On the Buses

This furore about pro-gay and anti-gay ads on London buses, combined with the potentially 'anti free speech' stance taken by Boris, is a heady mixture. And quite a challenging one to get your head around - or at least for me to get mine around - which is not necessarily the same thing at all.

The previous bus ads created and placed by the pro-gay campaign group Stonewall are, in my humble opinion, essentially correct in that they promote the right thing:- tolerance, understanding acceptance; and the point that, (frankly) if it's nothing to do with you and doesn't really affect your day-to-day life, jog on. It implies, correctly in my view, that to criticise someone for something (their sexual orientation) that they cannot help, cannot change and cannot do anything about (and nor should they, it should be celebrated if anything), is reprehensible.

The 'cure' ads are wrong, in my view, because they are promoting exactly these issues, of bigotry and intolerance. Their claims are not supported by any credible science, but that is not really the issue here: It's like the councillor form Bideford in devon who moved legislation legally to prevent prayers being said in local council meetings across the country. If you're promoting intolerance, as far as I'm concerned, you can have mine back in spades, by return. I will not tolerate your views being imposed upon me.

If, on the other hand the councillor was proposing legislation to legally enforce the saying of prayers at every local council meeting in the country, making it illegal NOT to say prayers before the meetings, they would get the same treatment - refusal and opposition. In many ways, it's the approach: ask me, give me a choice, and chances are I'll take the generous, tolerant, grown-up view. Tell me, order me, and you're likely to see a different side of my nature. You fuckwit. (see, it happened there, all by itself).

If you're promoting tolerance, whilst I might disagree with the speciifc point you're making, you will get my support in terms of your right to make the point.

All of which doesn't necessarily make me a supporter or fan of Stonewall. I often think that LBGT groups like them are too machievellian and too finely tuned to react, often swiftly and too harshly, to any criticism. It is probably understandable, given the journey they have made and the prejudices they have overcome, but if you ask for tolerance and understanding on the one hand, it is, in my view, essential that you offer the same qualities, where possible, on the other. Life is a two-way street; if your actions turn it into a one-way street, with you the only one going forward, it tends to turn into a dead-end.

The example of the guest house owners who didn't want to provide accommodation to a gay couple, who were then dragged through the courts and prosecuted, is perhaps an example of this sometime over-reaction. The outcome is sometimes seen, rightly, as a victory for bullying, which is not edifying for either party.

To illustrate my point, I'd suggest that you consider Israel and the Jews, who seem to me, sometimes, to take a similar approach. If one suggests that their behaviour on establishing more settlements in the West Bank, against all UN resolutions and international opinion (including from the US and the UK) is in bad faith, in breach of their own agreements and discriminatory towards the Palestinians; one is very quickly  branded a Nazi or at least wildly anti-semitic, rendering the progression towards further calm, rational discussion of what is a really important issue for the world, impossible. Probably by design. Sadly.

All of which brings me back to the issue of free speech, and whether Boris is right to ban what are, essentially, pro-homophobia bus ads: One gay chap who I follow on twitter was furious at the denial of free speech that the decision represented, stating that free speech means the right to make an idiot of yourself. To an extent I understand that and agree with it. But some subjects and issues - religion, politics, discrimination, intolerance - are just too emotive, to incendiary to be covered by a blanket, 'get out of jail free because of free speech' card.

Playing the free speech card would, if you subscribe to the strictest definition, mean that you can use (amongst others) the N word as freely as you like. It's not a massive step from there to be moving backwards in time towards a much less tolerant society, which I would see as a bad thing. Yes sometimes people or groups might use our tolerance against us:- using our religious default position which is to be tolerant, in order to establish less tolerant religious groups which might then undermine our freedoms from within, is one such topical example.

But they, like many others in the past, will find that the Brits, while friendly, generous and tolerant (if given the chance) will tend not to enjoy being told what to do by people who hold different views. We'll fight to the death to secure your right to hold your views and beliefs, however mad they might be (to us), but if you try to impose them on us, against our wishes, we will also fight to the death to defeat your intolerant stance. Our default is to be generous and tolerant, not stupid and docile.

In the old Aesop children's story of the man in his coat, these people are like the wind, trying to blow the coat off, whereupon the man pulls it more tightly around himself. We are like the sun, gently warming up the place, so that he takes off the coat of his own volition.