of ‘chavs’, with the uniform of Burberry and excessive weight or dull appearance being symptomatic of a perceived moral failure.

In a damning indictment of twenty-first century attitudes towards mental health, I’ve been horrified and amused in equal measure to note unqualified people whom I’ve never met diagnosing complex psychological disorders from which I allegedly suffer in order to qualify their disdain.

It seems that I can do nothing to avoid the false accusations and spite. Back in February 2012, a gay man invited  a huge Twitter storm my way after doing the passive aggressive trick of using a full stop before my handle, misrepresenting my stance on homosexuality and gay marriage to all of his four thousand followers. The level of abuse was like nothing I have ever seen.

Since then, he has not stopped. He monitors my feed on a daily basis, when I had a locked private account for personal use with friends only, he complained about it and trolled responses, despite having a similar account himself, he engaged in baiting and accusations about my alleged sock-puppetry, insinuating that I was this blogger and tweeter, used this as justification to out and taunt me about my former bar job (information which he would have only got from a third party), made tweets which I perceived as threatening, asking to see copies of personal messages that I had allegedly sent, saying that many people would like to see ‘those from Miss Holier than Thou’, mocked my pregnancy with his friends describing it as breeding like rabbits, a pun on the tweeters username and a nasty slur,(I lost the baby) my mental health and my appearance. He took issue at two tweets that I had made in January to someone else (he had been blocked) screenshotted them and sent them out to all his followers out of context stating that they were all about him, inciting yet more abuse my way. He mentions my handle and my name, then sneakily swiftly deletes tweets to deny his actions. I have a screenshot of him admitting to deleting his tweets because he “wouldn’t put it past her to allege harassment”.

Back in August he sent me a nonsensical self-aggrandising email about how I ought to apologise to him for talking about him, (I hadn’t, although I had expressed regret if he had felt hurt as a result of reading my feed) copied it to a professional associate whom he believed to be sensible and said that if I did not apologise he would write a blog expose about me. He tends to write many of these blogs about those whom he doesn’t like. This threat has been repeated again this week “I shall write a blog about this good Catholic wife and mother”, if accounts he doesn’t like mention him or upset his friends.

This guy has engaged in discussions about my abortion and whether or not I was culpable and the level of guilt I must be carrying around, he has discussed whether or not I am still excommunicated, whether or not my marriage is still valid and my children illegitimate as well as made several hurtful remarks about my appearance and accused me of child neglect. Using his locked account he has disrupted conversations, meaning people suddenly tail off accusing me of homophobia. On checking what prompted a discussion about abortion to descend into vituperative insults about homophobia and hopes that I have sex dreams about orange-haired lesbians, it seemed that his locked account interjected into a conversation I was having that had nothing to do with him. In addition in the past few weeks he’s used my handle (despite being blocked) to misrepresent my position on vaccination and complain vociferously about a re-tweet he didn’t like, got his followers to express hideous sentiments to me and then launched into a character assassination about what an evil person I am and how everyone knows about my online activities and how I am hated. In a discussion with another Catholic about a wholly unrelated topic, he couldn’t resist getting in my handle, blaming me for the conversation, before being reminded by a third party that they had initiated the thread.

It’s telling that any abuse that comes my way always seems to be as a result of this tweeter and yet in an act of sheer projection anyone such as Eccles who may pick him up on his behaviour or abuse is deemed to be my doing.

He’s been joined in this endeavour by another woman who has relentlessly spent since July engaged in an activity that can only be described as vampiric, feeding off my timeline on a daily basis, using my handle, my name and commenting in depth on every aspect of my life, right down from her opinion on my pregnancy to whether or not we ought to get a new puppy. By her own admission she regularly  screenshots my tweets in order to keep them for her records, so she can prove what a malevolent character she believes me to be.

I locked my account in order to deprive these people of their source of obsessive stimulation and to give myself some peace only to find that those who interact with me are also subject to attack.

Over the past two years I have been accused on no evidence of repeatedly being behind several anonymous accounts and told to prove my innocence and that my reaction “can you tell me why you believe this and provide some proof”, is abnormal. I have had one manic poster engage in a three week Twitter spree in which she posted manic stream of consciousness rants and blogposts and who still two years later, has convinced herself that I was part of a huge conspiracy with “The Left” (consisting of Helen Lewis, Owen Jones, Sunny Hundal, Ellie Mae O’Hagan, Medhi Hasan and errr, Toby Young) to smear her and deliberately endanger her daughter. She sent streams of emails to professional associates and wrote blogposts insinuating that I was seriously mentally unstable and a danger to my children. The police described her activity as alarming but felt that it was not in the public interest to prosecute. Other lawyers felt differently but one cannot force the CPS and being exhausted and heavily pregnant, suffering from pre-ecclampsia, I wanted to minimise the stress. Subsequent to being given a platform as a Telegraph blogger, she has deleted many of these fantasies, so at least there have been some small graces, but the idea that I would deliberately conspire to threaten or cause harm to a small child is extremely hurtful.

She has been joined by a ragtag coalition of people who dislike me for one reason or another, be it professional jealousy or dislike of my views and they have done their best to spread poison and undermine my personal and professional reputation, with  letters  written in green ink to as many people as possible, together with libellous, malicious and spiteful tweets, which has intensified as they’ve realised that they are not gaining any traction.

In recent months, I have been trolled and abused once again while pregnant, threatened (the threat was followed up) by complaint letters if I did not tweet disassociations from accounts that others did not like, been parodied in a blogpost by a deacon in Holy Orders, been too frightened to attend a Catholic bloggers’ Guild meeting that I desperately wanted to go to due to intimidatory tactics, all whilst pregnant and recovering from the loss of a baby. The threats came the weekend that we were preparing to bury our baby, my miscarriage described as an excuse. In addition I’ve had my maiden and former married name outed on the internet (information that would have need to have been obtained by paying the records office) and had my personal life outed and picked over in excruciating detail while being subject to libel on a daily basis. There have also been many false accounts, including one which took a personal photograph of me breastfeeding one of my children, which made reference to my abortion and previous marriage and used that as evidence of what a terrible Catholic woman I was. Whoever was responsible for it obviously had a good grasp of grammar and language and experience of setting up false accounts, but very poor knowledge of Catholic theology.

Even deleting my account has prompted speculation that I have been ordered off the internet by my bishop (to whom I am not answerable) or other agencies as the extent of my online activities has become known. This is incorrect, I took the decision yesterday afternoon, after yet another morning of accusations and responsibility for an Eccles blogpost being laid at my door.  It is being crowed about that no-one is sticking up for me or mentioning that I have been bullied off the internet. The reason being that none of my friends want to give these people the satisfaction and were hoping that I might come back.

Once again, I have never ever commented or engaged on the internet using any other name than my own. For the terminally hard of understanding, I am not Eccles or anyone else.

But it’s clear that the bullies will not leave me alone to use social media, either to interact with my friends, for work purposes or most importantly the New Evangelisation.

It’s impossible for me to be able to use social media without daily libels, abuse and harassment all stemming from the same group of people. The police tell me that my only option is to sue for defamation, they have expressed sympathy with the huge amount of undisputed trolling and harassment from the same few people, but said that as a semi-public figure I need to expect it.

It’s easy when it comes from random strangers, but when targeted personal abuse that tries to poison and undermine friendships, it makes social media an untenable and poisonous source, as well as risking my equilibrium. Two years of knowing that one is being stalked, that everything is being screenshotted and saved, just in case it can be used to undermine our family in some way, two years of being built up into some sort of two dimensional cartoon monster, of being accused of deeds of which I am wholly innocent, of being called a psychopath, of being called ugly, of attempts to interfere in my work, of any upset being laughed at, of being called “professional victim and martyr” disparagingly when I complain is enough. When I was pregnant, one of these people posted that I was too vain to take the correct medication for their diagnosis of  ‘schizophrenia’ and various alternative meds were suggested which wouldn’t make me put on weight. It was claimed that I was faking pregnancy and sites were linked to with fake bumps. When my husband was putting the baby’s tiny body in the casket, threatening letters were being sent because someone didn’t like an online video that I posted of my daughter singing the Salve Regina. I was described as a ‘dangerous pyschopath’ and the Catholic equivalent of Katie Hopkins. All for posting a video of my 9 year old singing a traditional Catholic chant using a sock puppet like a ventriloquist’s dummy, something that she did entirely spontaneously which caused a lot of merriment and mirth.

What makes me cross is that famous figures like Caroline Criado-Perez are treated seriously with random tweeters prosecuted for sending abusive messages and threats, whereas those who have done their best to destroy my reputation, both online and offline and have gleefully revelled in their public bullying and contempt, wallowing in any distress or ‘meltdown’ are free to find another target. I have been told that I endangered my own baby’s life by using Twitter, it’s been likened to a pregnant woman entering a smoky pub and blaming the smokers -if I don’t like the heat get out of the kitchen and yet following one parody post from Eccles, which doesn’t name any individuals and could be about a number of people, they have a fit of the vapours, snatch back their victim mantle and seek to invite further scorn upon my head for a post which I didn’t even write by a writer whom I don’t know!

One day I will tell this extraordinary story in full, together with screenshots, it would make a fascinating dossier for future archivists and sociologists, documenting the spread of internet communication, but I think it’s also a cautionary tale about how the internet is not a disembodied impersonal medium but an intensified microcosm of human weakness capable of fostering vituperative and vindictive vendettas of epic proportions.

There will be those who say that the abuse is a measure of my success and impact, no doubt this is true, but it is coming at too much of a cost to us as a family, I have to put my children first. I am at the stage where I am seriously worried about their safety, combined with various comments and insinuations that I am guilty of severe child neglect; at one stage someone remarked that there was no danger of their being overfed. So-called ‘liberals’ alleging that a  ‘dangerous Catholic homophobic mother’ is neglecting and/or endangering her children could have dreadful repercussions.

The bitter irony is that I will resurrect my Twitter account in the New Year,  however it will be under an assumed name.  It’s ironic, that for the first time ever, I’m forced into taking the very action that I have repeatedly been accused of.