Pride and Prejudice
The utter hypocrisy of this quote caught my eye.
“Yvette and I are married. I personally think it is better but I certainly would not say that to other people.”
Coming as it did from one of the main protagonists of the Nanny ‘we know what is best for you’ State, it had me awake for many hours trying to work out who, which government department, where, who selected them, what are they called, these people who dictate what is acceptable to dictate to us and what is not.
My original thoughts concerned the conundrum that is the racism v class war. That it is inherently vile and evil to disparage a man because of the genetic traits inherited from his parents. Who he is born to is not of his choosing, therefore the external signs of that accident of birth should not be held against him – unless of course we are talking of his parents happening to be wealthy and white, in which case it is perfectly in order to hurl abuse at him for the choices – schooling – that his parents made for him when he was a child.
Unfortunately, your Dormouse-like Raccoon fell asleep at that point, and by the time she emerged from hibernation, Devil’s Kitchen had already superbly fisked that argument. So I turned to another example of the output of this anonymous Government Department that clears old prejudices out of the closet like the winter wardrobe, only to replace them with a fresh set that it deems more suitable for the season.
Let us move on from ‘accidents of birth’ and take two prime examples of ‘life-style’ choices, that have entirely reversed their position, albeit with near identical arguments, over the past 12 spin-infested years.
Homosexuality v Smoking.
Those of you with opinions preformed in quick drying cement may wish to move straight to comments, and deposit your usual turgid prose. The rest of you may wish to engage in a lighthearted exercise.
One of these life-style choices is said to hold a risk of serious illness and possibly death. One of these life-style choices must be conducted well away from ‘decent’ people. One of these lifestyle choices is said to pose such a risk to young children that anything pertaining to it must be hidden away in shops that cater to such tastes, for fear that children may be encouraged to dabble in the vice that dare not bear its name. The danger is said to be so acute that even advertisements for such practices are banned. Indeed, the risk of accidental ‘contamination’ or indoctrination through contact with those who conduct this life-style choice is so high that practitioners are banned from adopting children. One of these life-style choices is alleged to risk ailments that cost the NHS a King’s ransom every year to treat, and results in many deaths. One of these lifestyle choices is said to interfere with the continuation of the human race. Thus it is decreed that all decent people should decry the practice at every opportunity. Anybody admitting to the practice should be shunned from public places, denounced at dinner parties, forced to fumble furtively amongst the shrubbery if they insist on ‘sinning’, denied the right to hold their heads up and announce their preference to a tolerant world.
On the other hand, one of these lifestyle choices is protected by legislation from being spoken of disparagingly, joked about, discriminated against. Legislation has been altered specifically to allow children the chance to indulge at a younger age than previously possible. Magazines, newspapers and TV programmes are paraded at every opportunity specifically so that those who had not yet commenced this life-style choice might easily find the information to allow them to do so. The NHS opens its willing arms and special hospital wings to cure the ailments, at great cost, that can follow in its wake. The deaths that occur are publicly mourned as a great loss to society. Annual parades are held, and the men and women of our emergency services censored if they don’t attend to publicly show their support for those who make this life style choice.
If you have read this far, you may want to know that I don’t condemn either homosexuality or smoking, in fact I am an avid practitioner of one, but not both.
I do condemn the hypocrisy of fashionable discrimination. If discrimination is wrong, and I believe it is, then all discrimination is wrong.
The discrimination which protects and encourages one practice and condemns another. The sporting discrimination which condemns fox hunting but protects cocaine snorting footballers from censure. The religious discrimination which condemns cross-wearing Christians but protects bomb concealing burkhas in our public buildings. The mental health discrimination that condemns discussion of our Prime Minister’s mental health, but allows that same Prime Minister to cite the mental health of a drug smuggler as reason why he should not receive the due justice of another country where he has transgressed. The ‘identity’ discrimination that condemns discussion of the advisability of promoting a man to the highest office – Privy Councillor – on the basis of his birth but permits discussion of the advisability of promoting a man to Prime Minister on the basis of his birth.
Who decides what is the correct shade of discrimination this year? How long the hem line of disapproval will be? Which coat of sanctimony to put to the back of the cupboard, and which to wear with pride? Tight pursed lips this year, or slack jawed acceptance for all?
Is it really the province of Cabinet Ministers to determine who lurks in the closet and who parades with pride? Something like 1% of the population belong to any of the ‘big three’ political parties. Those people seem to be solely responsible for deciding what the rest of us think and believe -even when we don’t believe, we are corralled by draconian laws into pretending that we do.
Why do we let them?
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December 30, 2009 at 09:34 -
“The mental health discrimination that condemns discussion of our Prime Minister
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December 30, 2009 at 09:36 -
a man executed because etc
buggered paws this morning.
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December 30, 2009 at 09:56 -
I too engage in one of these life-style choices.
Due to the recent inclement weather I’ve even had to purchase a new toy (solid brass, shiny with no rough edges) to facilitate me in my dirty deeds. I’ve used it in public several times, often in the driving rain and howling winds whilst receiving evil looks and muttered comments from people watching me from their 4×4′s the size of small buses.
I’ve sometimes used it on strangers who bizarrely seek me out despite my best efforts to blend into the background and pretend that I’m really fascinated by the cloud formations.
Cheers Zippo.
Interesting prog on Radio 4 yesterday about how other EU country’s have adopted the smoking ban. Some have ignored it, some have successfully opposed it but most seem to have adopted the grown up idea of giving you choice. -
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December 30, 2009 at 10:03 -
having arrived at my opinion in a rather large bucket of over zealous, banana eating moluscs, I agree with your citation and would dearly love the beat the moluscs out of the perpetrators of such odious views and practices. It has been forever thus, though, and as one ‘style’ recedes another takes its place …. oppression is a wonderful thing…… except when it you/me etc!!!
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December 30, 2009 at 10:55 -
Your argument assumes that both smoking & homosexuality are life-choices as though they are equivalent.
Homosexuality is a natural behaviour. It logically isn’t genetic but that fact does not just leave life-choice as the only alternative. For example, I choose to be turned-on by good-looking women no more that I choose to be perturbed by the sight of, let’s say, bare-chested male dancers. My sexual preferences are definitely NOT a life-choice.
However, I choose to smoke. THAT is a choice, or life-choice if you must.
All that said, I totally agree with you regards health-fascistic discrimination and its imbalances.
An finally to all those stubbornly unmarried couples, if it’s only a piece of paper, get married. Marriage is best!
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December 30, 2009 at 11:09 -
Good point, Bugger(the panda), i guess the difference is that Gordon’s
protests on behalf of Mr Belmonte Diaz were just posturing, i don’t think he believed it would make a difference and probably doesn’t care whether the Chinese government is offened by his comments.
Where as criticizing the Americans and their ‘anti terror’ policies, well, he just hasn’t the back bone.
Simon le Rosbif, oh dear, why are marrieds so offended by non-marrieds ? -
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December 30, 2009 at 11:43 -
AR,
Agree with you, up to a point, however, must take issue with this
//I do condemn the hypocrisy of fashionable discrimination. If discrimination is wrong, and I believe it is, then all discrimination is wrong.//
On the contrary, discrimination is an excellent, wonderful thing. It gives us the ability to choose who we can and cannot associate with – it enables Mensa to have only members with only high IQs, and should allow the BNP to have members only with white skin. Discrimination is the basis by which social units are made – from churches, to clubs, societies and confederacies, discrimination is vital to the preservation of identity.
Discrimination allows Christian churches to only have members that adhere to their religion, it allows gay clubs to admit entry only of those people that are favourable towards homosexuality, it allows for the newspapers to have a political bias. To denounce private discrimination is a very bad thing.
Of course, I can assume what you meant was that discrimination by the government, by the state, is a bad thing. In a certain regard , this is true. However, if someone has a belief or ideology that would prevent them from upholding the law, from giving due justice, then discrimination by the state is permissible, to ensure fair and equal treatment of those people using its services. For example, if you have a radical Muslim police officer that refuses to arrest a man for beating his wife, on the basis that he approves of that action, he must be fired, for not doing his job, even though he does not do his job because of his religion. This same rule applies to all individuals that refuse to do their jobs, regardless of the reason.
To clarify, I oppose the ban on members of the BNP in the police service, because that ban assumes that all BNP members will refuse to conduct their duties as is required of them. However, should a police officer refuse to do their duty, because of their nationalist beliefs, then they ought to be fired for refusal to do their job. The same would apply to a militant homosexual activist refusing to guard a protest by Christofascists, or even a Jewish officer refusing to guard a protest by neo-Nazis.
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December 30, 2009 at 11:43 -
Interesting piece, Anna.
Indeed, we have already seen quite staggering discrimination particularly in the US (their behaviour is usually replicated here before long), but also elsewhere, towards smokers in the job market.
A recent US decision not to employ smokers in any circumstance was justified thus:
“tobacco users are not a protected class under the law, so prohibiting the hiring of tobacco users is not discrimination”
This isn’t the practice of banning smoking during work time, this is the exclusion of anyone who may smoke in their own time, regardless of their suitability for the job.
We are deeply into the territory of bigotry, selective hatred and bullying here.
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December 30, 2009 at 12:15 -
Simon Le Rosbif,
“Your argument assumes that both smoking & homosexuality are life-choices as though they are equivalent.”
They are, almost, smoking something is nearly as old as human controlled fire itself, as is homosexuality. I have smoked now for forty years, it is part of my natural behaviour now. I “naturally” therefore disapprove of being made turned in to an outcast.
“Homosexuality is a natural behaviour.”
You have deliberately missed Anna’s point, that promoting homosexuality to young people via television bias, schooling and special treatment in law is NOT a natural occurrence . Along with social acceptance of overt homosexuality, it is a sign of a declining civilisation which is precisely what we in “Great Britain” are.
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December 30, 2009 at 12:16 -
‘Heaven is for the Blessed. Not the Sex-Obsessed’
I have always liked this quote from the film ‘If’.
As a good lapsed-Catholic boy, it has always given me heart when I have worked and drunked with homosexuals.
I tended to like them; I hope they liked me, even though I disapproved of them and they knew it. In my experience, it wasn’t a major conversational issue.
I gather the jury is still out on subjects like the ‘Homosexual Gene’: so we are left with Lifestyle choices as being a ‘preferred option’ for some people.
As a liberally-informed chap, with my secular hat on, I think that homosexuals deserve the same rights as Common Law Partners – this now covers a lot of ground in our society and probably should include adoption and procreation rights.
I draw the line at enhanced-rights and subsidies, which certain religious groups are demanding.
As for smokers, I am guilty, and I stay in a pub no longer than it takes to drink half-a-pint, on my journeyings: anyway, they all have screens, screaming whatever passes for the Latest Big Match at me, so they are not pleasant places anymore. I suppose that’s why all the pubs are closing: I notice that they survived ‘Drinking ‘n Driving’ for decades.
Though what we are to do with the ZANU-obsessed, I don’t know.
Shannon O’Hara
PS. As, so often, Anna, a brilliantly thought-through piece, which centres my thoughts on a subject.
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December 30, 2009 at 13:41 -
Dear Dick Puddlecote,
Whether, we like or not – and, by the way, I agree with your basic premise – we live in a society where, for want of a better phrase, “Corporate Rules” work in the same way as Laws, passed by Governments, to control the activities of Citizens/Employees.
Corporations require that their employees subscribe to their Rules. They are in a position to enforce or define those Rules retrospectively, if they wish.
A good example is the issue of MP’s expenses: some of the MP’s involved cried “Unfair!” legitimately, in my view: they were following a ‘Set of Rules’ laid down by the Fees Office, which ‘nodded-through’ their claims.
The degree to which Corporations and, indeed, Governments enforce Laws/Rules on individuals is, often, a matter of (call-it) “Specific Interest”, where enforcement is waived in the interests of The Corporation.
There are limits. (Conrad Black suffered for this kind of ‘hubris’)
Sadly, I must ask the question:
“How do we frame laws – to which the Corporates will have to pay more than ‘lip-service’ – which take us out of the territory of ‘bigotry, selective hatred and bullying’?”
Optimism tells me we are doing something. Experience tells me that we are merely catching the inept.
Shannon O’Hara
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December 30, 2009 at 13:44 -
What are we to do?
We are to fight back. With 61,000,000 of us and only 646 of them, I don’t fancy their chances much.
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December 30, 2009 at 14:05 -
A fine piece Ms Raccoon-Hatte, but it suffers from the bain of the bright: so many dazzling dilemmas that one is temporarily blinded. And so much with which to both agree and take issue.
Homosexuality is not a natural activity: it is aberrent universally, but not especially abhorrent to me. My mantra is this: a civilised society decriminalises homosexuality, a decadent society celebrates it, and an insane society tries to forbid criticism of it.
Bipolar depression is not a delusional illness, and should not be used as a reason for doing something heinous.
Personally I dislike people smoking near me, but the evidence of a link between passive smoking and cancer is flakey at best and flawed at worst.
As for discrimination, I am 1000% with Indigomyth. Dislike of discrimination created Comprehensives. I strongly discriminate against certain cultures which I know to be dysfunctional in a UK context. I discriminate between heroin and old-fashioned dope. I discriminate between Barbara Cartland’s dictation and John Le Carre’s prose.
The only discrimination I believe to be wrong is that based on zero experience of a person or thing. So for example, Gordon Brown’s zero experience of Eton’s playing fields. Or Dave’s zero experience of Grammar Schools.
Now listen you daft old tart, I was doing something I thought to be important before you wrote this important piece.
Damn you, woman.
YM x -
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December 30, 2009 at 14:10 -
Dearest O’Hara
I too used to bash the expenses in my previous corporate life.
But I never once kidded myself I was right to be charging tailors’ bills and dinner parties ‘with clients’ etc etc etc.
The problem with MPs’ expenses is that 54% DIDN’T stick their noses in the trough.
Rules? “I voss only obeyink orders” mein Kapitan. One honest person overrules a thousand rules. -
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December 30, 2009 at 14:14 -
Miss Mink (why the patronising “oh dear”? Have you already accepted the loss of the argument?)
Marrieds are not offended by non-marrieds, it is the other way around; hence that old saw: “it’s only a piece of paper”.TimOfEngland
The use of longevity as a basis for you proof that homosexuality & smoking are equivalent is inept at best. You choose to smoke and you don’t choose your sexual preferences. QED.I deliberately mentioned my acceptance of The Raccoon’s argument regards discrimination: have you deliberately ignore my post?
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December 30, 2009 at 14:21 -
Old Holborn,
//We are to fight back. With 61,000,000 of us and only 646 of them, I don
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December 30, 2009 at 14:50 -
Dear John Ward,
Point taken!
Should I remain optimistic?
Shannon
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December 30, 2009 at 14:55 -
Dear Old Holborn,
You always overstate the case!
You don’t have 61,000,000 who are going to create the Revolution.
Apart from anything else, how are you going to recruit enough babysitters, to get the middle-class adults, out on the street?
Shannon O’Hara
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December 30, 2009 at 15:00 -
Many years ago I noticed this phenomenon, Anna. How somethings are encouraged or derided as fashion dictates. It became annoying, so I’ve long since ignored prevailing attitudes and stuck resolutely to my own which date back to around 1970. So I whilst I have nothing against homosexuals doing what they do in private, or immigrants in principle, I reserve the right to call them poofs and coons when the occasion warrants it (usually due to them behaving badly). And I don’t give a flying fu*k who’s within earshot, when I do so either. Any objections anyone dares make results in them getting a very forceful lecture indeed about the importance of free speech.
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December 30, 2009 at 15:28 -
It’s the government’s fault that I smoke.
As a child, I was bombarded with ads in newspapers and the cinema extolling the fact that I “was never alone with a Strand” and I believed them.
I was raised in a house full of smokers and endured regular visits to the surgery with bronchitis where I would be examined by a doctor with a ciggie hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
Sporting events were sponsored by cigarette manufacturers and, once I started work – in a government department – I was given a desk with an ashtray emblazoned with the slogan “Property of HM Government”. However, I was earning enough to buy 20-a-day and save the coupons from the packs, but not for an iron lung. Smoking was the norm.
So, in my eyes, having having actively promoted the benefits of smoking, and doing nothing to discourage me, thanks to the government I now find myself in a minority group.
Agreed: Smoking reated illnesses cost the NHS millions each year, but nothing like as much as the billions which the government make in taxes on our “coffin nails”.
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December 30, 2009 at 16:16
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December 30, 2009 at 15:30 -
And another thing…
I have a brother who is gay. According to my mother, he is “this way” because my father did not play enough football with him when he was younger. -
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December 30, 2009 at 15:45 -
Well reasoned AR.
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December 30, 2009 at 16:04 -
Dear bleedin’ obvious!,
Many Thanks for this!
Lest We Forget.
Shannon O’Hara
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December 30, 2009 at 16:45 -
A meagre 3/10 for the “homosexuality Vs. smoking” argument, seeing as the Homosexuality half of it is built on sand:
“Legislation has been altered specifically to allow children the chance to indulge at a younger age than previously possible.”
Yes, by bringing it in line with the laws regarding heterosexuality, thus ensuring equal rights for all and moving towards, more libertarian than authoritarian, surely? This move erases a social distinction built into legislation, which is a good thing.
“The NHS opens its willing arms and special hospital wings to cure the ailments, at great cost, that can follow in its wake.”
That is to say, in the wake of irresponsible, casual sex on both sides of the sexuality fence. Gay people pay their fucking taxes too. Fail.
“The deaths that occur are publicly mourned as a great loss to society.”
.. And your point is?
Anyone else the MSM feels the need to martyr gets this treatment. Jade Goody anyone?
“and the men and women of our emergency services censored if they don
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December 30, 2009 at 17:12 -
Simon le rosbif, i don’t think it was patronising, more like ‘oh dear, that old chestnut’.
It is married peoples bug bear, they are the ones who always bring it up, and unmarrieds have to come up with more daft reasons why they don’t need to, the truth is some people don’t need a ceremony to believe their partner wants to stick around, others just find the thought of taking part in such a tacky and/or ostentatious wedding excrutiatingly embarrassing.
We are not all the same and some people simply don’t feel the need to express their love for another by ‘shouting it from the roof tops’.
I’m sure this isn’t going to sway your opinion, but your just going to have to get over it, some people just don’t want to be married.
P.S i completely wrote Akmal shaikh’s name wrong earlier, i appologise. -
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December 30, 2009 at 17:13 -
Smoking v Homosexuality? Seriously? And I am a long time smoker pissed off as any other with the public prohibition. I fail to see the comparason.
Your post smacks of homophobia.
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December 30, 2009 at 17:45 -
As a straight, married smoker, I couldn’t give a flying feck whether people are married, unmarried, gay, straight, bi-sexual, smokers or non-smokers – as long as they don’t try to impose their personal choices on me, then I’m happy to offer them the same courtesy. It’s the smug, patronising, self-satisfied and self-appointed zealots, who claim to know what’s best for us all, that give me the dry boak – they can stick their Smoking Cessation Officers where the sun don’t shine, for all I care. If I want to give up, I’ll choose when and how – I don’t need other people’s weans trying to morally blackmail me into doing so, thanks very much.
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December 30, 2009 at 18:14 -
Well, this seems to have woken people up, if nothing else. Some of this stuff is fascinating.
Bit of a meeiow from Pavlov there, but in all truth this is philosophical hair-splitting compared Anna’s main point: the near deificaton of homosexuality is potty compared to the vilification of smoking in a public place. And as for ‘homophobia’ as a term well….don’t get me started. What the blue b***ery DOES homoPHOBIA mean? Or Islamophobia?
Ah yes, I get it: these foul people don’t agree with us about delightful and blameless sexual inverts and religious nutters enjoying the freedom to say and do what they want (no matter how offensive) so let’s tell them they’ve got a phobia….a mental illness. Hmmm. Soviet, Union, hospitals….rings a bell.
I marched with the Abses in 1966 and I gave money to ASH in the 1970s. But I didn’t sign up for fisting jokes on telly and little sad knots of people standing outside buildings.
Give people with no sense of proportion an inch, and they will take away every last one of our liberties. Cost to the NHS? When freedom depends on money, it’s all over – especially after what that clown Hewitt did to the NHS.
Do I think homosexual men should be seen and not heard? I didn’t used to…but by God, after Allen Carr, Graham Norton and Lord Mandelson….I’m getting there.
What caused that change of opinion, then? My phobia?
YM x -
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December 30, 2009 at 19:59 -
“One of these life-style choices is said to hold a risk of serious illness and possibly death.”
They both are.
Simon Le Rosbif “You choose to smoke and you don
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December 30, 2009 at 20:11 -
Homophobia, a strange term. Fear of Man?
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December 30, 2009 at 20:23 -
Louisjohn,
//Homophobia, a strange term. Fear of Man?//
Or, fear of sameness (homo- also meaning same. As in “homogeneous”.
//Of course you choose your sexual preferences. You have to proceate to pass on your genes.//
Hmm, really? Do men choose to find busty blondes attractive? Or petite brunettes? It seems most odd to me to declare that someone chooses to find their partner attractive or not.
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December 31, 2009 at 00:38 -
I’m with John Ward on this, he put it better than me in his para. 3.
I signed up and voted for an EEC in 1973 – I did NOT sign up for the for the current European State thingy/ not quite federal/humongous debt creating mountain of expense, rules and sometimes outright stupidity that have today!
If the voting paper had said “lose the right to be English or British” – Tick here, it would have been more accurate! Ditto homosexuality, not “should we be tolerant to all types people?” but “tick here to give a minority group the right to influence your children from the age of about 5 . Ditto “should everyone be forced to be in a smoky atmosphere” – tick here, instead we get the draconian “25% of the population will have to stand outside in the ferkin’ cold and wet” – tick here! when only 30% of said population still actually go to one of the rapidly closing pubs. It’s choices we want just choices! To choose to say “No”.
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January 1, 2010 at 23:53 -
I’m fascinated; can anyone produce just one single gay man to bare witness to the notion that they chose their sexuality?
Every – and I do mean every – gay man I have ever knows that they were born gay. There simply is no choice involved.
It’s funny, but the only people that ever suggest it is a choice are straights. I suspect they feel that by positioning homosexuality as a “choice” is provides a legitimate foundation on which they can hate members of the human race.
So I say again, if you are so sure it’s a choice we make, why don’t you offer up a single gay man who says “for me it was a choice”.
That should be easy, right?
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January 4, 2010 at 18:31 -
George Michael
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