Tuesday 9 October 2012

Ann Widdecombe calls herself a bigot

Oh dear. It appears the Widdecopter has flown herself into another power line, this time in attempting to defend her bigoted views on gay marriage. Bigoted? Surely that's the very word she set out to distance herself from? After all, Ann has made her views clear on both issues - on gay marriage itself, and on what qualifies someone - in her eyes - as a bigot:
"The real bigots, those who really deserve to be described as such, the real extremists, the real nasties, are those who believe that those who dissent from their views have no right to do so and that the state itself should silence them."
Fair enough. Except Ann's view is that "the complementarity of a man and a woman in a union open to procreation is unique and cannot be replicated by other unions." That straight marriage represents some kind of ideal. And she does have some semblance of a point - in her eyes, straight couples can have children, gay ones can't - that's what makes them 'unique.' Admittedly that's because her own party is doing everything they can to stop gay couples adopting or getting custody, but that's not important to Ann right now. What's important to Ann is that good old straight, heterosexual marriage is 'special.' Well she has the right to that opinion, as long as it remains just an opinion. The wonderful thing about opinions is that everyone can have a few. And as she rightly stated, the real bigotry comes when someone tries to silence the opinion of another just because they don't like it. Like say, by supporting the continued ban on one type of marriage because you think another is special. That's right Ann. You said that believing others have no right to their opinions is bigotry, and then continued on to state why gay people have no right to their opinion. After all, if the opinion that gay people should be allowed to marry was a valid one, then they would have the right to do so. If they have the right to an opinion, they have the right to marry - it's only the dissent of people who disagree with them that stops them from doing so. Then you said believing "that the state itself should silence" those opinions is bigotry, and then made your case for the continuation of a statute-enforced ban on gay marriage by the state. If they have a right to marry, and you want the state to ban them from doing so just because you / your religion don't agree with it, your own argument at the conference kicks in. Seems fairly clear cut to me. You just called yourself a bigot on public record. Nobody else did; you did it all by yourself.
sauce: Tory conference: Activist anger over gay marriage

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