Sorry, sir, but now you are heading into the ‘thought-crime’ zone. Someone hasn’t actually done anything violent, but they are clearly thinking about it, so we must dive in and arrest them ‘pre-crime’ in a Minority Report style. Sorry, but if you want to live in an East-German style crypto-thought-police state that is up to you, but please don’t inflict it on the rest of us.

“Yes, gays are sinners in that most deliciously lascivious of ways, that of the sexual pervert, they’re amoral, they spread diseases, God’s plan for sex doesn’t include them, they’re paedophiles and rapists and if a gay person sees your penis in the shower then he will automatically want to have sex with you.”

If having this sort of persecution complex makes you feel more important, then that is fine by me. But I would argue [because I've been at the end of it] the criticism from Christians is just the same for heterosexuals who choose to have sex outside of marriage.

Yes, there are some space cadets in America who do try and provoke the gay community – but most of the time in this country if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. But then I suspect you would not really want that would you, as you wouldn’t have anything to complain or be able to feel professionally ‘victimised’ about.

The commentary between Phil and Britney is revealing, in the context of the original post. Neither will change the other’s mindset no matter how long this thread is continued, and opinions about each other may well spill into future posts, as is common on many blogs and forums.

If this banter was to occur on my premises, I would have to issue both of you an official warning to stop the baiting.

We’re all good now, eh? Job done.

Love and peace, Tiz

I don’t profess to be an expert on this point, but surely the C of E position is that ‘..ALL have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God..’, so I am not entirely sure of the point you are trying to make here.

Well, presumably my point would rest on the notion that there are more kinds of Christian expression in this country than those which form the official C of E theological position, and that they nonetheless all benefit from Christianity’s official status.

But I think you make Lady Tizzy’s point for her – good manners are important in a small company – it simply shouldn’t be necessary to load up very small businesses with hugely burdensome legislation for such a relatively trivial matter.

So if you find yourself having to police good manners for fear of litigation, shouldn’t this be a sign that something actually went wrong somewhere? You may call it trivial, but then people called it trivial when they talked about ensuring workers were issued with good chairs. Part of ensuring a safe working environment is taking care of people’s social environment too – and if someone is being made to feel uncomfortable then it’s not unreasonable to expect management to have a duty of care there, any more than is expecting them to provide hearing protection in loud work environments or gloves where manual handling is required. If the only reason you’re taking someone to one side to question their attitude towards the women in the office is the legislation that compels you to do so, that’s better than if you’d just decided to let it slide.

Baroness D’Souza

My contribution is as follows; to assert that free speech merely enables the expression of bigotry is to trivialise this fundamental right. The point about free speech is that it allows differences at any level to be DISCUSSED and resolved round the table – the alternative being settling differences via a duel or more modern equivalents, that is physical violence. The fact that bigotry and/or offfence is protected is to some extent a side issue.

I think you present a false dichotomy here. Bigoted speech is not an alternative to violence, but more often a precursor to it. Homosexuals and those who are bigoted against them do not find themselves often in situations where they are sitting around a table carefully stacked with a broad selection of views. Moreover, bigotry against homosexuals is not a new thing. By now, honestly, we get the points they’re making. Yes, gays are sinners in that most deliciously lascivious of ways, that of the sexual pervert, they’re amoral, they spread diseases, God’s plan for sex doesn’t include them, they’re paedophiles and rapists and if a gay person sees your penis in the shower then he will automatically want to have sex with you. We must be stopped! What is to discuss?

What grievances do people have against homosexuals that simply must be aired? What can homosexuals do, as a class, that would mitigate their concerns? What possible recourse have homosexuals got except to go about their lives and try to live them as best they can? We can’t prevent people from taking the specific and extrapolating out to the general, such that if one gay person is a flamboyant slapper who gets AIDS then that means they all are wheras straight people can do what they like and the perception of the inherent behaviours of the orientation remains rooted in 1950s public service broadcasts. What are homosexuals supposed to say when trying to reason people out of positions that they did not reason themselves into? And why should the burden be on homosexuals to engage these bigots in conversation rather than simply to tell them to shut up so that they can get on with their lives?

Protecting a minority against violent speech is protecting them against physical violence.

Britney British
While I would love to take credit for the rich depth of fog your in mind, I’m afraid I must defer. It was like that when I found it.

I tried to absorb all that you said but there was so much bumf in your message it fogged my mind. What I did grasp from it though was that you claim political correctness has not gotten out of hand in Britain yet you happily slate me.

I don’t mind though, not a bit and wouldn’t have it any other way. Say whatever you want and I will just chuckle.

Hatred and murderous violence were regarded in pagan times as coming from the eidolon or lower self and were regarded as involuntary actions that needed moderating by the higher self or daemon. Such words or concepts have been lost to us outside of theological science.

To me, everybody should possess a spiritual faith that acts to promote the higher self and constrain the more powerful lower one. Unfortunately the world we live in successfully operates to satiate the animal part whilst starving the spiritual one.

My contribution is as follows; to assert that free speech merely enables the expression of bigotry is to trivialise this fundamental right. The point about free speech is that it allows differences at any level to be DISCUSSED and resolved round the table – the alternative being settling differences via a duel or more modern equivalents, that is physical violence. The fact that bigotry and/or offfence is protected is to some extent a side issue.

Let me repeat a, probably apochcryphal, story. M le Pen the French extreme right wing political leader was required by French law some years agoto moderate his facist campaigning. In the intervening years recruitment to his party increased significantly due it is claimed to the fact that his more gentle message obscured his party’s true ideology and therefore encouraged the voter to join.

Hate and highly offensive speech are symptoms of discontent in society and we do ourselves no favours by suppressing the expression of that discontent to where it can so easily become murderous violence.

“It does not prove that society is free when I can stand at a religious pulpit and declaim that those who are different from the accepted cultural norm are sinners, particularly not if the religion of the pulpit is the religion of the state.”

I don’t profess to be an expert on this point, but surely the C of E position is that ‘..ALL have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God..’, so I am not entirely sure of the point you are trying to make here.

“There are tricky waters to ford, but you should be aiming to not cause offense in the workplace whether you would be legally liable or not. That’s not even common sense, I think that’s just good manners.”

But I think you make Lady Tizzy’s point for her – good manners are important in a small company – it simply shouldn’t be necessary to load up very small businesses with hugely burdensome legislation for such a relatively trivial matter. That should be left for serious issues of Health and Safety or matters of incitement.

I do not wish, in any sense, to marginalise the ongoing struggle that women face in breaking the perpetual patriarchal nonsense that rules our societies. While I am not a woman, I am a subscriber to the notion that Patriarchy Hurts Men Too, and I lament the blatant way in which our society conflates “masculine” with strong and brave and “feminine” with weak and foolish, with alll the ridiculous baggage that brings with it in every layer of life.

But that being said, not wanting to start an argument about whether being black or being female or being homosexual is more of a problem in discrimination terms, they are different beasts (black lesbians, of course, can have it all). The biggest difference is that the disparaging terms used against women are, by and large, the “correct” words. “Woman” and “feminine” are words that, well, apply. That they can also be used as slurs and terms of disparagement is a problem, but it is a different problem from the one considered by homosexuals who seek to reclaim “gay” and “queer”, or blacks who seek to reclaim the N word. (“Kike”, incidentally, is a slur against the Jews, and despite my friendships with Jews ranging from the Orthodox to the obscenely heterodox I know of no movement to reclaim it, although I admit to not listening to much Jewish Gangsta Rap. I may have to make enquiries along this vein.)

As far as negotiating the treacherous waters of legislation, I admit it can be difficult, but I haven’t found many situations where the simple maxim of “your work colleagues are not automatically your friends, so treat them professionally” does not smooth over 99% of conflicts. If you would not tell a client that she should try weight watchers, perhaps you should not tell your secretary either. There are tricky waters to ford, but you should be aiming to not cause offense in the workplace whether you would be legally liable or not. That’s not even common sense, I think that’s just good manners.