Sunday, April 04, 2010

Oblatrating Orwellian obloquy...

The excellent Boatang and Demetriou blog calls it a red herring; I call it disgraceful lying desperation to try to counter several set-backs to Labour's re-elecetion attempt. Demetriou says

"What I find terrifying is that the law is now there (with future laws to come under Labour) to criminalise people for making free choices out of their own consciences and motives. Private owners are told what they can and can't do by the State, under the guise of 'equality'. The logic, or lack of it, inherent in this Orwellian legal development makes the blood chill."

Not only is the Guardian headline - "Secret tape reveals Tory backing for ban on gays" [headline]- totally misleading (intentionally so: Toby Helm has a history of this) and now they backed it up with an equally misleading photo. Within two hours there were going on for 500 tweets and 200 comments; now approaching 500 comments and 800 tweets, manna to the loyal labour lickspittles, desperate for some news to bash the Tories with: the irony of their own prejudices, clearly apparent in hundreds of the comments, is lost on them. Of course the usual suspects flock to the scene: Chris Huhne said "Chris Grayling's plan would allow discrimination to thrive"...his "plan" FFS!

Iain Dale makes some sensible comments, disagreeing with Chris Grayling (the Conservative in question! If David Cameron had a '3 strikes and your out' policy poor Chris would be "just an MP"), but in reality I have to agree entirely, as did Demetriou, with Roger Thornhill (commenting on Iain's blogpost); I hope he doesn't mind me posting part of it here:

"What you are basically saying is someone has no right of refusal.

If someone turns up for business not of the business owner's liking, you are saying they must be forced to do business with them. That is absurd, authoritarian, totalitarian. It makes the individual lose the right of self determination. A business becomes just a cog at the whim of the state, of thought police and the mob.

You are tramping over not just property rights but the freedom of association, the freedom of self determination."

Looking at/listening to what Grayling actually said (something beyond most of the Guardian readers): "I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences," he said. "I personally always took the view that, if you look at the case of should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from a hotel, I took the view that if it's a question of somebody who's doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn't come into their own home."

He said he was looking at being "sensitive to the genuinely held principles of faith groups" but was not implying or suggesting any change in the law (that he supported!) [So fuck off Toby Helm.]

I really see nothing wrong with that and I feel he was just supporting this particular Christain's viewpoint but it does show what a horrendous future awaits when more and more of this equality law bullshit gets to rule over common sense. And of course the equality laws will hit ALL, from a few years ago: "gay inns protest anti-bias law".

Update: More from Grayling: "Any suggestion that I am against gay rights is wholly wrong - it is a matter of record that I voted for civil partnerships. I also voted in favour of the legislation that prohibited bed and breakfast owners from discriminating against gay people. However, this is a difficult area and on Wednesday I made comments which reflected my view that we must be sensitive to the genuinely held principles of faith groups in this country. But the law is now clear on this issue, I am happy with it and would not wish to see it changed."

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2 comments:

John Demetriou said...

Sweet post dude, and thanks for the 'hat tip'.

Regards

JD

Span Ows said...

Thanks for the comment! The comment thread over at the Guardian is still going strong; I suspect a reporter will write a piece tonight or tomorrow to give the story legs and keep it chugging along.