So, Evan Davies trots along to the first Conservative Gay Pride bash in Manchester last night where blogger Iain Dale was compere. (There was also a Conservative Muslim Forum apparently but no report on it.) What gets me is that the context of the debate the BBC sets is always about how progressive one is about advancing the status of Gay Rights. Why should private individuals sexual preferences get ANY such elevated position (whoops!). Is there anybody out there who thinks the gay lobby may already be pandered to excessively and if so, why are they not provided with a voice? The BBC meme is that Gay Rights is something we must all embrace here. What gives them the right to say this? I have no issue with gay people other than the simple observation that what they do in their private lives is not any of my business nor any of my political concern.
THOSE GAY CONSERVATIVES…
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I agree. I just cannot see what a person’s sexuality has to do with politics. Are all heterosexuals right wing and all homosexuals left? I don’t think so. Just another unreal day in the unreal world of the liberal elite. And it is greatly to the Tory party’s discredit that it should indulge in the politcal elite’s fantasies.
Meanwhile Osborne calmly tells us that because bad government has nearly bankrupted the country we , the peasants, are to be deprived of our pensions, to pay for the incompetence and veniality of the governing class.
And they wonder why we despise politicians
Well, you can’t really blame George Osborne yet for the fact the country is nearly bankrupt. There is only one source of money for government spending, namely us peasants trying to earn a living, so I don’t see what else you expect him to tell us.
I take your point. Governments only have our money. But pensions form part of the basic contract between the citizen and the state. We pay for them throughout our working lives and we have to rely on them to survive when old. No private pension company would dare change the rules. A radical Tory government would keep the basic contract but slash state spending without mercy. Leaving the EU would be a good start. The slogan should be cheap government.
Apropos of homophobic politicians as allies, the BBC (£800 million per year on news services) has failed to notice – or, more probably, noticed but failed to think it worthwhile telling the punters – this item http://fountain.blogspot.com/2009/10/execute-homosexuals-say-labours.html picked up by Ross on Unenlightened Commentary. No wonder Labour appears to be relaxed about the support change over at the Sun. As long as the BBC is in Labour’s corner who cares?
I don’t disagree that it was a pretty frivolous report and did sound a little out of place on the Today programme. However, I can understand why the editors thought it news worthy for two reasons:
1. The Tories have had a fairly interesting history regarding homosexuality. It was only back in June that Cameron apologised for Section 28.
2. The new alliance in the European Parliament with the Polish Law and Justice Party allies the Conservatives with a group of people who do not feel that a persons sexuality is their own business and the PiS have been quite outspoken in their views on it.
Difficult to see any bias here. There have been a lot of stories on the new european conservative alliance and their controversial views so I can see why a story on the pinker side of the Tory party provides balance.
I agree that the Euro-grouping has resulted in a lot of comment, & caused Stonewall to withdraw from last night’s bash, but the criticism all seems a bit selective. Stephen Fry was employed by C4 News to bash the Tory’s “homophobic” Polish chums – he took issue with all that Catholic stuff – but who would criticise a political party for cosying up to “homophobic” Muslims?
I agree with DV – I don’t want any politicians expressing any interest in individual sexual preferences. I don’t want them celebrating homosexuality, I don’t want them condemning it. I want them to run the infrastructure of the country as quietly, as unobtrusively, and as inexpensively as possible. Full stop. End of story. IMHO.
leadtinyellow,
No-one could dispute your right – or David Vance’s – to hold that view. But many people hold the contrary view, that gay issues are a proper subject for politics, and it clearly is not any kind of bias for the BBC, or anyone else, to cover such stories. The problem for Biased BBC is that Mr Vance’s constant, loud complaints that the BBC is pandering to or a mouthpiece for gay people simply makes Biased BBC look homophobic and frankly out of touch with all but a narrow base. Do you not think?
OpMoThEd, where I have a problem is your use of the word ‘issues’. First, let me state with 100% honesty and conviction – I have not one iota of homophobia in my head, many of my closest and dearest friends have been gay men who have proved devoted and wonderful friends and have helped me enormously in my life.
Only once have I ever heard of any of my gay friends having any kind of ‘issue’ concerning their sexuality. That was when a teacher (in NY) made a rather blue joke that a malicious student affected to misinterpret, in an effort to get my friend fired. That attempt failed, and my friend acknowledged the whole thing was his own fault for being too relaxed and too familiar with his form group.
Aside from that, there are, as far as I can see, no ‘issues’. I don’t see that there are really any battles left to fight. Every gay person I know has a successful career, a happy and reasonably contented life, and a life that does not differ in any way from the lives of the heterosexuals around them – except that they have male partners. They have all without exception grown out of the infantile fixation with gay issues and gay politics. They have a diversity of political opinions, and mostly feel a kind of loathing for the self-appointed spokesmen for the gay community – a community which doesn’t really exist, any more than the heterosexual or carniverous communities exist.
And that’s part of the BBC problem – the constant over-exposure of a handful of self-appointed leaders of a non-existent community. I’ve never heard any BBC interviewer ask of Peter Tatchell who exactly he thinks he’s speaking for, and on what authority. I’ve never heard him asked – in any BBC appearance -how he knows he represents the non-existent gay community in its ongoing quest for rights that it already has and is busy enjoying while he campaigns on and on dementedly, like some Jap soldier hiding in the undergrowth on an abandoned Pacific island 30 years after the war has ended.
Because the truth is, the BBC doesn’t care who Tatchell is speaking for, or whether indeed he represents anyone. As far as they are concerned, he represents the beautiful idea of the struggle for gay rights against an intolerant bigoted world, and the BBC is wedded to tired old narratives like that.
The BBC are like Obama in that respect – they love the thrill and the high of the struggle, the campaign; but the good governance that should follow victory is a little dull for them. They don’t like to admit that their pet causes have passed from anti-establishment to establishment, so they’ll continue to push forward any old fossil like Tatchell who still fights the good fight.
Regardless of bias, the BBC’s coverage of gay issues is as ignorant and as divorced from the real world as its coverage of science and economics have become.
Leadtinyellow,
Thanks for acknowledging the point, which the troll posting after you spectacularly failed to understand.
You see the BBC is not entitled to hold the pro-Gay agenda it relentlessly advances. It should remain neutral on such issues and provide space and time for those who hold opposing views to share them with readers/listeners/viewers. Naturally when this balanced approach is proposed we get nonsense such as that exemplified in the 12.29 posting that we are “homophobic.” As pathetic as it is opinionated, I would suggest.
David, it’s your misreading of the situation that is the problem.
The BBC reporting on a gay event, or any gay rights story, is just that – a report. It is not a pro-gay agenda. The fact you consider it pro-gay tells people more about your prejudices than anything else.
If you did truly have no issue with gay people other than the simple observation that what they do in their private lives is not any of my business nor any of my political concern then you wouldn’t even post a blog about the story would you?
Fat Faced Penguin Seal (couldn’t you have picked an easier name?) why is there this constant need to parade and call attention to one’s sexuality? Homosexuality is, thankfully, perfectly legal. Gay people can get married and adopt children. People aren’t hounded or blackmailed anymore. We’re not living in the 1950’s. There aren’t any issues of discrimination worthy of the name. And not too many of us listen to semi-literate, homophobic, Gansta Rap. Gay people get over youselves. Nobody cares!
Jeff
The BBC cares, passionately. FFPC, rather like the Medicated, keep missing the central point that the BBC actively promotes the gay agenda. I suspect that you, like leadtinyellow and myself, take the simple view that the BBC is not there to promote ANY given sexual lifestyle and in doing so, and this cuts to the chase, it shows BIAS.
So, in your iew, should the BBC be promoting a particular sexual lifestyle?
On a general point and as a believer in as small a State as possible, this is not an area where governments or state broadcasters should tread. This along with many other areas where Nanny (or Auntie) thinks they know best.
As a regular attendee at my Party Conference (although not this year) I can tell you that if you look hard enough there will be a pro bear-baiting fringe meeting among the hundreds of official and unofficial events inside and out of the security zone. Why pick on this one to attend and report on, Evan Davies? Were you singling out a story of interest to the BBC, or interesting to the viewer? I sense the former. With Iain Dale as compere you certainly didn’t go for the jokes…
Entertainingly, especially considering David’s ATW post about a Muslim/Gay football match, this pro-gay pro-tory event was picketed by a pro-gay anti-tory group. It must get very confusing with all of those clashing ideals to demonstrate about.
FFPS,
In a word, no. The BBC is not there to “promote” ANY lifestyle. That it takes a pro-Gay liberal narrative is a disgrace.
Yes I agree, the BBC isn’t there to promote a lifestyle. And can you show me where it does do that?
HOW does it take a pro-gay narrative. My point remains; it only appears pro-gay to someone who is anti-gay.
Just because they report on gay issues/events, that is not pro-gay reporting! I cannot emphasize that enough.
FFPS,
I suggest you have a look through the B-BBC archives, the BBC has form on the promotion of a GAY lifestyle. Your point does not remain since you have no point. No one is saying that they cannot report on gay issues, they are entitled to report on ALL issues. The issue here is the bias they consistently show as regards cultivating a positive approach to the gay lifestyle. It is not my business and it sure as heck ain’t the BBC’s. That said, it does seem to have a liking for gay people – or so Andrew Marr alleges. Do you think he might be in a position to know??
Marr says the BBC employ a larger number of gays than other people. If the Devon & Cornwall Police employ a higher number of white people than, say MacDonalds, does it imply that the West Country cops have a pro-white agenda?
We retutrn endlessly to your assertion that the BBC is promoting the gay lifestyle. You and leadtinyellow say you’d rather not have politicians discuss gay matters. You’re entitled to that view, but it cannot be the only one. There is no requirement upon the BBC to follow your personal social agenda.
Do you feel the same about social conservative politicians who have taken a strong public line on Section 28, the age of consent and civil partnerships/gay marriage? Or should the BBC also refrain from quoting politicians who follow those lines, too?
“If the Devon & Cornwall Police employ a higher number of white people than, say MacDonalds, does it imply that the West Country cops have a pro-white agenda?”
It might do. No doubt many at the BBC would try to find out, and until impossible evidence of innocence were forthcoming they might well assume that ‘institutionalised racism’ was the reason.
I assume that a higher than average number of gay employees and ethnic minority employees might well explain the over-emphasis and over-representation given to gay ‘issues’ and muslim ‘issues’ in BBC output.
We might label it ‘Institutionalised Minorityism’
The constant over-representation of minority concerns on the BBC might be seen in effect as a campaign, as a deliberate attempt to ‘push’ a lifestyle or persuasion further towards normality and the mainstream than its actual position in society warrants. It comes across to me in the pathetic reluctance to question the motives, the logic, or the activities of gay people who act as gay people on behalf of gay people, in the media or the public eye. Ditto islamic spokesmen.
The BBC will often ask difficult questions of right-wing politicians, and occasionally, when confused or tired, even of left-wing politicians; but what you so rarely see is a BBC journalist or reporter asking probing questions of a spokesperson for any minority group – whether that person claims to represent gay people, an ethnic minority, or some fringe concern.
DV might disagree, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a deliberate, systematic campaign. I just think that the BBC is made-up of the people Andrew Marr describes, people so resolutely convinced of the self-evident rightness of their views and concerns that it never occurs to them that maybe the public at large don’t want to pay for a digital channel seemingly devoted entirely to promoting and explaining the history of Iran, or hearing endlessly from the sad old dinosaur Peter Tatchell.
But because the BBC has such power, and pushes these agendas endlessly, then our politicians will continue to feel the need to indulge in the stupid and irrelevant posturing of Conservative Gay Pride events while the economy crumbles into a welter of debt.
David you are right. The BBC will happily promote gay marriage in programming but won’t even dare promote straight marriage in the same way.
The BBC continually attacks Christianity about attitudes to homosexuals, yet gives Islam a free pass
Martin
I’m still unclear in what sense – other than covering gay issues as they arise – the BBC is happily promoting gay marriage. Given that B-BBC constantly calls for impartial programming, why should they dare promote straight marriage, either?
If you believe that the BBC continually attacks Christianity about attitudes to homosexuals, yet gives Islam a free pass, could I suggest that you try putting gay and islam into the BBC search engine and then reading one or two of the many pieces which emerge?
Try watching that awful Nicki Campbell programme on a Sunday morning, whenever homosexualty is brought up the Muslim opinion is never sought. The BBC DOES promote gay marriage in TV shows and other discussion shows, yet would never allow straight marriage to be promoted in the same way.
I don’t think homosexuality needs ‘promoting’ by the BBC. I actually like Iain Dale as although he’s gay he’s never banging on about it on his blog, unlike say the darling of the BBC Peter Tatchell, a vile little man who has to bring homosexuality into every bloody discussion.
Oh and I wonder what would happen if a middle aged straight white man suggested lowering the age of consent to 14 so older men could have sex with them.
http://www.petertatchell.net/age%20of%20consent/dontcriminaliseyoungsex.html
Whatever the merits or otherwise of Nicky Campbell’s Sunday show, it would be absurd to judge the BBC’s hundreds of thousands of hours of output by limiting yourself to the one strand. Seeing as you regularly describe the twice-married Campbell as a mincer and a queen, impartial readers of this blog may feel that your own view of his show is irretrievably distorted.
I don’t think homosexuality needs ‘promoting’ by the BBC, either. As yet no evidence has emerged on these pages – other than David Vance’s assertions- that homosexuality is promoted. Why do you keep saying it is? What evidence, either, is there that Peter Tatchell is a darling of the BBC unlike other figures who appear regularly, such as Melanie Phillips, Michael Portillo and Jeremy Clarkson?
And in what way is a Guardian story about the age of consent anything to do with the BBC, an organisation you have endlessly claimed – with no evidence – to be full of men wanting to have sex with teenage boys?
Curious to see our resident Troll desperate to engage with those that he castigates at his own little blog. 😎
Hardly little David – the OMTE blog now attracts almost as many commenters as you do. And curious that you seem so reluctant to engage with the points that are being made on this thread.
Keep providing the entertainment.
David
I thought that in your newly civilised blog, you and your colleagues might want to engage with reasoned points. My mistake.
I fully understand that you prefer to chat among yourselves, making fact-free assertions about other people’s bias. Keep up the good work.
Boris
How delightful. Medicated hovers around, then the Penguin waddles onto ther site and now you turn up. I think if you value laughs, best stick to Medicated’s effort. I’ll promise to visit it in seven years time and see how it’s getting on – the same period this site has been going. Now…off you go.
I am organising a white working class married hetrosexual parade – think it will be reported by the BBC? – well maybe in the headline
“Racist, Homophobe arrested”
Hmmm… the era in which the gay agenda has risen to cultural ascendency is also the period in which the left claims the free market has been allowed to run riot, so how about this for a thought experiment? What are the odds that the BBC would send a guy who made a bazillion in the market along to report on a ‘Capitalism Pride’ event? And what chance is there that they’d allow him to file a report premised on the idea that free trade is an unalloyed good and every one who opposes all pigs to the trough capitalism is a huge bigot?
Exactly. And that’s where the bias is.
I have visited OMTE’s blug.
He seems obssessed with Martin.
And misses Atlas Shrugs ( so do I )
He probably rally likes smorl furry animals so leave him alone.
I think he drives an Audi.
David, whatever we say or write constipated scott pingu and the rest of the Brown-jugend believe the ‘facts’ as delivered by the buggers broadcasting communism.
They are idealists and probably full party members of zanulabour and therefore beleve if they agree with what is written by a journalist then it cant be biased.
I am biased. I have become so sickened by real bias within auntie that I now read every word they speak show or write with suspiscion.
They have lost my trust. It is not my job to be unbiased. I am not a public servant tasked to deceminate news.
I feel however that I have a trait common within most people of the UK. I hate unfairness. I hate when stories are twisted where facts are used to push private/corporate agendas. Where selectivity is used to paint a palate which is so unlike the real world lived by the majority in this country. I hate being managed by media. I am to old and ugly to take patronising lessons from my supposed betters.
Why cant the beeb give me the facts straight. Why should every peice contain so much spin and editorial content that truth is lost.
Their world is imformed by their friends and families. Soldiers tend to marry within military families, policemen and women are forever getting hitched and now the same goes for the white middle class soft left. They read the same papers eat in the same restaurants and share so much of the predictable collective guilt felt by the majority of the intellectual left. So when writing an article they feel is fair they are writing it from an isolated bubble insulated from normal life exept through the prism of the Guardian Observer independant morning star. This bubble is inhabitted by Penguin like seals and opinionated black tshirt wearing goatee sporting old white men. They probably discuss how great the bbc is when they are popping home from waitrose with their sustainable shopping bag full to the brim with organic cauliflowers, fairtrade coffee and that delightful little sancerre they discovered while staying in that lovely little pension with the Arbuthnotts last summer.
We will never convince them so give up trying.
Paddy, I happen to be a goatee-sporting old white man, so just lay off! And besides, on a thread concerning the political manipulation of certain sexual postures, goatee might too easily become confused with goatse.
That was revolting. And appalling. I apologise. If you’re unfamiliar with goatse, I urge you strongly to stay that way.
Vary rarely do we see any voices critical of homosexuality:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8301791.stm
Oh, of course, that is because to dissent in any way from the inevitable tide of ‘gay rights’ including marriage is to display homophobia, and that cannot be tolerated. We should therefore not give a platform to these views, therefore it appears no-one who diagrees has been quoted, despite a majority in California voting down gay marriage.
Whatever your views on the topic, why can we not have a more open discussion, BBC?