Sunday, June 26, 2011

This is a gay club for gay people...we'll have no straight ones here

Let's play a little game shall we. Imagine, if you will that you're a Tory councillor and you went out one night to a nightclub to see someone perform. Imagine to that you were standing in the queue waiting patiently to pass the bouncers and get through the door.

Whilst in the queue you noticed that they were quite a few gay couples queuing too, so, you get out your mobile phone, you fire up Twitter and you tell your 6000 or so followers that,
Resent the number of gay people in the nightclub queue. If you want to see [insert performers name] BUGGER OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE.
What do you think the screaming Left would be saying on Twitter? It wouldn't be long before you'd probably be "under pressure" from Leftie bloggers to quit. "Evidence!" they would scream of the vicious evil hatred of equality and sexuality differences.

OK, game over, now let's shoot back into reality just a few hours ago to see what a Labour councillor and former NUS President said last night.

Now..... personally I don't really have a problem with the comment in terms of its content and point.* What I do have a problem with is the inherent hypocrisy that exists within the comment given who is making it. You see, it illustrates wonderfully everything that is wrong with identity-based politics.

If you're going to go down the route of championing the rights and equal treatments of social groups, whether it be based on gender, who you have sex with, or skin colour, then you really ought to be consistent.

For example, if you're going to champion women and fight against sexism, then being sexist towards men isn't really going to put your argument on the moral high ground. Likewise, if you've been listed as one of the "50 most powerful gay people in British politics" it's probably not a good idea to start slagging off straight people.

I doubt of course that such hypocritical dickheadness will result in any newspapers article calling for this particular councillor (also tipped as a future Cabinet minister) to resign or apologise for being heterophobic - mainly because there is no such thing as heterophobia just as it not possible for a white person to experience racism.

* UPDATE: Just so it's clear here, I don't think Wes Streeting should be apologising for being "nasty" to straight people because I do actually understand his sentiment. The issue is (a) what would be his reaction if you reversed the words and a Tory councillor said them, and (b) the act of doublethink required on Wes Streeting's part to make such a comment in the first place.

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Blogging has been light and will remain so...

Apologies for the lack of posts, the new role I mentioned a couple of months ago has now started in earnest so blogging is now taking very much a back seat whilst I get to grip with all sorts of Amazon cloudy type things.

However, if you're really bored and want some amusement I strongly advise reading the recent woes of Tim Ireland over at Bloggerheads and his battle with the Times Higher Education Supplement who seemingly decided to use the name "Bloggerheads" for a column or something.

It really chuckled me when I read it on the train the other day. Back in a month or so probably.