Well, if you will make what schools promote and get to stock in their libraries a political question, occasionally you will get political answers you don’t like.

“teaching them that it was perfectly normal to be raised in a family with homosexual parents”

Yup, it’s far better to tell kids that gay parents are freaks, and that if their parents are gay then they don’t count as a real family. The compassionate and yet firm hand of traditional values.

Personally, as a gay man myself, I am uncomfortable with the idea that absolutely everyone should have to like gay people – as that by inference means I should be expected to also like absolutely everyone in return.

I prefer to keep the right to dislike people – and say so, if I want to.

If the Tories have some people in it who dislike gay people – so what? I can assure you that they are matched by some old-fashioned Labour voters in parts of the working class heartland.

The key is not to incite hatred – which I am slightly more comfortable with clamping down on, but never ever try to ban people from simply disliking people based on personal prejudices.

Otherwise, most of your posts that express an inherent dislike of Tories would have to be censored as well.

Would you support that?

<a href=”http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2009/07/04/section-28-was-a-good-idea-that-was-implemented-badly/”My blogpost on Section 28 over the weekend doesn’t echo these views from ConHome. Having said that, Section 28 was supposed to deal with some very genuine educational concerns and if it had done just that and nothing more, it could easily have been justified.

Curse my overly speedy typing at work. Apologies.

http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2009/07/04/section-28-was-a-good-idea-that-was-implemented-badly/

Cameron may well have renounced Section 28 but as other bloggers and this piece points out, there is a large core of Tory voters who hold bigoted views regarding sexuality and the LGBT community,a core that you would be hard pressed to find in other mainstream parties.

IanVisits:

Of ocurse anyone can have a right to be a bigot about anyone else, it’s the putting of it into legislation that is the greatest problem and having government supported prejudice.

Letters From a Tory:

I’ve read your blog post and sorry, it just doesn’t wash, Section 28 never was or would ever be a good idea implemented badly. Is was a bad idea, fuelled by bigotry and it was executed quite well.

Good riddance to it.

There is a certain irony in this Section 28 stuff rearing its ugly head again at the same time that Cameron has started banging on about Quangos.

There is a certain amount of mythologising going on within Tory circles at the moment, making out that Quangos are an essentially Socialist creature that Tories have always struggled to destroy. Yet the Quango State grew quicker under Thatcher than any time before.

And why? Well, we have the answer right here: “gay liberation activists managed to get themselves elected to local authorities” – in short, the “wrong” type of people got elected to things and so we had to replaced democratic power with “independent” bodies.

Make no mistake, this dilemma is going to rear its head again and again with the Tories back in power. Tim Montgomerie is very pleased of the fact that of the new 2010 intake will be closer to him philosophically than Cameron himself. They all like to think they are localists now, but something tells me that won’t last very long as soon as they start losing local elections again.

Section 28 may be gone but it would a mistake to think the principles are also gone – it’s biggest supporter in Scotland was Brian Souter who is also of course a major donor to the SNP, and the SNP has at least one Westminster candidate coming up – Osama Saeed – whose social agenda is worth examining -

http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/index.php/component/content/article/494

As for the Tories, none of the ones I know give a stuff about what people do with their bodies in private, but maybe I move in better circles than the non-apologist.

Nick@1 “Well, if you will make what schools promote and get to stock in their libraries a political question, occasionally you will get political answers you don’t like.”

What books schools stock is inevitably a political question. And as progressives there are political answers we do not like and political answers we do not like.

Not necessarily. After all, what books a private home has isn’t really a political question (for the moment), but it certainly could be.

If parents objected to the materials being used in schools then they should have been removed. However, creating legislation targetted only at homosexuality was wrong. It should have been applied to all materials, heterosexual or homosexual, likely to cause offence.

That’s almost a Stonewall press-release compared to what Melanie Phillips latest offering.

http://stirringupapathy.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/melanie-phillips-homophobic-rant/

“Most people at the time thought (and indeed, I’ll bet most people today still think) that they do not pay their taxes to the local authority so that it can promote alternative lifestyles or force their schools to promote alternative lifestyles.”

But this statement is entriely correct. Though it might seem unbelievable to you embubbled left-liberals, most people believe that they do not pay their taxes to the local authority so that it can promote alternative lifestyles or force their schools to promote alternative lifestyles. The fact that so many in our left-liberal elite believe it is only futher evidence of the wide and deep chasm between the attitudes and preoccupations of the ruling class and those of the public.

Rightly or wrongly the majority of people are doubtful as to whether single-sex couples can bring up children without any detrimental effects to those children. Most people will not admit to this concern in public because they have been scared into silence by political correctness and liberal bigotry.

The tories have much in their past record for which to apologise to the electorate. However, in apologising for section 28, the tories are only bowing to the socially-liberal establishment and their favoured groups. NOT to ordinary voters who are completely baffled by such behaviour.

I’m struggling to work out how a “libertarian” could defend S28, let alone on the basis that it was all about promoting “alternative” lifestyles. Presumably he defends the smoking ban as well as it helps to stop promotion of an “alternative lifestyle”?

@Edwin Moore

“Osama Saeed–whose social agenda is worth examining”
Thanks for the article–but I just don,t know how many manifestations of civilizational suicide I can take.
It wears you down.
After the 3000th , sign post on the road to hell,it becomes just one more “fox in the chicken shack”—.
You just couldn,t get any nearer to a real life version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”
Some people shouldn,t even be walking the streets,never mind in goverment.
Talk about national death wish.
I,m begining to think democracy and human-rights are a direct threat to ( its ) own existence.
I saw a video of that disgusting creature Alex Salmond together with Saeed, ” ahn somme taemmes ah fael eevan more Scootash tharn a Scooorht”. Fuck off you two faced “taquiyya” Goebbels technique ” Trojan Horse”.
What we need is a dirty great big dose of “intolerance” of creeping sedition,and a wapping great dollop of ” discriminatory judgement”. You know–as in to discriminate between willingly,gleefully jumping of the cliff to civil war–and national self-preservation.
The collaborators,appeasers,apologists,poly-tech muticulturalists and career mercenaries are as guilty as the “rust never sleeps”,stealth -jihad mob.

It’s probably worth pointing out to LFAT and others talking about schools stocking materials that apparently ‘promoted’ homosexuality that one of the founding stories that created this idea – school libraries stocking Jenny lives with Eric and Martin – is a myth.

In ‘Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left’, Julian Petley uncovers the truth behind a lot of classic ‘PC Gone Mad’ myths (like Tower Hamlets Council banning balck bin liners for being racist). The truth behind Jenny lives with Eric and Martin (I’m working from memory here, so I’ll have to check specifics in the book when I get home) is that the school referred to in the original Mail story held a copy of the book in the staff room for teachers to show individual children where relevant, with the parents’ permission and with teacher’s supervision.

It’s worth being incredibly sceptical of stories about homosexuality being ‘promoted’ to children.

Come on guys, we all know it’s wrong to teach alternative lifestyles to children.

Why?

Well, if you teach a child something, then you promote it, yes? That’s why teaching children about Judaism in a Catholic school (as happened in mine) was most definitely promoting Judaism, and certainly not simply informing children about what some other people in the world think about the big questions.

And we all know that promoting something makes children want to do it. You know, like homework. All kids want to do that, because it’s promoted to them.

But then we reach a problem, don’t we? Because surely it is only bad to promote something, if that something is itself in some way bad.

So far our reasoning only takes us this far:

Teaching = promoting; promoting = successful in inculcating behaviour into children. (Note that these steps may not be quite foolproof in actual realisation)

Yet, alas, alone this reasoning doesn’t lead to any conclusions about what should or should not be promoted.

To get to the conclusion “promoting alternative lifestyles is bad”, we need another premise, namely, “alternative lifestyles are bad”.

That premise is itself predicated upon “the alternative lifestyle in question is bad”

Which of course meanse “being gay is bad”.

Thus through the power of logical reasoning alone, we can all come to see that it is completely correct to enforce section 28 – for section 28 prevents the promotion of homosexuality…which is bad.

Right?

But wait, isn’t that intensley homophobic?

Hmmm…

I’m struggling to work out how a “libertarian” could defend S28, let alone on the basis that it was all about promoting “alternative” lifestyles. Presumably he defends the smoking ban as well as it helps to stop promotion of an “alternative lifestyle”?

I wasn’t defending section 28. I thought it was a stupid law.

Hoewever, it was perfectly understandable response to the ridiculous sate of affairs whereby Labour Councils would push ratepayers’ money at any group with the word “gay” in its name. I am opposed to this on libertarian grounds. This had to be stopped.

The problem with it was that it targeted ONLY homosexuals. They were also funding of other partisan political groups such as anti-smoking groups and other fashionable groups the left decides to include into its coalition of the disadvantaged”. If a law was needed, it should have been a general prohibition laid on the funding of anything contentious beyond a certain point. Instead, a useless law was made, singling out homosexuals. Section 28 was not based on anti-gay hysteria but justified public concerns about how their money was being abused to fund leftist agendas. Unfortunately it was just another poorly drafted law of many introduced by a useless, anti-libertarian government.

Thanks Passing Libertarian, I forgot that the disadvantaged were supposed to be left to die in the gutter for their failure to ride to commercial victory in the post-state Mad Max Libertopia where the free market reigns supreme and everyone zooms around in all-terrain 4x4s (for there are no roads), but crashes into each other at night because there’s no streetlights (they would be provided by the evil state, using the stolen money known as tax), and the company that made headlamps could only survive as part of a government subsidised operation.

Hehe, Paul, you’re really flailing around at the straw men today! Oh sorry, I meant, of course, straw persons.

Hi everyone,

Entertainingly, there’s more – I don’t think they know about ‘when in a hole, stop digging’ over at Centre Right:

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2009/07/responding-to-your-comments-re-section-28.html

My favourite bits:

“Does that mean that it is illegitimate to describe homosexuality as a lifestyle? Obviously not. For when one refers to homosexuality the lifestyle, one is talking about the practice of having same-sex sex (perhaps along with some other characteristically “gay” things, like claiming to have a “gay-dar”, that we don’t need to explore further here)…So, just like the case of snails and oysters, which you prefer is not a lifestyle, but which (if either) you choose to partake of is a matter of lifestyle.”

“Similarly, Section 28 was an effective “parking” measure. Outside certain parts of the gay community, concern about whether there was too much or too little promotion of the social acceptability of homosexuality largely disappeared until the late 1990s (once issues such as gay priests or the allegations about a “gay mafia” at the top of the Labour Party arose)…the parking of the concerns about promotion of the social acceptability of homosexuality did create a space in which the promotion of homosexuality in the media and through films and books progressed apace with very little concern or opposition. I think it unlikely that this would have been achieved so smoothly had it not been for Section 28, i.e. if local authorities had been promoting homosexuality in the way that they did in the mid 1980s.”

““Pretended family relationship” is just a piece of legal jargon. There’s nothing pejorative about it, and no good reason to take offence.”

Just…wow. Words fail me.

a situation in which gay liberation activists managed to get themselves elected to local authorities and in particular to the Inner London Education Authority.

Those undemocratic BASTARDS getting themselves ELECTED! How dare people VOTE for them! How dare they PUT THEIR MANIFESTO COMMITMENTS IN EFFECT!! Soon put a stop to that!

@23, oddly enough, a near-perfect description of Haiti. Which is indeed a low-tax, small-government kind of place.

Section 28 is the primary reason I could never vote Conservative.

Christ Sagar, what a braindead clam you must be to believe in such a caricature and not to notice the difference between the public funding of roads and the funding of contentious political groups.

http://mises.org/story/2066 – Somalia’s economy doesn’t do too badly without a state.

Libertarianism is only viable in a country like the UK, it has never and will never work in the developing world.

Anyway, Section 28 was moronic, Local Councillors got elected, they did what they were elected to do. To crush the liberty of that group the Tories passed section 28.

Libertarians should no more support section 28 than they should have supported Bush’s ban on federal funding on Stem cell research. Although both “technically” kept the state out of society, what they in fact did was entrench the position of a distinctly illiberal position and have terribly repercussions for real people’s lives.

Sexuality is personal, but also intensely political. It would be nice if everyone was left to their own devices but they are not. It is fair for them to run for office, wine that office, and then do what they were elected to do.

“Hehe, Paul, you’re really flailing around at the straw men today! Oh sorry, I meant, of course, straw persons.”

This ‘debate’ is a straw-man.

The majority of the public do not support the state patronage of partisan groups. Partisan Political groups do not deserve or require state support (and that includes the political parties and the BBC). The tory self-flaggelation over section 28 is an exhibition intended for a political class audience. It is not something understood by the voters

It is part of the ‘Bait and Switch’ method. By the time you realise what the real issue is, it is too late. You’ve lost your fiver. What ought to be the real issue here is corrupt state patronage for partisan groups including those which promote particular lifestyles. The state has no right to promote homosexuality any more than it has the right to promote knicker-sniffing. The object of this section 28 debate is at least partly to force clueless tories into actions which can be deliberately misconstrued and misrepresented.

The state has no right to promote homosexuality any more than it has the right to promote knicker-sniffing.

You idiot, how exactly are they the same?

What is the state promoting exactly? Discussing homosexuality appears to be discussing normal behaviour. So what is wrong with that in a classroom situation?

Re my own comment @ 19.

I did indeed get a couple of details wrong. The story about Jenny lives with Eric and Martin being available in school libraries was further from the truth than I remembered. An extract from Culture Wars:

The truth about Jenny [lives with...] is actually rather prosaic, as revealed by a Press Council judgement against the Sun in February 1987. This found that the paper had wrongly stated that the book was available in London schools, and that the editor had failed to correct these misrepresentations. The judgement drew attention to a statement by William Stubbs, education officer and chief executive of ILEA, that the Authority did not consider the book suitable for general use in primary schools and that it should therefore not be available to pupild. Further testimony from ILEA showed that the Authority had only one copy of the book, that this was held at a teacher’s centre, and that it could be used only with older pupils, and even then only in particular and exceptional circumstances after the parents had been consulted.

There you go.

With Left Outside in that some comments here are reflecting very badly on their owners and show real prejudice towards LGBT people.

Which is a shame.

Don, essentially you are right in what you are saying, but you still aren’t going to get me to vote Labour. There are plenty of other parties out there who oppose section 28, and aren’t corrupt, warmongering or authoritarian like yours. Sorry!

Good post.

Considering the homophobia that still pollutes our society (much of which seems to simply develop from brainless playground taunts) I think that the education system is a legitimate arena for combatting anti-gay prejudice.

“Discussing homosexuality appears to be discussing normal behaviour. So what is wrong with that in a classroom situation?”

I do not think there is anything wrong with discussing it in a classroom but I am afraid to describe homosexual sex as normal is not accurate. It is a minority sexual activity which is baffling and often repulsive to those who do not partake in it. Many people find public displays of homosexuality disturbing and upsetting. It also happens to go against the teachings of all the major religions. As it happens I believe in full civil equality for homosexuals including gay marriage. and I supported this years a decade before it became fashionable among the metropolitan liberal class. Anyway the fact is, if homosexuality was the norm then we simply wouldn’t be discussing it here.

The reason section 28 came about was because some parents feared that controversial pro-gay propaganda was being taught in schools controlled by Labour councils. I might remind you that some people’s views on homosexuality are not as ‘enlightened’ as the Guardian’s and they have a right to protect their children from it if they so wish. As I have said, homosexuality wasnt not the only thing that taxpayers were angry about. Labour councils were propagandising for many other causes beside this one.

This was an abuse of power, and badly needed checking by all means consistent with preserving local democratic responsibility. The legislation they should have put in place was a general law, compelling silence in all matters of public controvesy. Instead, we got section 28 which was both narrow and imprecise and a failure on its own terms anyway. As it happened the Labour councils found how badly drafted the law was and discovered other ways to continue funding groups that shared their partisan agendas. Oh and by the way, they continue to do so and the public continue to be angry about it. As I have said, this strange, political class discussion about section 28 is partly a cheap miss-fire at an incoming Stupid Party Government but also an attempt to snatch the real centre of the argument out of sight.

Section 28 could never have been carried through Parliament without widespread public support; and there would never have been public support had the Councils kept themselves to emptying dust-bins and fixing the roads.

Baffling and repulsive? Equating non-normal or minority with the negative?

Homophobia at its worst.

Daniel Hoffman-Gill, I was not making a statement of opinion but of fact. You’re clearly an idiot with nothing to say.

Libertarians should no more support section 28 than they should have supported Bush’s ban on federal funding on Stem cell research. Although both “technically” kept the state out of society, what they in fact did was entrench the position of a distinctly illiberal position and have terribly repercussions for real people’s lives.

I’ll go along with this, for the most part (although I’m not sure the repercussions were genuinely ‘terrible’ for that many people – it seems to me that whatever impact section 28 had, it had by virtue of signalling anti-gay sentiment rather than being a real impediment to anyone leading a fulfilled life or anything). In an ideal world, the state wouldn’t be involved in the question of who gets taught what at all. But in the world we live in, where the state is involved in education, this is the only decent attitude for a libertarian to have IMO.

And no, Reuben @ 12, there is nothing inevitably political about education. I wish it were depoliticised entirely. It reminds me of a great quote from David Schmidtz:

“In effect, there are two ways to agree: We agree on what is correct, or
on who has jurisdiction – who gets to decide. Freedom of religion took
the latter form; we learned to be liberals in matters of religion, reaching
consensus not on what to believe but on who gets to decide. So too with
freedom of speech. Isn’t it odd that our greatest successes in learning
how to live together stem not from agreeing on what is correct but from
agreeing to let people decide for themselves?”

PL, you’re a homophobe, calling homosexuality baffling and repulsive is not fact but a terrible, terrible ignorant opinion; just as the underlying nature of your attack on it for not being ‘normal’ and in the minority.

At least wear your bigotry with some pride.

@39: “It is a minority sexual activity which is baffling and often repulsive to those who do not partake in it. Many people find public displays of homosexuality disturbing and upsetting. It also happens to go against the teachings of all the major religions.”

Once upon a time anyone who believed the Earth wasn’t at the centre of the universe was “disturbing”.
Once upon a time anyone who didn’t believe in God was “disturbing”.
Once upon a time the idea of a black man being worth the same as a white man was “disturbing”.

Homosexuality being “disturbing” to some is, or at least should be, irrelevant to government policy.

Daniel Hoffman-Gill, you are a complete cretin. Homosexuality is baffling to most people in the sense that most could not imagine themselves wanting to having anal sex with another man. For most heterosexuals even thinking about it enough to make their stomachs turn – therefore most people (including myself) tend not to think about it. This is nothing to do with hatred of homosexuals it is a delicacy of feeling and a FACT of nature. I don’t know whether you are a homosexual yourself but if you are, then your comments only reveal yourself to be extraordinarily closed to the idea that other people have different sensibilities to you. Otherwise your just a nasty left-wing bigot who tries to bully people into conformity by throwing labels at them.

This was an abuse of power, and badly needed checking by all means consistent with preserving local democratic responsibility.

What exactly was an abuse of power? You’ve mentioned that “parents feared that controversial pro-gay propaganda was being taught in schools controlled by Labour councils” but you’ve provided no evidence that such fears were actually justified.

Homosexuality is baffling to most people in the sense that most could not imagine themselves wanting to having anal sex with another man.

The fact that you define homosexuality by one particular sexual act which you happen to find distasteful says it all really.

Thank you to Richard @31 for brightening my day with the hilarious article from the Mises Institute about the strength of the Somali economy.

Unfortunately some people get really upset by homosexuality as if it somehow affects them, even if they are heterosexual. Why does anyone get upset with what people do in their private lives? I personally cannot imagine anything worse than attending a Take That concert, but I don’t want to ban other people from attending or calling them freaks from possessing that desire.

People are different, accept it and move on. If not, buy the Daily Mail and be honest about being a hateful human being: http://angrymob.uponnothing.co.uk/home/78-war-against-gays/408-more-articles-and-more-intolerance-from-the-daily-mail

“Thank you to Richard @31 for brightening my day with the hilarious article from the Mises Institute about the strength of the Somali economy.”

Well I happen to think this is pretty impressive for a stateless society:

“Despite the seeming anarchy, Somalia’s service sector has managed to survive and grow. Telecommunication firms provide wireless services in most major cities and offer the lowest international call rates on the continent. In the absence of a formal banking sector, money exchange services have sprouted throughout the country, handling between $500 million and $1 billion in remittances annually. Mogadishu’s main market offers a variety of goods from food to the newest electronic gadgets. Hotels continue to operate, and militias provide security.”

“The fact that you define homosexuality by one particular sexual act which you happen to find distasteful says it all really.”

Says what exactly? What definition would you prefer? Someone who enjoys musical theatre?

“What exactly was an abuse of power? You’ve mentioned that “parents feared that controversial pro-gay propaganda was being taught in schools controlled by Labour councils” but you’ve provided no evidence that such fears were actually justified.”

There were glaring instances of Labour-controlled Councils using public money to fund gay political groups and gay books. such as ‘Jenny lives with Eric and Martin’ and others which were provided in school libraries and aimed at small children – too young to be able to understand such information. Some parents feared that their children were being ‘encouraged’ into homosexuality which you might think is okay or improbable, but my point is they were justified in objecting to such controversial material being provided for at the taxpayers expense. I am not here to defend Section 28 but the fact is, it did not prevent the objective discussion of homosexuality in the classroom.

“Unfortunately some people get really upset by homosexuality as if it somehow affects them, even if they are heterosexual. Why does anyone get upset with what people do in their private lives? I personally cannot imagine anything worse than attending a Take That concert, but I don’t want to ban other people from attending or calling them freaks from possessing that desire.”

I don’t know that anyone does get upset about what homosexuals do in their private lives. If they do they must be very tortured people. Neither can I think of anyone who wants to ban “take that” concerts. Who are these people or are they just imaginary?

One of your examples of Somalia’s ‘service sector’ is that there are ‘militias providing security’?!

Here’s another take:

“The country’s poor human rights situation deteriorated further during the year, exacerbated by the absence of effective governance institutions and rule of law, the widespread availability of small arms and light weapons, and ongoing conflicts. As a consequence citizens were unable to change their government. Human rights abuses included unlawful and politically motivated killings; kidnapping, torture, rape, and beatings; official impunity; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; and arbitrary arrest and detention.

In part due to the absence of functioning institutions, the perpetrators of human rights abuses were rarely punished. Denial of fair trial and limited privacy rights were problems, and there were restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, religion, and movement. Discrimination and violence against women, including rape; female genital mutilation (FGM); child abuse; recruitment of child soldiers; trafficking in persons; abuse and discrimination against clan and religious minorities; restrictions on workers’ rights; forced labor, including by children; and child labor were also problems.”

Sounds like Libertopia to me.

“There were glaring instances of Labour-controlled Councils using public money to fund gay political groups and gay books. such as ‘Jenny lives with Eric and Martin’ and others which were provided in school libraries and aimed at small children – too young to be able to understand such information”

This is getting tedious. There has already been a comment in this very thread debunking this:

“the Authority had only one copy of the book [Jenny lives with Eric and Martin], that this was held at a teacher’s centre, and that it could be used only with older pupils, and even then only in particular and exceptional circumstances after the parents had been consulted.”

Haiti and the eastern DRC have GSM. So what? It just shows that a few thousand Swedish, British, French, and German engineers, a very few of whom I am privileged to know, are bad-ass as hell, and their bosses are willing to pay a lot of bribes and hire South African mercenaries now and then.

So you’ve got GSM service; but you also have the opportunity to be shot by the MNO’s securigoons (hey, a couple of years ago in Iraq there was a whole battle between Orascom’s guards and Ahmed Chalabi’s guards). Our biggest achievements. in terms of development, are in places like India where there is something you’d call government.

Don Paskini,

Thanks for saving me the trouble regarding Somalia – though you left out piracy!

Then again, perhaps our libertarian friends are all for pricay. It’s anti-state, isn’t it?

Hoorah for pirates, shaking their cutlasses/AK-47s defiantly at the evil spectre of the states which are probably the only entities capable of restraining them!

Hooray for the pirates, which are a blight to international commerce and capitalism, and whose spread is only contained by that evil entity, the nation state allying with other nation state to use its navy paid for by taxes to contain the blessed anti-state pirates!

Three cheers for the pirates – those murdering, robbing, extorting, raping, savage pirates! If only the evil states would all disappear, the pirates would be free to sail the high seas!

And then they could land ashore for a ride in the Mad Max world of all terrain 4x4s, which will presumably have guns atop them to shoot poor people who come trying to steal food.

Oh, and “Passing Libertarian”, please explain to me how roads would be commissioned, paid for and built in a co-ordinated fashion without anything more than a nightwatchman state (to return to your earlier comment)

And please don’t just call me “thick” or “a cretin”. That’s terribly rude. And also, I suspect, a tad ironic.

I do not think there is anything wrong with discussing it in a classroom but I am afraid to describe homosexual sex as normal is not accurate.

You realise that performing a sex act on someone using a penis is a minority act? There are more men than women. Does that make it abnormal?

Stop equating normal with majority. It is nonsense.

Forgive me for the blockquote madness…..

Sorry, I seem to have arrived a little late at the “kick the idiot who’s flailing around desperately while trying to defend his personal ‘yuck factor’ prejudices” party, but dear PassingLibertarian, (does it hurt, by the way, having to stretch the old ringpiece so much you can get an entire libertarian out of it? just curious..):

“Section 28 could never have been carried through Parliament without widespread public support;”

Completely ridiculous statement under our first-past-the-post system, as you should very well know. 36% of the votes cast (closer to 25% or so of the electorate, I believe?? that could be underestimate? its late…) can get you a very large majority – as, again, you *should* be aware. I think the Tories got 38% of the vote in the election before Section28 was passed?

Anyway, just a wee thing there on which you’re patently talking bollocks. A bit like journeyman’s witless diatribe further up the comments…

Ho hum.

I’m glad that many, many other people are now wading in to what Andy wonderfully calls kicking the idiot.

Now you put it like that I feel quite sorry for the homophobe but only slightly, as the time spent working with young LGBT people in London who have been the victim of the kind of backward thinking abuse that the Passing Libertarian (who I wish would keep on going rather than stop here and make a fool of himself) spouts.

Calling people cretins is never a good idea when you’re spouting bigotry, neither does it work calling me a bigot in return when clearly I don’t find LGBT baffling or repulsive and you do. “For most heterosexuals even thinking about it enough to make their stomachs turn” not the case, only if you’re homophoibc would that kind of reaction occur, dear me, the more you type the bigger your hole of bigotry gets.

Uponnothing, Don Paskini, Paul Sagar, Left Outside and Paul Gilmour have all outlined your homophobic hateful views and it may be best you go elsewhere to spout them, rather than typing more hatred.

Oh, for goodness sake, “Jenny lives with Eric and Martin” is just a children’s book – will people stop over-analysing. You just come across as sanctimonious bores.

(Cross-posted in the other thread in case there are people too thick to get the point)

Paul – on pirates,we are way ahead of you! http://press.princeton.edu/video/leeson/

The methods pirates employ to protect themselves are not all that different from what states use (who were also actively involved in pillaging on the high seas). By the standards of the 17th century, they were pretty progressive, and cultivated a reputation for fearsomeness exactly so that they wouldn’t have to engage in real conflict as often.

Can’t speak for the recent phenomenon of Somali pirates, although if Johann Hari, is right, they might too be offering a protection scheme to the Somali coast: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html

The main point Leeson is making isn’t that Somalia is a nice place to live, only that in its case statehood turns out to be a cure that is worse than the disease as it inevitably involved more muder and more expropriation than the anarchy is witnesses now. Of course, it was previously a Marxist state, so it would be interesting to see whether a classical liberal order would be rather better.

“The fact that you define homosexuality by one particular sexual act which you happen to find distasteful says it all really.”

Says what exactly? What definition would you prefer? Someone who enjoys musical theatre?

If I had to come up with a textbook definition I would say that you would define a homosexual as someone who was attracted to people of the same sex both physically and emotionally. You certainly can’t define it by a particular sexual act. Not all homosexuals actually have sex with other men. Not all men who have sex with other men are homosexual.

And not everyone who has penetrative anal sex is homosexual. Indeed, numerically there are vastly more heterosexual couples who practice it world wide than homosexual couples (I wrote that sentence before factchecking but it turns out anal sex amongst heterosexual couples is more prevalent than I thought – pdf).

Before I open that pdf, it’s not a picture is it?

No, it’s an official document of the US Centre for Disease Control. FFS.

Yeah, I was kind of joking.

“Now you put it like that I feel quite sorry for the homophobe but only slightly, as the time spent working with young LGBT people in London who have been the victim of the kind of backward thinking abuse that the Passing Libertarian spouts”

I am not aware I have abused anyone here on this post. Anyone who whines that he has been ‘abused’ by someone elses opinion as if it were a stick taken to his back, is a scumbag
and an enemy of free speech. That means you.

“Calling people cretins is never a good idea when you’re spouting bigotry”,

If you don’t like being called a cretin then stop talking like one. And if you had actually read anything that I wrote with any care, you would be unable to find any evidence of anti-gay ‘bigotry.’ This is because I do not hate homosexuals. If I did, I wouldn’t have support gay marriage years before most of you were politically conscious (or even born). If I personally find homosexual sex disgusting then that is because I am heterosexual. You might as well scream ‘heterosexual’ at me becuase if being disgusted by homosexual acts makes me a ‘homophobe’, then homophobia doesn’t mean anything and most heterosexuals are incorrigible bigots.

But I can see that in your case the term ‘homophobe’ is just a synonym for ‘thought criminal’. You are a bigoted, censorious piece of human trash who hates free speech.

“Completely ridiculous statement under our first-past-the-post system, as you should very well know. 36% of the votes cast (closer to 25% or so of the electorate, I believe?? that could be underestimate? its late…) can get you a very large majority – as, again, you *should* be aware. I think the Tories got 38% of the vote in the election before Section28 was passed?”

You complete numpty! How the f*** can a general election result be a measure of public opinion on one issue like section 28? WTF are you on?

“If I personally find homosexual sex disgusting then that is because I am heterosexual.”

The latter doesn’t necessitate the former, so you find homosexual sex “disgusting” for some other reason. Don’t tar all heterosexuals with the same brush.

PL:

I can’t believe you’ve come back, yet again, to a thread where you are alone in your bigotry and the level of debate and thought is stacked against, seriously, go home now.

You are not aware you’ve abused anyone because you don’t see your views as homophobic, which they are. Calling me more names only makes you look even worse than you already do, as for enemy of free speech, you have the freedom to spout your bigotry but not the right to not have it challenged, as has happened here.

I am not willing to repeat what myself and others have said regarding your homophobia. Just re-read it till you get it.

Stop swearing and name calling, your wig is slipping, go elsewhere with the homophobia, it is not welcome here.

Dear Passing Libertarian,

Dear PassingLibertarian, you said:

“You complete numpty! How the f*** can a general election result be a measure of public opinion on one issue like section 28? WTF are you on?”

But earlier you had made this evidence-free assertion:
“Section 28 could never have been carried through Parliament without widespread public support;”

Maybe you should look at what you write before you criticise responses to it.

An Act being passed in parliament has everything to do with how big a majority you’ve got at the time, and nowt to do with that nebulous notion “widespread public opinion”, which is what my stats illustrated. So that’s what I am on.

What’s your excuse?

Paul @ 54

Oh, and “Passing Libertarian”, please explain to me how roads would be commissioned, paid for and built in a co-ordinated fashion without anything more than a nightwatchman state (to return to your earlier comment)

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-231.html

and http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_2/3_2_7.pdf

are not terrible places to begin for theoretical outlines. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/private-highways-in-america-1792-1916/ is a good historical example of private provision of roads. This: http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=64 might be a book you’d be interested in.

No thanks necessary

Passing Libertarian,

I don’t want to be too harsh but it’s becoming readily apparent that you’re not the brightest bush in the barrel. Do you understand what libertarianism is? Yes? Then perhaps you realize that if you call yourself a libertarian, the personal revulsion you may or not feel when faced with the thought of homosexual sex should be absolutely irrelevant when it comes to discussing public policy, for the simple reason that it doesn’t aggress against anyone, harm anyone, or otherwise infringe upon anyone’s rights in any way. If you don’t believe this, then please kindly stop referring to yourself as a libertarian.

Don’t worry Hoffman-Gill. I won’t make you repeat yourself since you must already be tired of screaming your pathetic non-arguments over and over. Your ridiculous ‘homophobia’ charge has been comprehensively exploded yet you have responded by simply rephrasing the same thing you said originally. I have no wish to argue with someone who has no ability to deploy facts or logic. Either you are a bigoted and censorious piece of human trash or you are paranoiac who finds “homphobia” in every possible situation. I think you must be one of the most closed-minded and uninteresting ‘opponents’ I have ever encountered.

“An Act being passed in parliament has everything to do with how big a majority you’ve got at the time, and nowt to do with that nebulous notion “widespread public opinion”, which is what my stats illustrated. So that’s what I am on.”

You’re talking rubbish. The Tories passed the Act because at the time they had a comfortable majority and the vast majority of Tory MPs supported it. In this case, parliamentary opinion merely reflected that of public opinion which has also always been in favour of section 28. That is an undeniable fact. Even those opposed to it (including myself) never denied this. In the 2000 referendum in Scotland 87% of those who voted, voted for its retention. In another poll carried out in the Tony Blairs own constituency in 2000 71% people voted for retention. This is in Labour heartlands which completely flattens your argument that it had anything to do with a Labour/Tory divide. Also In another 2000 poll by Ipsos Mori poll which was conducted across the country 54% of people thought S28 should retained and that “schools should not be allowed to promote homosexuality” 37% of thought teachers should not teach about homosexuality.

“I don’t want to be too harsh but it’s becoming readily apparent that you’re not the brightest bush in the barrel. Do you understand what libertarianism is? Yes? Then perhaps you realize that if you call yourself a libertarian, the personal revulsion you may or not feel when faced with the thought of homosexual sex should be absolutely irrelevant when it comes to discussing public policy, for the simple reason that it doesn’t aggress against anyone, harm anyone, or otherwise infringe upon anyone’s rights in any way. If you don’t believe this, then please kindly stop referring to yourself as a libertarian.”

You haven’t read my comments at @21.

Dear Passing Libertarian:

“The Tories passed the Act because at the time they had a comfortable majority and the vast majority of Tory MPs supported it. In this case, parliamentary opinion merely reflected that of public opinion which has also always been in favour of section 28. That is an undeniable fact. Even those opposed to it (including myself) never denied this. In the 2000 referendum in Scotland 87% of those who voted, voted for its retention.”

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Firstly, I showed you the evidence that parliamentary majorities in our appallingly unrepresentative FPTP system cannot be claimed as any measure of “widespread public opinion”. Your following assertions are simply more efforts at self-justification of your personal “yuck factor” regarding homosexuality.

To support this you then cite the ridiculous, privately-funded by religious bigot Brian Souter’s “Keep The Clause” campaign, ‘referendum’ on Section 2a (as it was called up here) in 2000. I remember it well, being one of the folk they sent a ballot form to.

Many people decided to boycott this vote, and only 32% of those polled chose to respond (even though it wouldn’t cost us a single bawbee). Thus your 87% is only 28% of the electorate at best. Yup, that’s “widespread public opinion”, sure enough.

Also, IF you’d been paying attention (fat chance) you’d have spotted that I never mentioned a Labour/Tory divide – I simply pointed out how few votes ANY government needed in order to have an easy working majority, and it happened to be a minority-voted-for Tory government that brought in section 28.. The same system worked well for Tony Blair on some contentious issues, no? And as for your other ‘evidence’ – did you consider the poll of Sedgefield only asked 715 people, and again, it’s 71% “of those who expressed a view”…?

I’m out of this, I have more intelligent, rational and interesting people to waste my time on.

PL:

Seriously, you seem to have an issue with last-wordism when it is clear that your homophobia and the items you raise to defend it are not only debunked but also further compound your bigotry.

I am glad that I am not alone in challenging your repeated and unwanted prescence here, don’t you get it yet?

You are quite deluded, you are homophobic, please accept it so that you can at least deal with it. You ahve exploded as you put it, nothing.

Go away and stop using this thread to expose your prejudice.

“Also, IF you’d been paying attention (fat chance) you’d have spotted that I never mentioned a Labour/Tory divide – I simply pointed out how few votes ANY government needed in order to have an easy working majority, and it happened to be a minority-voted-for Tory government that brought in section 28.. The same system worked well for Tony Blair on some contentious issues, no? And as for your other ‘evidence’ – did you consider the poll of Sedgefield only asked 715 people, and again, it’s 71% “of those who expressed a view”…?”

I’m sorry Andy Gilmour but I have provided you with one referendum result and two opinion polls which give a rough measure of public opinion when it is asked about the issue. I could find you many more which would only re-confirm my argument that those who care about the issue tend to have generally favoured the law. I don’t know of any opinion polls which showed a majority against. This anti-section 28 majority is a fantasy of yours and if you think that the Tories were legislating against public opinion on this then you’re stupid.

In any case, I never intended to end up defending section 28, a law I have always opposed and I never imagined I would get into an argument over my personal yuk-factor regarding sex between two men which I explained have no bearing on my personal opinions regarding gay equality (which I support). If I personally find homosexuality to be disgusting that is becasue I think anal sex between males is disgusting. I am simply stating that which is the opinion of all heterosexuals with a few (I suspect dishonest) exceptions. I only mentioned it in order to illustrate why homosexuality was not considered to be the norm by most people. Whilst I will gladly discuss the rights and wrongs of section 28 I don’t see why I should waste my time defending facts which are so obvious as to be self-evident.

And to the worthless piece of pond-life@75 – I’m tired of your witless self-refuting drivel. If you want to think that I’m homophobic then go ahead. If a extremist bigot like you had a high opinion of me I’d be ashamed.

@76: “I am simply stating that which is the opinion of all heterosexuals with a few (I suspect dishonest) exceptions.”

I’m sorry, but that statement is utter nonsense.

Indeed it is, the Passing Homophobe is mis guided and wilful in his constant justification for his un-confessed homophobia.