Stonewall – evil or stupid?

[MsGrumpytrousers]

Just looking at the completely idiotic tweets Stonewall have made about the 'gay cake' case, where they've managed to completely misunderstand the implications.

"Today’s decision by the European Court of Human Rights is a backwards step for equality. Human rights belong to people, not businesses.
No business should discriminate against their customers, and no discriminatory behaviour should be held up by equality law. Today’s decision leaves the door open for legal uncertainty across the UK and causes continued unease for our communities.
Our thoughts are with Gareth Lee [they know he hasn't DIED, right? He just had to walk to a different bakery to get his cake iced?], who deserved more support from the European Courts after seven years of working towards equality.
At Stonewall, we will continue to work with our partners, the TRPNI, to address the implications of this judgement for all lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer communities.

They've got about two hundred replies pointing out that the ruling isn't about refusing to serve a gay man, it's about refusing to ice a cake with a slogan that goes against your beliefs, and it's exactly the same as if Gareth was a baker and someone had asked him to ice a cake to say "Gay men are perverts".

So is it that Stonewall are stupid? They've done so much harm that I assumed they must be evil. Or are they just so misguided they can't think straight?

Stonewall had gone stupid.

Stonewall thinks a moral compass is an evil heterosexual tool.
So anything the moral compass points to must be evil.
They can't perceive nuance anymore because of hard stances.

Just plain stupid.

Stonewall think they are the noble little hobbits, struggling against corruption to reach Mordor.

But really, they are Boromir.

The really awful thing in all of this is that there are actually positive things they could do with their money for the trans community. They could fund support services for trans ppl, they could fund refuges, they could put money into third spaces but they don’t. There is good that they could go but they eschew that in favour of steam rolling over womens rights

They are very intentionally trying to give the government and all the organisations with any power the impression that they speak on behalf of ALL LGBT+ people. As opposed to speaking only for one political extremist position of TQ+ politics and excluding all LGBT+ people who do not share those views. By giving this impression they are able to steer policy in the way of their political agenda. Which is flat out homophobic and gynephobic as well as misogynist.

This is why they are so frantically trying to get rid of the LGBA. Another political voice representing LGBT+ with a different message and sharing that Stonewall emphatically do not speak for all LGBT+ people is disastrous for Stonewall.

Pernicious. That word keeps coming to mind.

All of the above.

Stonewall's approach seem to have become that they will back any LGBTQ+ person no matter what the issue or what the person has done. Rather than stopping to think about whether it is justified or not or whether there would be a negative effect on other categories of people. There's no nuance or critical thinking.

Reminds me of an argument I had with a friend. I posted in our WhatsApp chat that a certain misogynist was being misogynist on Twitter again. She responded with "is he not that gay leftie guy who got beaten up for being gay?"

And that was her whole argument. I posted several misogynistic articles he had written as proof. But no, she implied it was homophobic to think he is a misogynistic wanker because he's gay and because he was "on the left" so then he couldn't possibly just be a misogynist little wanker.

Everything seems to come down to tribes these days. Doesn't matter what someone does, support or not depends on what tribe they are in.

@Rainbowshit

Stonewall's approach seem to have become that they will back any LGBTQ+ person no matter what the issue or what the person has done. Rather than stopping to think about whether it is justified or not or whether there would be a negative effect on other categories of people. There's no nuance or critical thinking.

Reminds me of an argument I had with a friend. I posted in our WhatsApp chat that a certain misogynist was being misogynist on Twitter again. She responded with "is he not that gay leftie guy who got beaten up for being gay?"

And that was her whole argument. I posted several misogynistic articles he had written as proof. But no, she implied it was homophobic to think he is a misogynistic wanker because he's gay and because he was "on the left" so then he couldn't possibly just be a misogynist little wanker.

Everything seems to come down to tribes these days. Doesn't matter what someone does, support or not depends on what tribe they are in.

They emphatically will not back any LGBT+ people who wish to be homosexual, to know what sex is, and to have respect for female humans and their equality and rights.

I have asked a few times now and have got crickets everytime I ask.

To all those posters who tell us their lovely trans mates, or to trans posters themselves, wanting to find reasonable solutions that work for both women and trans people, just how many of these trans people tell Stonewall that they are not supporting their views. Only supporting and amplifying extreme view?

And how many have told Stonewall they have decided to find other charities to support instead who do listen and represent them?

I am curious to know. Because Stonewall assure us they fully represent the majority, yet we are constantly told the majority disagree with the interpretation of the policies they uphold.

Which is it? And who is telling Stonewall they are no longer representative…?

Or is this as some suspect, just a silencing tactic in itself.

I am going with corrupt.

They need to keep the headlines flowing and the money going. It's no longer about their user base, their founding principles or even morality. It's about justifying their jobs.

If/when Stonewall crumbles, most of these idiots will hop to other charities in the sector and start the whole merry-go-round again.

@Artichokeleaves good point. I should have shortened it to TQ+.

@CheeseMmmm

I'd go with neither.

It's about money.
They are avaricious.
They only care about keeping the cash rolling in.

Yep. Need to keep themselves relevant.

@Artichokeleaves

The blindness of zealotry and zeal. Think scribes and pharisees. Shouting their purity and superiority of belief while actually.....

Bunch of Mr Murdstones.

I think this is mostly it, Artichoke, or what they cloak themselves in, any way. But one thing we don't always take into consideration, perhaps, is the role commercial ideology played in.. well, is corruption too strong a word for what has been done to Stonewall? One of the mantras from the greed is good nineties is just as pervasive now - "Management is a transferable skill". Stonewall was not ever supposed to be a commodifiable entity, but always having an eye, not just to keeping a campaigning organisation afloat, but to maximising its "Brand Identity" and monetising its ethical positions for the sake of the bottom line has turned it into a malevolent joke.

[quote Rainbowshit]@Artichokeleaves good point. I should have shortened it to TQ+. [/quote]
Not meaning to jump on you! It's an important point though, they do not represent LGB or TQ+ people, they represent a very specific political position. That is the unifying factor: the politics. They're not bothered if you're LGBTQ+ or straight so long as you are part of that political position.

LGB and TQ+ people who have any other views or do not conform, or challenge and say their experience of LGB and TQ+ is different? Are emphatically excluded. From LGBT+.

The honest and old position of LGB was that it represented a group of people of all ethnicities, faiths, politics, every other characteristic, and the sole unifying factor was sexuality.

They are still trading on that belief for political gain. They will tell you that they support all LGBT+ people. But they now exclusively represent the political position; not anyone of LGBT+ with any other view, and they have made LGBT+ mean a political view, not a group unified by anything else.

It is a serious deception, it misleads (intentionally) on the diversity of what LGBT+ people want and need in order to make political gains, and it excludes LGBT+ people from representation or having a voice or even being allowed to be bloody homosexual unless they obey the political ideology.

That they represent no one and nothing but Stonewall's political ambitions cannot be said enough.

Someone (who is not a complete tech moron...!) ought to screenshot this thread and send it to the Foreign Office so they can see what they are really getting for their money..

I'd say "infiltrated" and "destroyed from within".

LGB Alliance broke away just in time.

This was Belfast. Imagine if someone had requested a sectarian slogan on a cake. Would that have been okay?

Spot on @Artichokeleaves. It's not really about sexuality or gender identity theory, it's about having the "right" set of political views. I'm reminded of an interview with Douglas Murray where he talks about people claiming that he isn't really gay because he disagrees with the so-called progressive orthodoxy. Apparently it's not enough that he's same sex attracted!

Both and it’s all about shoring up their income stream.

@NecessaryScene

This is just the banality of evil though, isn't it? It's not that someone is sitting on a throne, cackling and stroking a cat evilly. It's just that a whole bunch of incentives pile up so that people go down the wrong path.

There's a famous phrase summing this dynamic up: "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."

(Apparently the original precise quote from Eric Hoffer was "Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.", which I think is even more on point.)

Colin Wright was expounding on the same theme on Twitter yesterday.

You must watch out for industries that begin for good reasons but have financial incentives to persist long past their expiration dates.

We are seeing this with many LGBT rights and antiracism orgs. They need homophobia, transphobia, and racism to exist, otherwise they wouldn't.

It's good to have organizations that stand up for human rights, but when financial incentives prevent an organization from acknowledging their own victories and success, we have a problem.

This doesn't just stall progress, but eventually actively reverses it.

There's a similar thing happening with COVID. COVID was & is a serious problem worth addressing, but COVID panic will outlast its expiration date because of the incentives for doing so.

I don't know the solution other than pointing out the phenomenon & staying vigilant about it.

Human rights organizations and institutions are structured in ways that assumes continuous growth, like any company. But this model is incompatible with human rights organizations because their mission is to destroy the justification for their continued existence.

And so the most successful and effective human rights organizations necessarily turn harmful when they're eventually forced to manufacture outrage for their continued existence.

Douglas Murray said similar in his book “The Madness Of Crowds”. I’d highly recommend that book. It brings a great deal of clarity to the current lunacy around these issues.

Human rights belong to people, not businesses

Except that: 1) Mr Lee didn’t make any human rights arguments in the case (which is exactly the reason he could not take his case to the ECHR), and 2) although the names defendant was Ashers Bakery, the second and third defendants to Mr Lee’s claim were Mr and Mrs MacArthur, ie individuals who Stonewall seem to acknowledge should be entitled to human rights. The Supreme Court found that they were.

That comment alone is so obviously ignorant and stupid that I think they cannot believe what they are saying. I think it’s cynically trying to get a sound bite which has no basis in reality. They have no interest in objectivity or truth.

Stonewall are morally bankrupt. I get the impression that they know their grift is coming to an end in the UK so they are now casting their net wider to capture governments overseas.

Both. Heterosexual men's rights organisation these days. Can't wait till the Foreign Office pulls out of funding them. They'll sink under the weight of their own stupidity.

@candycane222

Here's Maya Forstater on Stonewall's lack of grassrootedness. Randomly thinking of the contrast with say a nature organisation like RSPB that probably answers mainly to a contributing membership base of interested enthusiasts who like thinking about in this case birds and if yhey disagree, will say so or swap to a different organisation. But most of SWs contributors as it now operates, pay because they don't want to have to be bothered thinking about the issues SW deals with.

It's very telling how little Twitter interaction/likes they get most of time compared to their follower count. See also Pink News.

Has anyone pointed out that Stonewall finally published their accounts this week - for the eighteen months ending March 2021.

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02412299/filing-history

Annualising, their income is running at £7.7m and expenditure at £8.5m, running a similar deficit to the previous financial period. They have £2.8m in funds so they can survive a few years running that deficit.

Following on from @bellinisurge 's comment, during those 18 months they received grants from:

Foreign Office £0.8m
Coronavirus retention support £0.6m
Scottish & Welsh governments £0.4m

But fee income from the workplace schemes etc is still a massive chunk of their income, £3.3m. I wonder how much that has declined since March given some high profile withdrawals?

@Lordamighty

Stonewall are morally bankrupt. I get the impression that they know their grift is coming to an end in the UK so they are now casting their net wider to capture governments overseas.

Exactly this. Calculating. See also the post about Stonewall in India now.