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Does good journalism correlate with how you like to have sex?

One in six of all on-screen BBC roles must go to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender or disabled people by 2020, the corporation’s new diversity targets state.
In a bid to deter criticism that it has been failing to reflect its audience, the BBC has pledged that LGBT and disabled people will each make up eight per cent of all on-air and on-screen roles.

8% for LGBT seems a bit high to be honest but then perhaps the incidence among luvvies is higher than it is in the general population. But a much more interesting question is whether being good at journalism or not correlates with the way that you like to have sex (or, perhaps, how you see your own gender inside your own head).

I can’t imagine that Clare Balding would be any less irritating if she were shagging a man and I can’t see that Julie Burchill’s writing became any less divine or even different as she switched the genders she slept with.

Just what is it about how people deploy their gonads which makes them better or worse at reading the news? That back in the day a publicly known gay boy wouldn’t be allowed to do it was indeed discrimination of a kind that we’re thankfully free of now. But it’s more than a bit odd to insist that we must now select on the basis that some must be publicly known gay boys.

50 thoughts on “Does good journalism correlate with how you like to have sex?”

  1. So Much For Subtlety

    Well they have the paedophile demographic sewn up it seems.

    I would expect that homosexuals and the rest of the Letter Salad are already over represented at the BBC. I would like to see the half of the population that is White and Tory voting represented.

  2. The sooner the BBC is gone the better.

    Their former “policies” –ie promotion of socialistic tyranny–will then be one with Nineveh and Tyre.

  3. The Inimitable Steve

    Radio 2, which has a particularly male-dominated line-up of broadcasters, including DJs and presenters Chris Evans, Simon Mayo, Jeremy Vine and Bob Harris, faces an overhaul.

    Good job the BBC doesn’t need listeners to get your money.

    Last year, a review by the BBC Trust, the corporation’s watchdog, found that six stations – including Radio 2 – raised concerns that they were failing ethnic minority audiences.

    To be fair, they’ve always been well represented on Crimewatch.

    Radio 2 was highlighted as having particular difficulties in attracting non-white listeners.

    Can’t wait for Radio 2 to be all about Hip Hop Bhangra.

    A statement from a BBC spokesperson said: ‘We are making good progress in our work to make the BBC a truly diverse organisation, but there’s more to do and we’re always keen to improve.

    How about getting some right-leaning comedians on Radio 4? Or even just comedians who are actually funny, as opposed to lefty ex-public-schoolboys who think shouting “DAILY MAIL!” and “GIDEON OSBORNE!” work in place of punchlines?

  4. So Much For Subtlety

    The Inimitable Steve – “To be fair, they’ve always been well represented on Crimewatch.”

    Ha!

    British comedy has always been divided between the toffs from Oxbridge and the school drop outs who came up through the music halls. What is interesting but a little depressing is how well the former are treated and how poorly the latter are.

  5. Do the likes of Michael Portillo count as B for the purposes of LGBT? Just how many members of the same sex do you have to shag in order to qualify as B ?

  6. For all they know, they already have 1/6th representation. Or are you only gay in the Beeb’s eyes if you are out and proud?

    I worked with a lady for three years and one day she said something about her girlfriend. She’d never said anything about a partner of either gender previously. Her view was it was no one else’s business, and she didn’t want to be the company’s pet lesbian.

    Anyhow, is the battle now on for discreet gays? Legislation to make diversity questionnaires illegal? An additional bathroom with no lights and a privacy screen outside the doors?

  7. Do you have to prove it? Can you just add “Sexual orientation: gay” to your CV to improve your chances of a BBC job? Until the level gets to 9% then I assume best to put straight as they try to bring levels down to “reflect the audience”.

  8. When the BBC find room for some people with right wing views I’d concede their ‘diversity’ agenda actually meant something. Until then its just the usual Common Purpose cultural Marxism crap.

  9. So Much For Subtlety

    Jim – “When the BBC find room for some people with right wing views I’d concede their ‘diversity’ agenda actually meant something.”

    Some significant percentage of Britain is still old school Labour – the White working class. Socially conservative.

    When was the last time you heard one of those on the BBC?

  10. “For all they know, they already have 1/6th representation. Or are you only gay in the Beeb’s eyes if you are out and proud?”

    You don’t have to be gay at all – all you have to do is play a gay on TV.

    “the BBC has pledged that LGBT and disabled people will each make up eight per cent of all on-air and on-screen roles.” That is, we’re talking about characters in drama, sitcoms, etc. Not, I rather suspect, newsreading.

    Yes, 8% sounds rather too much. It just gets tiresome and annoying if it’s overdone; and often dramatically inappropriate.

    Maybe they’ll just buy ‘Little Britain’ and put it on continuous re-run?

  11. It will be interesting to see how represenative the disabled staff will be: aphasic? Deaf with speech impairment? Facially disfigured news readers? Demented? Classic autism? Psychotic? Quadriplegic?

  12. Bloke no Longer in Austria

    Kenneth Kendal, he was a gayer. I’m not sure that it would have made much difference to his reporting on the latest Sterling crisis if that were a widely known fact. Besides that, doesn’t Radio 3 make up for the ueber-macho Radio 2 (featuring the lovely Katie Derham )?

    I never quite got the fuss about Michael Portilo. After all as a teenager I would have regular homosexual experiences. Every Saturday evening we would watch Larry Grayson on the Generation Game.

    (PS Glad to see it’s not just me who is irriatetd by Ms Balding, she has ruined my enjoyment of horse racing and the Boat Race ).

  13. NiV,

    ““the BBC has pledged that LGBT and disabled people will each make up eight per cent of all on-air and on-screen roles.” That is, we’re talking about characters in drama, sitcoms, etc. Not, I rather suspect, newsreading.”

    But that will just end up meaning lots of tokenism. They aren’t going to touch Sunday evening costume porn like Jane Austen stuff that has no gay or disabled characters. They could

    And to highlight something said earlier – a lot of people aren’t like the gay bloke from The Bureau, nor are they in the closet. I knew a guy for a year before discovering he was gay. We talked about software and stuff. Met a few times for beers at tech conferences. Then one day I asked if he was going to a Microsoft thing near him and he mentioned that he was off to Paris that weekend with his boyfriend. And for a second, I was like “oh… OK”. I wasn’t offended by him being gay – he just didn’t set off any signals. But I didn’t know because it just wasn’t something we talked about.

    I mean, for all we know, Ernst Stavro Blofeld is cruising for dudes on Grindr when not trying to take over the world. We don’t know, and it’s not important to his character. But now, every gay character on the BBC will have some clunking exposition about them being gay to tick a box. Dull gay drama will get put on just to meet the quota. If you’re gay or disabled, even if you aren’t much cop, get writing because the BBC will be biting your hand off to buy a script.

  14. I thought it was written into the Beeb’s charter that 10% of all presenters must be fat dykes. Otherwise, how to explain Clare Balding and Sandi Toksvig?

  15. “But that will just end up meaning lots of tokenism.”

    Agreed.

    “They aren’t going to touch Sunday evening costume porn like Jane Austen stuff that has no gay or disabled characters.”

    Dunno. I wouldn’t put it past them. If they can do a “re-imagining” of Dickens as a mixed-up murder-mystery, then why not? There were presumably LGBT people around back then – what did they do? How did they live? I can just see the jaded screenwriters, bored with yet another derivative formulaic ‘costume romance’, quite liking a new range of plots to play with. What if Elizabeth the First was the ‘Virgin Queen’ for a different reason? What if several of the early Roman emperors turned out to be a bit gay? Could be interesting.

    And for that matter, Shakespeare was *chock full* of cross-dressers. It wouldn’t be hard to re-use a few classic plot lines…

    “And to highlight something said earlier – a lot of people aren’t like the gay bloke from The Bureau, nor are they in the closet. I knew a guy for a year before discovering he was gay. We talked about software and stuff.”

    Quite so. Most LGBT people aren’t interested in the politics, or causing trouble, or SJW-style social revolution. They’re just quietly getting on with their lives, minding their own business, keeping their heads down. They just want to be treated normally, the same as everyone else.

    It’s the main reason why I find the confusion of LGBT people with SJWs to be so annoying.

  16. ‘In a bid to deter criticism that it has been failing to reflect its audience’

    It’s not the BBC’s job to ‘reflect its audience.’ Who invented this new role? The juveniles-in-charge can’t deal with criticism – if it’s from the Left.

    The BBC should be providing news and information from a British perspective. Using a presenter in a wheelchair does not improve the product, nor do the presenter’s sexual preferences.

    Anywho, surely it is illegal to ask applicants their sexual preferences.

  17. NiV,

    “It’s the main reason why I find the confusion of LGBT people with SJWs to be so annoying.”

    There’s always been a weird “tories=gay haters” that never went away. And it’s bullshit. Those were the social attitudes of the time and the government had to follow that.

    I mean, the left love talking about Section 28, but the Labour party voted for it at the time.

  18. “It’s not the BBC’s job to ‘reflect its audience.’ Who invented this new role?”

    I think the argument for it is along the same lines as the one that says right-wing climate sceptics shouldn’t be forced to pay the BBC to propagandise against their beliefs. LGBT people pay the licence fee, too. As do women, black people, and people who like classical music.

    Commercial TV and radio already caters to the majority, lowest common denominator stuff, and it’s not the BBC’s place to use taxes to compete unfairly against them for that. It’s argued that the BBC’s role is to provide all the stuff the licence payers want, but that isn’t provided by the market. The higher-quality, educational, arty, minority-interest stuff.

    “There’s always been a weird “tories=gay haters” that never went away. And it’s bullshit.”

    That’s what I keep arguing. There’s no reason LGBT people can’t be right-wing. It makes as much economic sense as it does for straight people. But I keep running into this problem that if I point them to any good right-wing free-market type sites, they’re always filled with people spewing intolerance and invective against them. It’s pretty hard to convince someone that it’s sensible for them to reject the left and turn towards the right with all that going on. I’d like to think it’s bullshit, it certainly ought to be bullshit, but right-wingers keep on proving to me that it’s not.

    From a free-speech point of view, I have to say that they have a perfect right to do so. But from a tactical/political point of view, it’s moronic. The LGBTs are going to look at the SJWs championing their cause, and then they’re going to look to SMurFS and Ecksy and all those like them, and they’re going to pick sides accordingly. I can’t say I blame them.

    Perhaps it’s because I’m libertarian rather than Tory. They do say that libertarians are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I sometimes forget that there’s an authoritarian side to the right, too.

  19. As my wife likes to point out she has no problem with having more diversity, as long as they pick people that can actually act and have a purpose to the plot.

  20. NiV,

    “Commercial TV and radio already caters to the majority, lowest common denominator stuff, and it’s not the BBC’s place to use taxes to compete unfairly against them for that. It’s argued that the BBC’s role is to provide all the stuff the licence payers want, but that isn’t provided by the market. The higher-quality, educational, arty, minority-interest stuff.”

    I find less and less argument for the “isn’t provided by the market” today. I think that perhaps, some state run TV was a good idea back when there was limited bandwidth and high barriers to entry. I’m not convinced that historically, the USA had better TV. But today, anyone can knock up a podcast or a YouTube video on a subject.. Or at the highbrow end, the likes of the Met Opera have an app where you can stream stuff.

    A lot of the BBC’s output is rather shallow and lowbrow in my opinion. David Attenborough is some sort of saint to some people but his stuff is mostly just pretty looking. There’s no educational value to it.

  21. “I find less and less argument for the “isn’t provided by the market” today.”

    I’m not saying that they do it well, or even that they should. Personally, I’d regard it as, at best, an unnecessary luxury when the government’s spending more than it’s got. But that’s the argument that’s made. Everyone has to pay for it, so it ought to represent the interests of everyone. It’s the same argument they make with all government services.

    In practice, of course, it’s an excuse to indulge their own minority interests, and to hell with any of those people they don’t agree with. I certainly don’t agree with that! But then in order to avoid being hypocritical, I’ve got to accept that lesbian TV has an equal right to be represented, even if I’m not interested in seeing it myself. All or none.

    “A lot of the BBC’s output is rather shallow and lowbrow in my opinion.”

    Yeah. My problem is that I like Open University postgrad maths courses. I think there would be complaints, though!

    You could think of it as a compliment, if you like. 🙂

  22. I would like to see the half of the population that is White and Tory voting represented.

    Conservative party vote at the last general election: 11.3m
    UK population at the last general election: ~65m

  23. So Much For Subtlety

    NiV – “I think the argument for it is along the same lines as the one that says right-wing climate sceptics shouldn’t be forced to pay the BBC to propagandise against their beliefs.”

    Putting normal people on the TV is hardly propaganda. But insisting that half the heroes are Gay certainly is. There is a large Gay lobby that insists that the BBC should push their line and so it will. However you try to spin this in a way that conservatives will accept.

    “It’s argued that the BBC’s role is to provide all the stuff the licence payers want, but that isn’t provided by the market. The higher-quality, educational, arty, minority-interest stuff.”

    If they wanted it, the market would provide it. What the loud minority means is that they want good quality stuff without paying for it. Which is fair enough. Except the BBC doesn’t do much David Attenborough things any more. They do lowest-common-denominator cr@p that simply pushes their political line.

    “There’s no reason LGBT people can’t be right-wing. It makes as much economic sense as it does for straight people.”

    If economics mattered a damn you might have a point. But it doesn’t. People vote for all sorts of reasons of which economics makes up a minor influence. Besides, married women vote Republican. Single women vote Democrat. Because the latter are in the queue for free sh!t and the former are not quite so much. Gay people are a natural market for other people’s stuff so even if they were not trying to get even with their fathers they would still vote to the Left. On average.

    “But from a tactical/political point of view, it’s moronic. The LGBTs are going to look at the SJWs championing their cause, and then they’re going to look to SMurFS and Ecksy and all those like them, and they’re going to pick sides accordingly. I can’t say I blame them.”

    Except it is the other way around. I look at the people pushing intolerance I am decide, quite reasonably, that these people are a threat. It is not moronic. You are simply pushing the usual SJW nonsense that if only Conservatives were Liberals, Liberals like you could vote for them. It does not work. Liberals will never vote for a fake Liberal over a real one. Why should they?

  24. ““They aren’t going to touch Sunday evening costume porn like Jane Austen stuff that has no gay or disabled characters.””

    Isn’t the point of all that stuff like Downton and call the midwife, just a dog whistle to middle England that says “come and watch this, everyone’s white and mostly straight,you’ll enjoy it.” In a similar way to Mad Men being a good excuse for putting smoking and drinking back on the screen. It let’s the viewer get away with being horrifically non PC. Hence the popularity.

    Once the SJWs figure this out I’m sure in future no production will be allowed to recreate life before about 1995, but so far it seems to have flown under their radar.

  25. So Much For Subtlety

    The Stigler – “They aren’t going to touch Sunday evening costume porn like Jane Austen stuff that has no gay or disabled characters.”

    No one is interested in cruising for middle aged middle class women who watch the BBC. There are clearly some who are interested in teenage boys because the first Gay character I can think of who was put in for purely non-plot related token reasons was the Dr Who spin-off Torchwood.

    It looks like Geeky boys are worth recruiting.

    However you are mildly wrong. It won’t stop them. They made War and Peace recently. Had to have an incest sub-plot. Because the BBC hates middle class society and cannot pass up a chance to push their moral corruption. They will come for all the other costume dramas in the end.

  26. So Much For Subtlety

    NiV – “They just want to be treated normally, the same as everyone else.”

    And hence the Super-injunction. Because for some reason people who engage in cheating on their partner with a threesome and a hot tub full of olive oil insist that the law should make the rest of us treat them as if they are normal.

    This is why the Gay community is never going to be voting to the Right. No matter what they think of higher taxes. Because the Right has this (rather weak these days) commitment to personal responsibility. Because the Right, more often believing in the Sky Fairy has already filled their quota of impossible things to believe before breakfast and so is not inclined to use the power of the state to enforce a fantasy on the rest of us. Because the Right, in the end, is about manning up and doing the right thing.

  27. SJW:

    Conservative party vote at the last general election: 11.3m
    UK population at the last general election: ~65m

    File that under flatulent tosspottery
    Not all 65m are eligible to vote, and of those who are, not all of them do. The relevant statistic is the ~37% of the vote carried by the Tories. Add the ~13% that went ukip, and we get 49.5% – close enough to the “half the population” quoted in the OP.

  28. Because for some reason people who engage in cheating on their partner with a threesome and a hot tub full of olive oil insist that the law should make the rest of us treat them as if they are normal.

    But perhaps they would settle for the rest of us treating it (and them) as if it were none of our damned business – which I think could be a reasonable right-wing view.

  29. So Much For Subtlety

    dcardno – “But perhaps they would settle for the rest of us treating it (and them) as if it were none of our damned business – which I think could be a reasonable right-wing view.”

    Which I am happy to do. Except that there has to be a quid pro quo. If what they do in a hot tub is none of my business, what money Brendan Eich donates to an entirely legal and popular political campaign is none of their business.

    And that’s where the whole thing breaks down. We have been tolerant. They have not. They have used our generosity to attempt to stamp us out. With enormous success. This cannot go on. One of us will have to change.

    Lives and careers are being destroyed. If NiV cared for all the things he claims he does, he would be on my side.

  30. “The LGBTs are going to look at the SJWs championing their cause, and then they’re going to look to SMurFS and Ecksy and all those like them, and they’re going to pick sides accordingly.”

    And SMFS uses 4 posts to prove the point.

    The counterpoint is that SMFS is an asshole to everyone from what I’ve seen. I’m beginning to think that instead of being a bigoted bastard he’s just and equal opportunity asshole. If this is actually true he doesn’t need diversity training as the goal of equality has been achieved.

  31. They are obsessed with this stuff and I’m not interested.

    Why don’t they just open up an exclusively LGBT(Other) channel where all participants (from best boy to key grip to director or presenter) are allocated according to their (un)stated preferences.

    Open up a second or third channel if needed to ensure the availibility matches/exceeds the demographric required.

    In fact, no fuck it, give the whole of the Beeb over to them,
    They can appear to themselves, every day, as if on cctv because just like today, I won’t be watching it.

    This is Public Service Broadcasting
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8LlUrT7MFo

  32. NiV – ‘LGBT people pay the licence fee, too. As do women, black people, and people who like classical music.’

    Since when do payments to government entitle you to anything?

    But perhaps we could develop your idea further. Should half of BBC employees be female? If an Indian quits, must an Indian be hired to replace him/her/it? If the population of French drops a percent, must a French employee be laidoff to hire a proper token?
    It’s a foolish game for the Beeb to get into.

    Especially for the purpose of deterring criticism. This ‘fix’ will invite perpetual criticism.

  33. @Tim Worstall
    “I can’t imagine that Clare Balding would be any less irritating if she were shagging a man”

    Perhaps if she was he’d have told her to cease ruining coverage of events such as The Boat Race (Oxford-Cambridge) by allowing inane verbal diarrhoea from the likes of CBBC’s Helen Skelton

    As for other BBC luvvie treasures eg Sue Perkins, Sandy Toksvig and Jo Brand, don’t get me started.

    All the above induce a change channel response when seen or heard.

    @The Inimitable Steve, April 24, 2016 at 9:17 am
    “Radio 2 was highlighted as having particular difficulties in attracting non-white listeners.”

    In other news:
    BBC Asian is not mentioned for having particular difficulties in attracting white listeners
    BBC Three is not mentioned for having particular difficulties in attracting adults or intelligent young people
    BBC xyz is not mentioned for having particular difficulties in attracting …..

  34. “If economics mattered a damn you might have a point. But it doesn’t. People vote for all sorts of reasons of which economics makes up a minor influence.”

    If that’s so, kind of makes you wonder why Tim keeps on going on about it then, doesn’t it?

    “Except it is the other way around. I look at the people pushing intolerance I am decide, quite reasonably, that these people are a threat.”

    Yes. And so do the LGBTs.

    ” You are simply pushing the usual SJW nonsense that if only Conservatives were Liberals, Liberals like you could vote for them. It does not work. Liberals will never vote for a fake Liberal over a real one. Why should they?”

    I agree. What I’m asking is why conservatives can’t be liberal. The SJWs certainly aren’t liberals.

    The political landscape as it’s commonly interpreted has *two* dimensions. The SJWs are in the authoritarian left corner. You appear to be with the authoritarian right. But there’s a libertarian left and a libertarian right, as well.

    Some people see the main fight as being between left and right, but I see it as being between authoritarian and libertarian. I look at the people pushing intolerance, of whatever sort, and I decide, quite reasonably, that these people are a threat. The authoritarians on the other hand do make a distinction: – every authoritarian is a liberal when it comes to other people forcing policies on them, but not when they force their policies on others. The SJWs are classic examples, but so of course is the hard religious right – let’s call them the Moral Purity Warriors.

    MPWs are just the last generation’s equivalent of SJWs. The words to the song are different, but the music they’re marching to is exactly the same.

    “And hence the Super-injunction. Because for some reason people who engage in cheating on their partner with a threesome and a hot tub full of olive oil insist that the law should make the rest of us treat them as if they are normal.”

    I believe most superinjunctions are taken out by straight people, cheating on their partners. Therefore the problem is straight people trying to make everyone think they’re normal?

    ” Because the Right has this (rather weak these days) commitment to personal responsibility.”

    So do a lot of gays.

    The authoritarian viewpoint is that society/the state is responsible for policing the behaviour of its members. The libertarian viewpoint is that – except to the extent that it might harm someone else – each individual is responsible for their own decisions. You’re talking there about the libertarian right, not the authoritarian right, and as you say, they seem to have got a lot weaker these days.

    “But perhaps they would settle for the rest of us treating it (and them) as if it were none of our damned business – which I think could be a reasonable right-wing view.”

    Yes. Exactly. Libertarian right. The authoritarian right MPWs thinks it *is* their damned business.

    “And that’s where the whole thing breaks down. We have been tolerant. They have not.”

    Who is this “we”, exactly?

    “Lives and careers are being destroyed. If NiV cared for all the things he claims he does, he would be on my side.”

    Or you would be on mine.

    Lives and careers being destroyed is a libertarian/authoritarian issue, not a left/right one. Someone fired for being LGBT is as much a victim of that as someone fired for making jokes about them. Ask Alan Turing.

    “Since when do payments to government entitle you to anything?”

    As I said, that was the argument made when right-wing climate sceptics said they were entitled to have their point of view heard on the BBC, since they paid the licence fee.

    Obviously governments disagree. But do you?

  35. So Much For Subtlety

    NiV – “If that’s so, kind of makes you wonder why Tim keeps on going on about it then, doesn’t it?”

    Doesn’t it? But that doesn’t make it wrong. TW is likely to dislike Ritchie even if their economics agreed.

    “Yes. And so do the LGBTs.”

    Except they don’t. They know there are no threats. That is why they make them up. That is why they need to believe there is a vast pool of rednecks out to lynch them. That is why they have to lie about people like Matthew Shepherd.

    No one has been fired lately for being LGBT. A lot of people have been fired because they are not 100% behind the LGBT movement.

    “But there’s a libertarian left and a libertarian right, as well.”

    Sure. You can vote for all the unicorns you like. But when it comes down to it you have to take sides on the issues of the day. Either you are in favour of people like J Michael Bailey being fired or you are not. Either you are in favour of Brendan Eich being driven out of the industry or you are not. You are consistently on the side of the SJW’s campaigns so the libertarianism is just a public pose.

    “So do a lot of gays.”

    There are those Log Cabin Gays in the US. Not seen a lot of them in the UK.

    “Who is this “we”, exactly?”

    The vast normal majority of society.

    “Lives and careers being destroyed is a libertarian/authoritarian issue, not a left/right one. Someone fired for being LGBT is as much a victim of that as someone fired for making jokes about them. Ask Alan Turing.”

    So you have to go back all the way to the 50s to find some grievance on your side? Telling isn’t it? It is a left/right one because the Right is not destroying lives. The Left is. No one is fired for being LGBT.

  36. [blockquote]I look at the people pushing intolerance, of whatever sort, and I decide, quite reasonably, that these people are a threat.[/blockquote]

    A culture can’t survive long when it tolerates those who want to destroy it. About sixty years and it’s done, from the look of the rapidly accelerating decline of the West.

  37. Agree to it, by all means. Then when the quota is full, start turning people away. And when the estimate of the rate in general population is reduced, demand sackings. Sounds like fun.

  38. The overwhelmingly white middle-class employees of the BBC might start changing their mind on Diversity when they are the ones being turfed out to meet an arbitrary quota.

    Then again, they might not.

  39. “Someone fired for being LGBT is as much a victim of that as someone fired for making jokes about them”

    Who is currently in the UK getting fired on the grounds of their sexuality? In fact can you be fired for that in the UK, without the full panoply of the law falling on the employer and them being fined thousands?

    On the other hand can you be fired with impunity for making jokes about someone’s sexuality (unless those jokes are about heterosexuals, in which case no-one would fire you, as you probably be gay, so point one above applies)?

  40. Jim,

    No-one does now, but people used to be, and overwhelmingly, that was about the state doing it. Until 2000, the rules on serving in the military didn’t allow gays.

    And the problems of say, prosecuting people who don’t want gays to share a room in their B&B are entirely down to how society once was. What’s going on today is an overreaction to how it was. If the MPWs had stuck with a view that homosexiality was a sin but not lobbied for laws, they would still be able to do so. I have little synpathy for churchmen crying about oppression, who belong to an organisation that interfered in other people’s lives for centuries, and are still fighting to keep B&Q closed on Easter Sunday.

    We’ll get to that point one day. The overreaction will reign back in.

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