To find this article about Stephen Gately's death utterly vile and callous?

[BiteOfFun]

Quelle surprise- it's in the Daily Hate, and surely represents a new low? What a nasty piece of writing- shame on you, Jan Moir!

Really? You don't think that worrying about advertisers boycotting the Daily Fail is slightly hysterical? I do.

And you mentioned Mary Whitehouse. I have nothing but opprobrium for her views. She tried to prevent people from standing up for their rights to be heard. Which is all I'm trying to do. In a week where a man was kicked to death for being gay, I find your implication that you can lump my POV in with hers more than a tad offensive.

"...would you be happy if she were making the same allegations about black people? Or muslims? Or saying that all working mothers are slags who are shit mothers and likely to be unfaithful?"

No, I would not. But I'm not happy with what Moir implies about the homosexual community either.

But the key word there is implies.

Moir implies it very strongly indeed, but she does not, in point of fact, come straight out and declare that Gately is dead due to the depravity of his homosexual lifestyle.

If she can formulate an argument which is counter to the current accepted viewpoint - and stays within the limits of the law around not explicitly inciting hatred or stating lies (stating not implying) - then I support her right to make it. Be it homosexuals, Afro-Caribbeans or single parent families.

"..worrying about advertisers boycotting the Daily Fail.."

My apologies if I'm being slow here SCARYspicemonster, but I am not aware that anyone has worried about this fact. I think that everyone has been very positive about it.

I merely pointed out that it's no good chalking up a victory just yet as I am suspicious that it will come to nothing. Advertising revenue will be lost for a few weeks at the most, I fear.

She says: Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.

That reads to me like a statement of fact. Can you show me where she is implying rather than stating a fact? Because I can't see it.

"And you mentioned Mary Whitehouse... I find your implication that you can lump my POV in with hers more than a tad offensive."

SCARYspicemonster I think you're making an enormous convoluted leap of logic here.

I'm not lumpng your point of view in with Mary Whitehouse's. I merely pointed out that I support both your rights to voice your opinions.

I do not take any position that prevents the freedom of any other group from acting as it chooses as long as it does not impact on my freedom or those of any other group. That is explicitly not the aim of Mrs Whitehouse and Co and it's a bit disingenuous of you to suggest any link between her position and the 25,000 people who have signed up to the facebook campaign.

"She says "Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered."

That reads to me like a statement of fact. Can you show me where she is implying rather than stating a fact? Because I can't see it."

SCARYspicemonster, I suspect that Moir's defence will be that it is not "natural" for young men to die suddenly. She will say that she is using 'natural' in the sense that it is not 'usual' or 'common' without there being other circumstances at work.

I have never said that Moir is not sailing very close to the wind with what she says. I don't thnk that she could imply it any more strongly if she tried. But I think she is just on the right side of implying rather than stating.

SCARYspicemonster "I do not take any position that prevents the freedom of any other group from acting as it chooses as long as it does not impact on my freedom or those of any other group. That is explicitly not the aim of Mrs Whitehouse and Co and it's a bit disingenuous of you to suggest any link between her position and the 25,000 people who have signed up to the facebook campaign."

I deliberately mentioned Whitehouse because her starting point was - I suspect - the polar oposite to yours.

My point is not around what you oe she do or don't belive. My point is that you are both entitled to voice your views.

Her opinion is that lots of things she finds offensive should be censored. Her rationale is because this will protect the general (moral!) public.

Your opinion is that homophobic opinions should not be allowed to be published in the press. You rational is becuase this will protect a minority group which you feel needs defending.

Your views are very different. But your rationale is the same.

Yes but there is a difference between my POV which is that all groups should be free to have their POV heard and her which sought to silence whole swathes of the population. Moir is much more akin to Whitehouse than me IMO

interesting thread. apols to all of you for the hijack of the other one, btw.

like you say, notanumber, the interesting thing about whitehouse is that she was a teacher who genuinely thought that she was protecting the young girls that she taught from growing up 'too fast'. she felt they were quite overwhelmed by the sexual refs and general depravity that was (barely) present on tv in those days.

sometimes, looking at the world my dds are growing up in, i wonder if she was right... but of course think of what would not have been achieved under her moral code. this outrage at moir's homophobia, for one.

and i agree that she'll probably get away with 'natural' as in 'usual', because it is unusual and wasn't 'natural causes' in the sense of an old bloke dying in his bed at 90, even if whatever killed him was technically a natural event.

all groups? including moir, representing the homophobic section of society?

SCARYspicemonster - "...all groups should be free to have their POV heard..."

Racist groups? Homophobic groups?

Snap, Aitch!

She is a group which wishes to silence another one. Otherwise you're effectively saying there's no difference between the BNP and CCL. Or the right and the left. It's a specious argument.

Aitch - this blog explains my POV on the whole 'orchestration' thing much better than I did.

Apologies for missing out a few words in my previous post - I thought my position was pretty clear in my massively long post but obviously I have to proof every single one rather that expect people to read between the lines.

yeah, i know what you mean about the orchestration, you think that because it was organic then it gets a free pass from the definition of orchestration. i don't, because what that fails to mention is the pro forma letter and the addresses etc and no matter how blithely they showed up on that site, that was an organised move. but hey, we're not falling out over it, are we?

what did you miss out, i didn't get that, and am embarrassed to say i don't know what the ccl is.

But the pro forma letter was posted about 12 hours after the site was set up. And if we were really orchestrated, we would have had an idea of what to do after the PCC had said they would probably look into it. A bit shambolic tbh. Only occurred to me that if they had said they would look into it, then that still wasn't delivering the retraction. Doh

CCL - Campaign for Civil Liberties

i just think that it's either orchestrated or it isn't, tbh, and it was. it took your pal effort and organisation to set up his fb page, effort to send to his fb contacts, effort for them to send to theirs, effort for fry et al to tweet about it. and tbh fry is the big gay in charge of the internet.

but i also think that the orchestration issue was dwelt on faaaaaaaaaaar too long on the other thread tbh, as it's binary for me. it either was or wasn't orchestrated as a campaign, i don't care if we disagree on it. i don't think it's that big a deal, i'm more interested in the implications than anything else, whether or not we're all going to become our own single issue campaigners.

tee hee made me laugh

As has happened many time my dear Aitch, we shall have to agree to disagree

and... (has it happened many times?! i should pay more attention to these things. )

Many is a bit of an exaggeration. Two or three times. I'm not keeping count or anything

oh well, it would be a boring old place if we all agreed all of the time.

SCARYspicemonster perhaps I am missing something here. I cannot understand your affront in regard to the Mary Whitehouse comparison.

"She is a group which wishes to silence another one. Otherwise you're effectively saying there's no difference between the BNP and CCL. Or the right and the left. It's a specious argument."

That is not the arument though.

The argument is that the belifs of the group (be it BNP or CCL) are irrelevant. The point is that they should have equal rights to hold and to voice their beliefs.

Lets say that - in their crudest forms - you and Whitehouse hold the following opinions:

SCARYspicemonster = All groups (except those you disapprove of, including homophobes) should have the right to have their point of view heard.

Mary Whitehouse = All groups (except those she disapproves of, including homosexuals) should have the right to have their point of view heard.

You both are convinced that you are right. You both have passionate and reasoned arguments for your positions.

Why should you be allowed to state your opinion but Whitehouse should not?

Please note I am not saying that you and Whitehouse are the same because you have the same beliefs. I understand that these are - to some extent - polar.