Musical Homophobia - or The Homophobia Histories

[jean]

Meanwhile, back in the UK:

The sex-education policies of dozens of schools are to be urgently investigated by the Government after the institutions were accused of returning to the anti-gay prejudice of the 1980s.

Ministers, Opposition MPs and gay rights activists united to express anger and alarm over the disclosure that academies across the country had adopted policy statements that echoed the notorious Section 28 brought in by Margaret Thatcher 25 years ago.

The legislation, which was overturned by the Blair government, banned teachers in lessons from “intentionally promoting” homosexuality, a form of words that critics denounced for discriminating against gay pupils.

Campaigners have identified more than 40 schools across the country that stress in their sex-education guidelines that governors will not allow teachers to “promote” homosexuality, or are ambiguous on the issue...

[jean]

...the problem with terms as "normal" and "normalcy" "abnormal" or especially the scowling "not normal", is their explicit or strongly implied judgemental, pejorative undertone.

And anyone who wants to argue that their use of the term is purely a matter of statistics needs to ask themselves why they don't refer to, say, red-haired people as 'not normal'.

[Richard Tarleton]

Funny how these threads trigger different lines of thought. I've been thinking that I know what a skylark looks like and how it sounds, but I'm not sure I could tell a male one from a female. Do only the males sing?

Ornithological footnote:
Male and female skylarks inseparable in the field, except by behaviour. As with nearly all species only males sing, though both skylark sexes utter a range of chirrupy vocalisations.

Birdsong in most species principally a territorial activity, to advertise ownership of a territory to other males of the same species. Attracting females generally a secondary function, though of course there are exceptions - reed and sedge warblers, for example, where the males tend to arrive first on migration and sing to attract females. An exception to the "females don't sing" rule is the robin, where females hold feeding territories (and sing to defend them) during the winter.

With birds, as with people, nature fascinating in its variety. The red-necked phalarope is monogamous or serially polyandrous, the female playing no part in incubation or caring for the young :smiley: . Dunnocks go in for threesomes :yikes:

[scottycelt]

"Alien" to whom and on what grounds? In what terms can a "gay rights culture" (whatever that is) be seen as having been "imposed" by or upon anyone? Who are "the Russian people"? and are you suggesting that you believe them all to think alike on this or any other issue? On what evidence do you deduce that the social and legal recognition of homosexuality is "against the will" of all Russians?

a) Alien to the Russian people ... or at least the overwhelming majority (according to all polls)
b) Well, that's more or less what I've been asking!
c) 1) Humans who live in Russia ... 2) No
d) I've never said ALL Russians ... see a)

The implied allegation that all Russians - not just that country's lawmakers - are fervently anti-homosexual and believe that all homosexuals should be treated as second-class citizens and have inferior rights under the law of the land seems to me to be as absurd and unfounded as it is offensive.

Well you might be well advised to immediately cease to be so easily offended because it was you that uttered these absurd and unfounded words not me! I have simply asked a few pertinent questions whether it is right for the liberal West to dictate to Russia ... where tradition values are much stronger ... what sort of society it should build for the future. It might be anathema to you but not everyone there shares your view that homosexual practice should be on the same par as its vastly more common heterosexual counterpart. That seems to me to be a perfectly valid and fair question no matter which side of the argument one happens to be on. Are you saying that the overwhelming view of the humans who live in Russia should be ignored and that the minority view should triumph simply because some in the West say it should?

Can you confirm (in plain English) that's what you mean?

[Richard Barrett]

when the good Professor Dawkins argues a point to promote his self-confessed detestation of religious belief, others have quite often discovered that the very opposite turns out to be true?

It will I hope be remembered that Richard Dawkins's life's work has not in the first instance been concerned with religion but with genetics, in which scientific discipline he is one of the handful of most important thinkers there's ever been. I say that because his scientific work is not concerned with "arguing points" but with the logical construction of theories and the experimental/observational means to test them.

The existence of homosexual behaviour in other species would have to have some kind of evolutionary explanation even if in practice it's difficult or impossible to work out what it might have been; in the human species, on the other hand, the factors which affect what Jayne calls "sexual variation" will be much more complex, and IMO not reducible to genetics, or to cultural influences, or to any other single factor. Dawkins comments that if there is a gene found more often in gay people that doesn't mean it's a "gene for homosexuality" - it may predispose someone in that direction under present social and cultural conditions, but its presence in the gene pool may originally have been for some other reason which is lost in envoronmental influences of the deep past.

Whether one thinks of homosexuality as "normal", and indeed the very use of the word "normal" in this kind of context, will depend very much on one's political outlook of course, even if one claims to be "politically neutral" which is itself a political outlook. If it's not "normal" to be gay then presumably by the same token it's not "normal" to be Jewish. Substitute "Jewish" for "gay" in some of the rhetoric of this thread and see if you're happy about the way you sound.

[Anna]

Dunnocks go in for threesomes :yikes:

Well, I assume they are all consenting adult dunnocks?
And some people are bi-sexual, some are homosexual and some are heterosexual. It's all perfectly normal. I do fail to understand why people cannot grasp it's the way you are born, like having red or blonde hair or blue or brown eyes. You are what you am, you is what you is.**
** Zappa I have probably mucked the quote up.

[amateur51]

I thought Sandy Powell was back in the radio only days ams. Was he the man who said "Can you hearme,mother?"

That's the chap, salymap :ok:

He used to do a wonderful incompetent vent routine wearing a ginormous errant moustache, and another one as an incompetent magician.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV-AToMaNhc

Perhaps it was Stanley Holloway swapping his hats? :whistle:

[Boilk]

And anyone who wants to argue that their use of the term is purely a matter of statistics needs to ask themselves why they don't refer to, say, red-haired people as 'not normal'.

Rather unhelpful response. One rarely, if ever, refers to anything as 'not normal' (or 'normal') unless the context is clear, i.e. the object/activity being qualified is first openly acknowledged or clearly implicit in the conversation.

You wouldn't say, out of the blue, that a red-haired person is "not normal" without a prior acknowledgement you're talking about hair colour vis-à-vis hair colour in the wider population. But as JLW has stated, the problem with "normal" / "not normal", is the perceived negative undertone. Sometimes it may be more than a perception, as negativity may be intended by the mis-use of the word 'normal'. But yes, some people's use of the term is primarily statistical, and knowing how to use language properly is nothing to apologise for.

[amateur51]

Tommy Cooper, surely. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKblP3_EkM0

Brilliant Richard Barrett - many thanks

[umslopogaas]

#153 Richard Tarleton, "...both skylark sexes utter a range of chirpy vocalisations." In the case of the females, presumably the skylark equivalent of "Well HELLO, big boy, is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?"

[jean]

Rather unhelpful response.

What did you think of this one?

Any more 'helpful' than mine?

Whether one thinks of homosexuality as "normal", and indeed the very use of the word "normal" in this kind of context, will depend very much on one's political outlook of course, even if one claims to be "politically neutral" which is itself a political outlook. If it's not "normal" to be gay then presumably by the same token it's not "normal" to be Jewish. Substitute "Jewish" for "gay" in some of the rhetoric of this thread and see if you're happy about the way you sound.

[Mary Chambers]

And anyone who wants to argue that their use of the term is purely a matter of statistics needs to ask themselves why they don't refer to, say, red-haired people as 'not normal'.

"Oh, they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair", as Housman so aptly and poignantly commented.

[Anna]

"Oh, they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair", as Housman so aptly and poignantly commented.

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time 'twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.

Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they've pulled the beggar's hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they're haling him to justice for the colour of his hair.

Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet
And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair.

[Padraig]

Oh yes, red hair is a handy analogy in the context. 'Ginger snap a penny bap' etc etc. How we were persecuted for something that wasn't our fault etc etc.
Thing is, I still have plenty of hair, but the red has grown out. I could even pass as normal.
Padraig Ruadh

[scottycelt]

It will I hope be remembered that Richard Dawkins's life's work has not in the first instance been concerned with religion but with genetics, in which scientific discipline he is one of the handful of most important thinkers there's ever been. I say that because his scientific work is not concerned with "arguing points" but with the logical construction of theories and the experimental/observational means to test them.

The existence of homosexual behaviour in other species would have to have some kind of evolutionary explanation even if in practice it's difficult or impossible to work out what it might have been; in the human species, on the other hand, the factors which affect what Jayne calls "sexual variation" will be much more complex, and IMO not reducible to genetics, or to cultural influences, or to any other single factor. Dawkins comments that if there is a gene found more often in gay people that doesn't mean it's a "gene for homosexuality" - it may predispose someone in that direction under present social and cultural conditions, but its presence in the gene pool may originally have been for some other reason which is lost in envoronmental influences of the deep past.

Whether one thinks of homosexuality as "normal", and indeed the very use of the word "normal" in this kind of context, will depend very much on one's political outlook of course, even if one claims to be "politically neutral" which is itself a political outlook. If it's not "normal" to be gay then presumably by the same token it's not "normal" to be Jewish. Substitute "Jewish" for "gay" in some of the rhetoric of this thread and see if you're happy about the way you sound.

I don't think any of the above actually answers the question I asked, and I only referred to Dawkins' attitude to religious belief in any case. I'm certainly in no position to doubt his scientific credentials.

Your last sentence is your usual and highly unattractive trick of casting aspersions about those who simply do not share your views. I've never used the word 'normal', though in the sense that homosexuality is much less common than heterosexuality I can't see the problem with saying that heterosexuality is the norm, and therefore 'normal'. However much you may tear your hair out over it (if you have any left) that simply happens to be true.

I have taken great care not to cause offence unnecessarily by my use of language and I apologise to any member if I have inadvertently done so.

Unfortunately there is very little I can do about the very few who are determined to find 'offence' where none actually exists or was ever intended.