hideously misspelt pennyworth as follows:I even baulk at the word “gay”, which is basically a fluffy expression concerned less with saying what something is than with making people feel good about it, other examples being “affirmative action” and “freedom pass”. For the latter, how about “old fossil's travel permit” and for the former I once heard the expression “bending over blackwards”. “Gay” is also about “bending over” but in a different sense. I much prefer the rich, liguistically honest Australian vocabulary covering this sort of thing. When people say “table” and “door handle”, you know where you stand, and there is no question of seeking to sanctify a comical, admittedly fashionable, excentricity. Why isn't there a word like “gay” for people who pick their noses and scratch themselves? Why not extend the privileges of “gay marriage” to people who are very close to one another, perhaps friends or relatives who consider it appropriate to live at the same address yet don't qualify as gay” because they don't do certain specific things a critical minimum number of times per an(n)um .. I'm going to stop here, because Facebook is about the exchange of banalities not serious ideas. Besides, the Internet is desperately slow in South Africa and they just cut the connection due to a thundrstorm when I wa uploading photos ...
This elicited the following responses:
Person A:
"sanctify a comical, admittedly fashionable, excentricity."
Please make sure that you spell your bigotry correctly
No, I'm back less annoyed, and less flippant. The point is that we should 'sanctify' any relationship based on love, and it is disingenuous to use the relatives living together argument - they have not made the sort of commitment that a marriage requires, or even a civil partnership, which is what we have in the UK. I am not a person of faith, but I can understand why two people who are believers would want their relationship recognised in the same way, no matter what gender they happen to be.
Person M:
Good god - I have just seen the post before A's .. quite extraordinary!
And kinda lame - starting a rant and then dismissing any expectation or 'requirement' of a response because 'Facebook is about the exchange of banalities' ..
Person E:
J, there are many euphemisms in the world, so I don't think the word "gay" is anything special or unusual in that sense. In fact, how many words are truly literal? For example, if you were literally an old fossil (as you yourself suggest), you wouldn't be physically capable of tweaking people on Facebook (speaking of comical eccentricities!).
M: And we (yes, including me) thought *I* had bad Facebook etiquette! Again, I'm sorry about my clumsiness in the earlier thing.
Person M:
That's quite OK (your little slip, that is) That ^^^ however is a doozey ..
Person A:
Frankly I couldn't care less about the word gay. What really got my goat (though there was a lot to choose from) was the dismissal of my lifestyle as a comical eccentricity. Although I am relieved to hear that it is still fashionable - I feared that it might be old hat by now. Maybe some places have a little catching up to do.
Person E:
M: Thank you/yes indeed.
Too many half-formed thoughts here - feel I should make some useful response, but think I'll postpone the whole issue by going to sleep for the night. I won't be surprised to wake up and find that John has invited us all over to play viols.
Here’s what I wrote next:
I deeply regret my spelling error. One of my few virtues (eccentricities?) is that I've always been pretty good at spelling, but I don't touch-type and the room with the computer in it (here in the wilds of Africa) where I am now (and was yesterday) is quite dark (darkest Africa?), so I have to hold a torch (flash light) in my mouth to see the keys and am as likely as not to hit the wrong keys and in the wrong order and in my rush to get my piece sent before the ultra-slow system crashes or there is a power outage due to a thunderstorm I'm unlikely to notice my error. I was wondering if the word "bigot" might appear in this discussion. No doubt the Nazis used this word of people who disagreed with them. Different people see the world in different ways, and one's views keep changing all the time. I was merely hinting at a point of view and am more open-minded than you seem to think. I don't expect to be online for a while, and this is not the place for a treatise, but we still have freedom of expression, unless Gordon Brown has been up to some skulduggery (is that how you spell it) in my absence.
Person A:
Interesting. Perhaps I should withdraw the word 'bigotry' and replace
it with 'boorishness'. So, by challenging the opinion you 'hinted'
at, I am being obliquely accused of fascism (and it is particularly unfortunate to use the Nazis in this context, given their treatment of
my 'eccentricity'). I have no wish to curtail your free speech, but will take every opportunity to challenge the views that you express.
Person M:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
Me again:
There are too many points to address here before my return from Africa next month. It will be cold turkey by then, but I have no option due to frustrating nature of the service here. Sorry for any boorishness.
I am back from Africa, so I now add the following:
I am now no longer subject to the constraints of the African Internet, which I may not have adequately explained (slow service, applications taking forever to load and then finally not working at all, poor lighting possibly exacerbated by side-effects of malaria prophylaxis causing impaired vision, other people in the guesthouse needing to use the p.c. and wondering when I would be done, needing to use it myself for more pressing purposes: Internet banking etc.) that I finally have the necessary relaxation to tackle at least some of the loose ends of this thread, now that it’s probably too late.
My original motivation is that I felt a momentary need to express – however sketchily, at great haste and in fear of an imminent power outage or other malfunction - a point of view which seemed likely to be underrepresented in this thread, hence the plethora of spectacular spelling errors (not just the one which was pointed out to me), which I only noticed in the subsequent light of day. Perhaps I should just have remained stumm, but I was tempted to express myself, and perhaps “I can resist anything but temptation”.
Thanks to all of you who submitted your rants in response to mine. I had not realised that Facebook had changed “wall post” to “rant”. I must say, I prefer “rant”, although I see that Wikipedia defines “rant” as “speech or text that does not present a well-researched and calm argument; rather, it is typically an attack on an idea, a person or an institution. Very often rants lack proven claims. Such attacks are usually personal attacks.” Having re-read my original post, I do not recognise many – or indeed any – of Wikipedia’s criteria as applicable to my piece, which I continue to regard as perfectly reasonable; indeed I was performing a public service, because I still see Facebook as being banal. A typical Facebook post goes something like, “It was raining when I got up this morning” or “My favourite colour is pink”. People are basically not interested in addressing “issues” on Facebook, and when they do it is usually a mutual admiration society, which is what this thread would have been without my input. Admittedly E does her best to enliven Facebook with articles which she finds all over the place; indeed she is a heroine (or “hero”, as they say nowadays) in this respect, but these do not generally attract all that many comments. I did not myself comment, for example, on US health services, not because I am uninterested in the subject but because I have nothing to say about it.
This thread contains some cryptic and slightly perplexing references to “Facebook etiquette”. Has somebody breached some sort of etiquette? Moi? I don’t think so; I was merely commenting on E’s post (or “rant”?) Isn’t that the whole basic idea?
As well as trying to make Facebook more interesting, I had also hoped to make it more entertaining but may have failed abysmally in both respects. You see, homosexuals (with some commendable exceptions) often seem to take themselves devilish seriously. Some would argue that Muslims and homosexuals are the two categories most susceptible to taking themselves too seriously, so here’s a tip: the next time you sing about nymphs and shepherds, try substituting “gays and Muslims”. Besides, it is SO difficult to express a twinkle in one’s eye in electronic media, and I keep getting caught with my pants down by literal-minded people. E refers to “half-formed” thoughts; I prefer to call them “half-expressed”, although they may have been half-formed also. Perhaps E meant to say “half-baked” but was just being polite. My original piece seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable, mild hint at a point of view and certainly not an attack on anybody, far less an invitation to anyone to make personal confessions which not everyone will wish to hear, but then the many, many people who would just as soon not know whether or not person X or person Y is a homosexual and who do not actively burden others with information about their own proclivities or lack of them represent the new Whatever “that dare not speak its name”.
I do not “dismiss” homosexuality. As well as believing in freedom of expression, to which I shall return below, I also believe in freedom of action, i.e. people should be allowed to do what they damn well please (but no holocausts, if you don’t mind, and don’t rob any bank which has got my money in it). I am fully aware that there is probably an infinite variety of phenomena which I might or might not participate in myself, yet which form the main or only focus of a great many people’s lives, but just as I find sport, popular entertainment and fashion (sorry for using that word again, but here I mean clothes, supermodels catwalks and the like) B-O-R-I-N-G subjects and don’t like it when they impinge on my consciousness (for example, I recently walked away from a table at which I was sitting, when all my companions insisted on conversing at length about men kicking a spherical object around in a field), whether or not the aficionados plead “lifestyle” as an excuse for b;abbing about some personal habit or leisure time pursuit, I have a perfect right to find homosexuality funny: Hahahahahaha!!!! Unlike sport etc., it is not in my opinion a boring topic in moderate doses, even though it is talked about far more frequently these days than it intrinsically merits. No, it is not boring, just bizarre, but then “bizarre” and “boring” are in the eye of the beholder. Surely finding it bizarre is better than being disgusted by it, which I am not, unlike a great many others. E is right about euphemisms; most ordinary people don’t like having their noses rubbed in homosexuality (in a metaphorical sense, of course), although again I don’t mind, and the word “gay” has achieved popularity amongst the population at large precisely because it enables them to refer to it (if they MUST, probably because some narcissistic, self-indulgent, attention-seeking homosexual has insisted on placing it on the agenda) by providing metaphorical rubber gloves and a long pair of tongs to facilitate handling of the subject without being contaminated by it.
I regret my misleading use of “fashionable”. What I was alluding to was my observation that certain people, notably the BBC, are wont to refer to homosexuals in tones of hushed reverence appropriate to superior beings or perhaps an endangered species. (This does not mean that, let us say, Fiona Bruce is a homosexual; she just knows what side her bread is buttered on). Homosexuals share pride of place in the p.c. pantheon with “indigenous” peoples and cute little furry animals. This mindset is likely to become enshrined in law if Gordon Brown has his way, and people will probably find themselves hauled up before the beak just for saying “queer” or “poof”, just like the character in Monty Python’s Life of Brian who was stoned for saying “Jehovah”. (I will be interesting to see what happens if this product is ever introduced to the UK
market http://www.poofdrops.com/). Such is the topsy-turvy world of New Labour, where the Apotheosis of Poovery could well be the new compulsory state religion; yet ordinary, decent people are persecuted for straightforward, workaday activities like hunting foxes. The queer thing is, and here I repeat myself, even where people revere homosexuals for all they’re worth, they don’t like to be confronted with the reality of the subject. Let us imagine by way of analogy that giraffes were to occupy the position in the p.c. pantheon currently enjoyed by homosexuals, in which case one would earn p.c. brownie points every time one mentioned them, but woe betide anyone who dared to say that giraffes are long-necked animals which live in Africa. I sometimes even wonder whether those whose tone is most reverential and whose foreheads are closest to the ground at the mention of homosexuals really know what “gay” means, just like the Monty Python character who had such an imperfect understanding of the concept “lion-tamer” (which reminds me, I haven’t crossed the Tamar recently; I’d like to investigate a mountain on Bodmin Moor called Brown Willy, but I won’t comment on the name). One final comment on “fashion”: fashions come and go, so it is conceivable that one day homosexuals will be pushed off their pedestal in favour of some other fad (not “fag”), in which case they may wonder what hit them.My use of the word “eccentric” (note the correct spelling this time around) was intended as complimentary. A person who is completely straight and totally devoid of kinks and quirks is usually rather tedious, so in this vale of tears one is grateful for any peg on which to hang a good belly-laugh (as opposed to a casus belli). My favourite aunt and uncle were in my opinion much more eccentric than my parents, who as it happens are no longer with us. (“To lose one parent … may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”)
It is difficult to talk about “relationships based on love”, when nobody knows what “love” is, not even the Prince of Wales. It is perhaps typical of certain homosexuals to claim that their feelings are nobler and more intense than everybody else’s. Marriage, whether gay or straight, is probably on the way out, so probably all that’s needed is a little tweaking of, for example, the inheritance laws. Who knows what “commitment” close friends and relatives have for one another? In any case, I see no need for special pleading on behalf of homosexuals. If there is a continued justification for marriage in some shape or form, it may be that it provides the best environment for raising children, so someone ought perhaps to take homosexuals to one side and explain to them that you don’t make children by fudge-tunnelling or riding the Chocolate Canyon (or at least I’m buggered if I know how it can be done), as these two deliciously evocative phrases put it, no matter how this may mimic reproductive activity. I find “civil partnership” a rather queer expression. Does this make the traditional one-man-and-one-woman marriage an uncivil partnership? Apparently a straight couple which doesn’t like the idea of a traditional marriage cannot opt for a civil partnership. Surely this is discrimination. Religious people can do what they like within the confines of their own churches, synagogues etc. and in accordance with their respective theologies. By all means let us have “gay rights”; in fact, I was in favour of “gay rights” long before they were invented. The trouble is that the gays already got their rights when it was legalised, so this “gay marriage” caper is a clear case of “Give them 2.4 centimetres and they’ll take 1.6 kilometres”, an example of mission creep analogous to that whereby the perfectly reasonable desire for a European common market morphed into that Brussels monster which some people call the Fourth Reich.
Have you really read this far? Now’s your chance for a coffee break.
And what will you put in your coffee?
Where will you get the milk? 
I do not complain about the attack on my right to freedom of expression and happily take it on the chin. I merely record that such an attack took place. The use of the word “bigot” (or “bigotry” to quote the precise context) was a clear case of shooting the messenger, and performed the function previously reserved for “heretic” and “enemy of the people”. It is perhaps part of a ready-made vocabulary designed to prevent people from expressing their opinion or considering certain aspects of an issue. Often “patronising” is used to mean “I’m right and you’re wrong, so shut up!” and the perfectly respectable word “racism” is not infrequently used in contexts where no one has as much as suggested that one set of people is superior to another set on grounds of pigmentation, shape of nose etc., far less proposed that one of the categories be enslaved or exterminated. Throughout history people have sought to impose their opinions on others and have wished to prevent others from expressing theirs, but for so long as we are not yet living under a caliphate I shall continue to express my opinion when I feel like it (which isn’t necessarily all that often), although I freely recognise that our hard-won western freedoms may not long outlive me. (I wonder what the caliphate will make of “gay rights”). To qualify for the title “bigot”, I would at the very least have to disapprove of homosexuality, which I do not, and would have to take a huge step beyond mere disapproval by wanting to stop it from happening.
I like “argumentum ad Hitlerum” and shall mention it to a friend with whom I recently had a conv
ersation about ad hominem arguments. I have to confess to being influenced by this fallacious mode of reasoning, insofar as I am less favourably disposed towards vegetarians by the knowledge that Adolf fell within this category. He was also very fond of his dog (thus Wikipedia’s reference to “dog Latin” is somehow appropriate) and couldn’t bear the idea of inflicting pain and suffering on animals. I can just imagine the tears flowing down the “iconic” moustache (it’s the first, and I hope the last time in my life that I’ve ever used the word “iconic”) at the very thought of animals being loaded on to trucks, transported long distances and put to death. Not many people know that the very first dictatorial act of the Nazis after the passing of the Ermächtigungsgesetz in 1933 was a law to promote the humane treatment of lobsters. Yes, having visited Auschwitz in 1990 and seen the piles of human hair, spectacles and little girls’ dresses looted from the victims and a display of symbols which Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals etc. were forced to wear, I am well aware that the Nazis officially disapproved of homosexuality, yet I’m sure that many Nazis were themselves of that persuasion (the “Gay-stapo”). By the way, there is, or at least was until recently a group in the United States which called itself the “Gay Nazis”.
Yes, please do come round and play viols. I shall love it and hope you will too. Let’s look at our diaries and get our bearings.
I do not complain about the attack on my right to freedom of expression and happily take it on the chin. I merely record that such an attack took place. The use of the word “bigot” (or “bigotry” to quote the precise context) was a clear case of shooting the messenger, and performed the function previously reserved for “heretic” and “enemy of the people”. It is perhaps part of a ready-made vocabulary designed to prevent people from expressing their opinion or considering certain aspects of an issue. Often “patronising” is used to mean “I’m right and you’re wrong, so shut up!” and the perfectly respectable word “racism” is not infrequently used in contexts where no one has as much as suggested that one set of people is superior to another set on grounds of pigmentation, shape of nose etc., far less proposed that one of the categories be enslaved or exterminated. Throughout history people have sought to impose their opinions on others and have wished to prevent others from expressing theirs, but for so long as we are not yet living under a caliphate I shall continue to express my opinion when I feel like it (which isn’t necessarily all that often), although I freely recognise that our hard-won western freedoms may not long outlive me. (I wonder what the caliphate will make of “gay rights”). To qualify for the title “bigot”, I would at the very least have to disapprove of homosexuality, which I do not, and would have to take a huge step beyond mere disapproval by wanting to stop it from happening.
I like “argumentum ad Hitlerum” and shall mention it to a friend with whom I recently had a conv
ersation about ad hominem arguments. I have to confess to being influenced by this fallacious mode of reasoning, insofar as I am less favourably disposed towards vegetarians by the knowledge that Adolf fell within this category. He was also very fond of his dog (thus Wikipedia’s reference to “dog Latin” is somehow appropriate) and couldn’t bear the idea of inflicting pain and suffering on animals. I can just imagine the tears flowing down the “iconic” moustache (it’s the first, and I hope the last time in my life that I’ve ever used the word “iconic”) at the very thought of animals being loaded on to trucks, transported long distances and put to death. Not many people know that the very first dictatorial act of the Nazis after the passing of the Ermächtigungsgesetz in 1933 was a law to promote the humane treatment of lobsters. Yes, having visited Auschwitz in 1990 and seen the piles of human hair, spectacles and little girls’ dresses looted from the victims and a display of symbols which Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals etc. were forced to wear, I am well aware that the Nazis officially disapproved of homosexuality, yet I’m sure that many Nazis were themselves of that persuasion (the “Gay-stapo”). By the way, there is, or at least was until recently a group in the United States which called itself the “Gay Nazis”.
Yes, please do come round and play viols. I shall love it and hope you will too. Let’s look at our diaries and get our bearings.
