To worry about Kate Forbes becoming first minister

[Creatine11]

Abortion and LGBT rights have been something that have largely not been part of political debate for at least the last 10 years. Gay marriage was enacted in 2014 and was broadly supported. The last serious challenge to abortion rights was at the start of the coalition government with Nadine Dorries et all. However, broadly gay rights and abortion rights have been settled issues- it has almost been taboo for politicians to oppose them. Certainly, there hasn’t been any serious possibility over the last decade (at least) of any rowing back on abortion, gay marriage, gay adoption, divorce law etc.

However, it is clear that in the heart of hearts of Forbes she disagrees with all these things due to her beliefs as an evangelical Christian. By all accounts she was very competent as a minister and has been a good MSP. However, as first minister she will be a figurehead for Scotland as well as setting the tone for policy and political discourse. Also, unlike Rees-Mogg and DUP types, Kate Forbes seems like an otherwise sensible, competent, ‘normal’ politician.

My concern is Forbes being the leader of Scotland could normalise her views on these issues. While I don’t believe abortion or gay marriage face immediate threat, if it’s brought into mainstream politics it will become a party political issue and may well shift public opinion, especially given the current culture war. Politicians, journalists, activists and others who have held these views quietly may be emboldened to launch a new campaign against abortion, LGBT rights or some other issue. I don’t know this would necessarily just be limited to Scotland as Nicola Sturgeon and her policies had a very high profile in the rest of the UK and influenced policy.

Aibu to worry about Kate Forbes becoming SNP leader and first minister?

@Eyerollcentral

Oh dear.

Any insults about intellectual capacity aren't doing your cause any favours

Its a genuine question. It’s incredible given your posting on this thread that you wound up another mind boggling post with the statement is the indoctrination that gets me. You are the most indoctrinated person on the thread.

@Eyerollcentral

It is not a genuine question. Don't be daft. It wasn't even a question

Im not indoctrinated in anything.

I think religious beliefs on the whole are harmful. I'd prefer if they weren't allowed to dictate laws and policy.

Where or who do you think indoctrinated me with this belief?

No it is a genuine question. I cannot believe that any reasonably intelligent person who has had the benefit of a reasonable education could come out with your comments about people with religious beliefs in politics. Your frame of reference appears to stretch only as wide as gay marriage and abortion. ‘I think religious beliefs on the whole are harmful. I'd prefer if they weren't allowed to dictate laws and policy’ you think the central beliefs of Christianity - love god and love your neighbour as yourself - are incredibly harmful. Amazing. You seem to have a very limited understanding of religion.

You know, if you are going to try to come across and smug and patronising it helps to approach it from a position of actually being right.

It's not difficult to understand that denying a set of people access to a certain right but giving them one which is the same but different is still discriminatory.

It's basically saying "Yes, you should have equal rights so here is something which is sort of the same but we still don't think you are worthy of the same recognition as everyone else".

If you can't see the problem with that then maybe you should drop the facade of intellectual superiority you are trying and very much failing to present

And yet you can’t actually come up with another real life example and the previous poster spent her evening cooking up a deeply offensive racist scenario in her head to try and own me (and failed).

@Eyerollcentral

You know most research shows that atheists are better at critical thinking and tend to be more intelligent than religious people?

I didn't say all religious beliefs were incrediblly harmful. I said on the whole, they tend to be.

Some are not at harmful however they can't be separated from the ones they are and religions hold great power in society.

But anyway. I suppose attacking my level of intelligence saves you from actually being able to counter my point.

I think you will find that the only politicians who have said that “ you must believe what I believe in “ are Nicola Sturgeon , Patrick Harvie et al who had said that you must believe a man is a woman if he says so.

And we will remove women and children’s rights to save spaces and same sex intimate care.

And we will charge you with a hate crime offence if you don’t agree.

Far more dangerous in most people’s eyes than , for example , a Jewish politician who says “ I don’t eat pork as it’s against my religion but I have no intention of bringing in laws to stop others eating pork”.

Show me the study and show me the sample size or don’t bother.
Nonsense again: ‘Some are not at harmful however they can't be separated from the ones they are and religions hold great power in society.’ Super liberal to ban anyone who has a religious faith from politics. Incredible. You don’t see how prejudiced that is?

Of course my scenario wouldn’t happen. As you said yourself there are robust protections against that sort of discrimination.

Only problem for your wider argument is that it concedes that equal terms but different names without justification is discriminatory.

So now that we both agree that it would be discriminatory, can we get back to the issue which is your claim that ‘separate but equal’ isn’t discriminatory when it comes to marriage rights for gay couples but it is when it comes to race?

@PearsOfWisdom

But that's not what we are comparing.

Kate Forbes isn't saying I believe being gay is a sin (or whatever her belief is) but Ill keep that belief to my self.

She's saying she would have voted against gay marriage. She would have actively used her beliefs to discriminate against gay people.

But yet again the point here is that Kate Forbes has explicitly stated that she would have imposed her views on others if she had been an MSP when marriage equality was being passed.

What examples do you need to get this really very, very simple idea through your head?

Equality means exactly that. Equal. The idea of marriage comes with a huge emotional weight, people get married because they want to be married in an emotional sense as much as it is down to the legalities. By denying certain people access to that you are stating that their relationships are different - inferior - than others.

I can bust out some crayons if this is still a struggle for you.

Do you see how illiberal your position is? I haven’t agreed with your nonsense scenario or the convoluted means by which you have tried to make it an example of discrimination. I haven’t agreed with anything you have said but you are trying to insist that I have. I have said time and again if you equal rights show me the discrimination. Your response was to make up a racist scenario. Black people don’t exist to be props in your discrimination fantasies. It’s mind boggling you cannot recognise how offensive that is.
If you believe separate but equal is discriminatory explain why without the reference to made up horror stories. Calling something the same by a different name is unlikely to satisfy the threshold for something being classed as discriminatory.

@Eyerollcentral

First hit on Google. I'm sure there's quite a lot more.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5742220/

Is it prejudice to not want what you view has harmful beliefs to affect laws and policy?

Im not sure it is. I don't want to remove the right to practice religion. I just don't want to be forced to live by their rules

Really? You can’t think of any real life examples of ‘separate but equal’?

You need to be told, for example, that in the US south had the right to do many of the same things as white people - but they had to do it separately.

I expect you’d have been claiming that it wasn’t discriminatory because black kids could go to school - just not the white kids’ school.

Lol you must be the real wit of your parties…

The State cannot control what people think. The state provided an equal mechanism to allow gay couples to have their relationship recognised and provide them with legal rights. It is equal to marriage.

Kate would have voted against it, this would only be the imposed view if more than 50% of the other MSP's had voted the same way, otherwise it would be her vote on a motion that went the other way, just like any other vote on anything else,
it happens all the time MP's and MSP's vote for or against things but once bill is passed they accept it is now the law which ever way they voted
it rarely happens that a new government immediately revokes all bills passed by the previous government even the ones they themselves voted against
saying kate would not represent gay people is logically the same as the reverse that someone was in favour of gay marriage would not represent those against it
the same would be true of kate's views on nuclear weapons , poverty, etc

The state doesn't need to control what people think.

It just needs to give them access to the same rights regardess of gender, race, sexuality etc. If they don't, that is by definition discriminatory and if you support it you are by definition a bigot.

You are making the argument dear, it’s not for me to come up with them for you. You are using black people and their fight against discrimination as a prop again. Don’t do that. I suspect I know a great deal more at first hand about actual discrimination, the kind that affects the course of your life and your children’s lives, than you do. You don’t actually need to tell me anything about discrimination, I’ve lived it.

And giving certain people access to a right which is the same as another right but called something different, is, very obvious, not equal.

If it was, you wouldn't need two names for it, now would you.

It's exactly the same as blacks only buses and blacks only water fountains. Try to argue otherwise, go on.

Civil partnership = marriage. What rights are being excluded - not feelings, what rights?

I think you’re missing the point.

She has confirmed that if she had the opportunity she would have used what power she has to implement her religious view.

Repealing gay marriage is unlikely to be on the agenda but what about the next issue which raises issues for her religious views? What happens if some extremist tries to ban drag or reintroduce section 28? Will her religious views also mean she supports those things?

If they are exactly the same why then do we need 2 names for it?

The answer being, of course, is that enough bigots didn't like the idea of gay people being married that the clumsy, ill-advised "same but different" concept of civil partnerships was adopted.

@Eyerollcentral

Are you actually arguing that gay people have never faced discrimination?

Like, seriously?

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