Tom Daley's In Love ...

[amateur51]

I didn't say it was - I mentioned all the other kinds of discrimination that scarcely get a mention here. And if they ALL got mentioned with the same regularity they would flood the forum. I give all credit to amateur for trying to raise matters of women's rights as well, but on the whole it's not a topic that women want to discuss HERE.

The people who complain about the presence of political so-called debate aren't bigots - they take the same viewabout politics in general on THIS forum. But just as people are called 'bigots' if they say they don't listen to Radio 3 to hear three weeks of music from the cinema blockbusters, so they don't expect people who post here to spend most of their time pretending to put all the injustices of the world to rights.

The alternative to putting contentious debate - whether it's about wearing poppies or religion or anything else - down here is to close the board altogether, and ban all political and religious topics as a matter of House Rules.

The Death of Nelson Mandela is proving to be contentious (well the assessment of his life & work is, surprisingly) but he's still breathing fresh air. I'm glad about that but I wonder what it will it take for that thread to join us down here.

I, and others, also try to raise issues around poverty, benefits, (un)employment, housing and the bankers, disability, for example. The LGBT stuff is woven in with this. As a gay man I can't avoid mentioning it when a news item like Tom Daley occurs.

The slogan of the early HIV/AIDS self-help movement ACTUP was Silence = Death. How right that proved to be.

Apologies for cross-posting re Nelson Mandela with Barbs.

[french frank]

Points taken, amateur - you have been a sturdy 'rights activist'. As I was getting lunch, I was thinking about where threads like the death of Mandela should fall - which one would have hoped would have had totally supportive posts, or silence. But this is the internet.

But I have no more time (or patience) to spend on this - as those who have cared enough to register their support for FoR3 will realise atm. I've tried very hard not to say this, but I've accepted the resignations of several people on the 'non-liberal' side (the latest a couple of days ago) - and banned two or three of them. I've never taken action against those on the 'liberal' side - 'my side'. So, anyone who feels the community and rules here are illiberal, bigoted or unfair, just offer offer your resignation and go.

[teamsaint]

But if those issues are to be highlighted then they ought to be on the P&CA board, just as all other political subjects are. Why should threads about economic inequality and the suffering of millions under austerity programmes be required to be discussed on this board and not issues of LBGT discrimination - surely the former are just as important? It is because ff has decided, understandably so, that such threads have given rise to rancorous discussion of a kind which she does not want associated with her forum - she never intended it to be one for political discussion. She has made that perfectly clear and it is her forum, her prerogative to operate it as she wishes. I think she's right in this matter and sympathise with her predicament in that the platform she provides for free discussion is all too frequently abused in the way political discussions are conducted. If you are unhappy with this state of affairs there are surely other forums on which such points can be raised.

and with a potentially much bigger readership and effect.

[Ferretfancy]

Some people here seem to be saying " I don't mind what they do, as long as they don't do it in the streets and scare the horses "

[Mr Pee]

I completely disagree and I think ff has been unjustly maligned here.

This thread is not about discrimination, or indeed any issue of gay rights, equality, persecution etc and despite its purported connection with the Britten/Pears situation, the latter was light years away from what we have now. Britten and Pears spent most of their relationship years in a time when homosexuality was illegal, and even after its legalisation there remained a social stigma. Now we have openly gay figures in many areas of public life, people whose sexual orientation is publicly recognised and accepted. Among them are British sportsmen, people like Justin Fashanu (now deceased), Gareth Thomas, Steven Davies, Nicola Adams. The tabloids have picked up on the story not because it is a story about gay rights but because it is a revelation about a sporting celebrity's private life: it is more of a celebrity story than a "gay" story or a milestone on the road to changing attitudes about LBGT issues. If every time a public figure comes out as gay it is presented as a noteworthy story then how can being gay ever become normal, unnewsworthy? Arguably to highlight it is simply an encouragement to bigotry.

I think there are important issues about gay rights, equality, persecution which do need to be aired and some of them have been on this board. But I don't think this is one of them, and I think raising it on Platform 3 of the main forum risked provocation. It was surely in (correctly) foreseeing the probability of wrangling and exchange of insults that ff moved it to this board and in doing so has attracted a load of flak herself. She has shown far greater tolerance than some of those who preach toleration here, and I'm surprised in some ways that she bothers to carry on in a situation in which she cannot win.

Very well put, Aeolium. The text I have highlighted in particular, but I agree with your whole post.

[eighthobstruction]

I completely disagree and I think ff has been unjustly maligned here.

This thread is not about discrimination, or indeed any issue of gay rights, equality, persecution etc and despite its purported connection with the Britten/Pears situation, the latter was light years away from what we have now. Britten and Pears spent most of their relationship years in a time when homosexuality was illegal, and even after its legalisation there remained a social stigma. Now we have openly gay figures in many areas of public life, people whose sexual orientation is publicly recognised and accepted. Among them are British sportsmen, people like Justin Fashanu (now deceased), Gareth Thomas, Steven Davies, Nicola Adams. The tabloids have picked up on the story not because it is a story about gay rights but because it is a revelation about a sporting celebrity's private life: it is more of a celebrity story than a "gay" story or a milestone on the road to changing attitudes about LBGT issues. If every time a public figure comes out as gay it is presented as a noteworthy story then how can being gay ever become normal, unnewsworthy? Arguably to highlight it is simply an encouragement to bigotry.

I think there are important issues about gay rights, equality, persecution which do need to be aired and some of them have been on this board. But I don't think this is one of them, and I think raising it on Platform 3 of the main forum risked provocation. It was surely in (correctly) foreseeing the probability of wrangling and exchange of insults that ff moved it to this board and in doing so has attracted a load of flak herself. She has shown far greater tolerance than some of those who preach toleration here, and I'm surprised in some ways that she bothers to carry on in a situation in which she cannot win.

Completely agree aeolium....I cannot believe this attack on ff has been launched....

[Barbirollians]

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear .

I suggest some of the posters on here never come across gay homeless teenagers or other gay people still suffering from discrimination - I do - perhaps if they did they might understand .

[Ferretfancy]

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear .

I suggest some of the posters on here never come across gay homeless teenagers or other gay people still suffering from discrimination - I do - perhaps if they did they might understand .

The manager of London's Gay's the Word bookshop in Marchmont street once told me that he and his staff often have to help young people who come into the shop asking for advice, because they don't know where to turn and have often been abandoned by their families. All this still happening in our capitol city.

[aeolium]

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear .

I suggest some of the posters on here never come across gay homeless teenagers or other gay people still suffering from discrimination - I do - perhaps if they did they might understand .

And discussing the subject on Platform 3 rather than the P&CA board of a R3 music forum is going to make that vital difference to those people?

Not so long ago you made this comment in a thread about drugs and arguments for decriminalisation: "Can this be transferred to politics and current affairs ? I don't see why one should have to read nonsense about liberal commentariats In platform 3 " Clearly you are not averse to political threads being dumped in the P&CA board when they don't concern you.

The main reason that I got involved in this thread was because I did not like ff being attacked for moving the thread to the P&CA board when she had made her reasons for setting up this area absolutely clear. She didn't want contentious threads disfigured by name-calling and ad hominem attacks to contaminate the main forum and put off those wanting to discuss the subjects for which the forum was principally created. She has repeated here that such threads have cost FoR3 members. Most of those posting on the forum have accepted this reasoning yet some want, contrary to ff's clear intentions, to reserve a privileged area in the main forum for discussing discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. I said I thought this was pointlessly provocative and creates the kind of hassle that ff really does not need. I still think that.

[Barbirollians]

And discussing the subject on Platform 3 rather than the P&CA board of a R3 music forum is going to make that vital difference to those people?

Not so long ago you made this comment in a thread about drugs and arguments for decriminalisation: "Can this be transferred to politics and current affairs ? I don't see why one should have to read nonsense about liberal commentariats In platform 3 " Clearly you are not averse to political threads being dumped in the P&CA board when they don't concern you.

The main reason that I got involved in this thread was because I did not like ff being attacked for moving the thread to the P&CA board when she had made her reasons for setting up this area absolutely clear. She didn't want contentious threads disfigured by name-calling and ad hominem attacks to contaminate the main forum and put off those wanting to discuss the subjects for which the forum was principally created. She has repeated here that such threads have cost FoR3 members. Most of those posting on the forum have accepted this reasoning yet some want, contrary to ff's clear intentions, to reserve a privileged area in the main forum for discussing discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. I said I thought this was pointlessly provocative and creates the kind of hassle that ff really does not need. I still think that.

One is overtly political ( liberal commentariat) the other concerns unlawful discrimination and a question in society . I should have thought being entirely agreed with by Mr Pee might make anyone reconsider their posting . Indeed, your very justification that such matters lose members is a very invitation to appease bigotry . Generally the Mr Pees and others make these threads contentious by the expression of bigoted views .

[ahinton]

Leaving aside every other aspect of all of these arguments, could we please all just stop for one moment - or, better still, several of them - to consider the position in which FF is placed because some of us have placed her there and then think about what we'd like to happen here. FF's rôle is an unenviable one and I do think that some of us risk making it harder still (and perhaps, however inadvertently and unwittingly, I've been one of them de temps en temps).

A time to stop and reflect, perhaps? And, if indeed we do so, let's also just think for a moment about which of us would relish assuming her rôle here...

[Flosshilde]

name-calling and ad hominem attacks

& who was primarily responsible for that? The Mr Pees, Scotties, Inspectors & Ovens, who primarily attack the post, & resort to abuse rather than discussion or argument.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I should have thought being entirely agreed with by Mr Pee might make anyone reconsider their posting . Indeed, your very justification that such matters lose members is a very invitation to appease bigotry . Generally the Mr Pees and others make these threads contentious by the expression of bigoted views .

That is not a rational argument. It's a bit like a child who agrees wit what his/her friends says, without actually thinking about it. And the word "bigoted" is open to interpretation, depending upon an individual's point of view. It's more bigoted to dismiss something just because Mr Pee says it than to question the perceived relentless use of the Radio 3 Forum to press certain pet issues. I was the one who brought this up in the first place - not Mr Pee and not ff. I have friends who are gay, and we sometimes discuss it. But never do we get so highly strung about it as happens do often here.

[ahinton]

That is not a rational argument. It's a bit like a child who agrees wit what his/her friends says, without actually thinking about it. And the word "bigoted" is open to interpretation, depending upon an individual's point of view. It's more bigoted to dismiss something just because Mr Pee says it than to question the perceived relentless use of the Radio 3 Forum to press certain pet issues. I was the one who brought this up in the first place - not Mr Pee and not ff. I have friends who are gay, and we sometimes discuss it. But never do we get so highly strung about it as happens do often here.

And indeed we shouldn't - at least not in terms of "gayness" in itself; the persecution and other shortcomings in treatment of the LGBTI communty in this or that country is indeed a matter meriting serious debate, but the mere membership of that community is simply a fact and therefore not itself a matter that ought or needs to be up for discussion and accordingly discussed, in my view.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

We are all members of one community. We may differ in our preferences/tastes/outlooks, but we should never feel divided, or ghettoised.