Monday, July 08, 2013
British government minister declares war on the use of the word 'gay' as an insult
So "gay" is now a term of abuse? I thought that "gay" was how homosexuals usually describe themselves! But Mr Gove is clearly doing a Canute. If people dislike the thing concerned, any word you use for it can become a term of contempt. You could start calling homosexuals sirophents and sirophent would soon become a term of contempt
Education Secretary Michael Gove yesterday declared war on the ‘utterly outrageous and medieval’ use of the word ‘gay’ as an insult.
He will study current laws to ensure they are ‘properly policed’ and could even ‘sharpen’ them in a bid to stamp out offensive homophobic language.
Mr Gove told a conference held by pressure group Stonewall that the Coalition was determined to protect gay pupils from being subjected to homophobic bullying at school.
He said that it was unacceptable to use the word ‘gay’ as abuse and named and shamed former Radio One Breakfast Show DJ Chris Moyles.
Mr Moyles was branded Stonewall’s ‘Bully of the Year’ at their annual awards ceremony in 2006 after he dismissed a ringtone, saying: ‘I don’t want that one, it’s gay.’
Hate speech laws in the UK are found in several statutes. Expressions of hatred towards someone on account of that person’s colour, race, nationality, religion or sexual orientation is forbidden.
Mr Gove said that the Coalition agreement had referred to the vital importance of tackling bullying , especially homophobic bullying, in schools.
He said this was a recognition that even as ‘prejudice in our society was in many ways receding there were some prejudices that remain remarkably and irrationally stubborn’.
One of these was the prejudice sometimes shown to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and to the young in particular.
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10 comments:
I can easily understand his outrage, seeing how most males in Britain are quite effeminate and probably feel offended. I should think that being gay is far more insulting than simply saying gay.
The populist authoritarianism that is the downside of political correctness means that anyone, sometimes it seems like everyone, can proclaim their grief and have it acknowledged.
The victim culture, every sufferer grasping for their own Holocaust, ensures that anyone who feels offended can call for moderation, for dilution, and in the end, as is all too often the case, for censorship. And censorship, that by-product of fear - stemming as it does not from some positive agenda, but from the desire to escape our own terrors and superstitions by imposing them on others - must surely be resisted.
"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen."
-Tommy Smothers
"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."
- Robert Heinlein
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied – chains us all, irrevocably."
This is about america I know but it is still true...
"When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril."
- Harry S. Truman
To limit speech is to insult a nation; to prohibit hearing certain words or reading certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.
If the man knew his history, he'd know that "gay" is a modern, not medieval, term. This is the problem with not studying history or placing subjects in context - you sound like an ignorant fool to those who know better.
"Sodomite" was probably the term used in the medieval period for male homosexuals, while "tribadites" is a potential term for female homosexuals. (Tribade appears in English texts as early as 1601, according to wikipedia.)
Now you can understand why it's so very important that we all contribute as much as we can for AIDS research.
Not to find a cure, but to find a faster way of spreading it.
Iwas just in Hawaii. They used to use a rainbow on their license plates And as a state symbol. Have to change it now because the gays now "own" the rainbow symbol.
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