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I don't do political correctness, we make too much of language and we beat up on people for the mildest of infractions. But.
There's always a but...
Roger Helmer, UKIP's candidate in the forthcoming Newark by-election and an MEP for the East Midlands thinks 'homophobia' is a weasel word. And maybe it's a lazy construction, an invented word. Perhaps we could think up some better construction to describe hating gay folk because they're gay.
But it's the word - however recently invented - that we've got. So when some poor teenager gets beaten up at school because they think he's 'gay'?
That's homophobia.
And when some lads shout 'pervert' at Mary and her girlfriend as they go about their everyday business?
That's homophobia.
Or there's the weird people who think being gay can be cured. As if we should want a cure?
That's homophobia.
I don't think that gay people want special privileges or advantage - just to get on with living their lives without the likes of Roger Helmer making out that they're 'odd'. And saying they can't have the things we have because they're 'odd'.
Homophobia isn't a weasel word, it describes how some people - the ones Roger Helmer is an apologist for - want to treat gay folk as weirdos and perverts.
It's one of the many reasons why - for all my Euroscepticism - I could never support UKIP.
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2 comments:
The point is that all the "phobic" terms are now so common place and bandied around willy-nilly in inappropriate context and used simply to shut people up without debate that they have lost their deserved impact.
Is that because UKIP has homophobic policies, or tolerates homophobic members?
If it's the latter, how do you vote Tory?
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