A couple of news items made me blink this week.
One is the furore over William Hague’s alleged homosexual activities. And the other over a German banker’s assertion that members of the Jewish faith/race have a distinctive gene somewhere about their person.
Now, we inhabit a world where a man or woman’s sexual proclivity is supposed to be irrelevant to everything else. Where more than a few TV programmmes and films make a point of emphasising such behaviour. And in fact of portraying men (especially) who exhibit such tendencies as heroes.
What makes Hague the villain?
So why the uproar over what little baldy William may or may not have done? Why has that turned him into an overnight villain?
Is it because, despite all the Fascist-Lib squawkings to which we are daily subject, telling us not to be so stupidly prejudiced, the average male continues to regard homosexuals as repulsive deviants? Beings to be stoned in the market place?
Is the German wrong?
As for the accusation that the German’s remark is beyond-the-pale racist, and that he should be punished by instant dismissal from his post at the very least – why?
The gent may be – probably is – a bigot.
But those who consider the gene remark as offensive to Jews are surely themselves racist by assuming Jews will be offended by the accusation of being ‘different’.
Certainly if someone wants to claim I have a special ‘English’ gene I will feel immensely gratified, not offended. As of course would most Germans.
Image: Mark Cummings under CC BY 2.0
