Gay, Bi, Straight, Whatever
The weekend just gone seems to have had its share of whispering around the sexual orientation of Cabinet Ministers; Crispin Blunt came out as gay while others have been coyly (or not) asking around the question "is another senior Tory Minister gay?"
The answer all decent people should be giving to that question is, of course, who the fuck cares? Seriously, why does it matter whether or not someone is gay? If they happen to be gay and married, they it will probably be a problem for their spouses and families, but that's it. That's where it stops. It does not matter one jot whether someone is gay, straight, bisexual or any other combination of orientations. At this point I could argue that sexuality is actually something to complex that it defies easy categorisation, but I won't - because it doesn't matter what a politician's sexual orientation is.
Yet it does matter that we allow our media to get away with this speculation and at times, as a nation, let ourselves get swept away by titillating speculation about the private lives of others. And when need to stop. We should hold our politicians to account and viciously attack them when they fail - in their public roles. As long as they are not doing anything illegal in their private lives, they should remain just that - private.
And this isn't just about who politicians are humping or even what gender they prefer to hump. I don't want to hear about their spouses and I certainly don't want to hear about their sodding kids. I don't want know what to see photos of Cameron's new baby, I don't what to know what it is called - hell, I don't even care what gender it is. I want him to run the fucking country, and do so well. I don't expect him to be preening with his new tot like a z-list celebrity milking the profitable teat of Hello magazine.
Because removing the right of our politicians to have a private life creates this expectation that they will share every element of their private lives with us. Which means that those who are vying for high-office in this country are not those most capable of carrying out that office, but rather are the sort of preening narcissistic fucks who revel in the constant exposure of the media limelight. The end result of this obsession with the private lives of our politicians is not a purer breed of political leaders, but rather Tony fucking Blair.
Gay, not gay, undecided, asexual, both; the only suitable answer should be that you really couldn't give a fuck anyway.
Labels: Blair, Cameron, Can we just get over it please?, Homophobia, Privacy
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 8:04 am
6 Comments
6 Comments:
I guess people would say in response that certain Tory ministers who have vociferously supported homophobic legislation in the past would be outed as total and utter hypocrites, if they were gay.
Personally, I agree with you, and I don't, myself, want to know the private lives of politicians or most other people for that matter. That being said, it would always for me be a better sign to know if politicians, or anyone, for that matter, had a strong cultural interest in something of some sort.
Quite agree.....in an ideal world....except that....
These bastards presume to enter the minutiae of our lives and tell us how much salt, fruit, alcohol etc we should consume. They take our money and spend it on their pet projects in the hope of being re elected. They take our money and spend it on themselves. need I go on?
So, if the price of keeping them on the straight and narrow is to close one's eyes and ears to the banality or news every now and again then it is a small price to pay.
As The Jaunt says, privacy is ok. Hypocrisy is not. Voting to retain Section 28, or against an equal age of consent, or equal marriage or adoption rights would be vile if one were married to a woman but were also prone to a male bit on the side. It's like the MPs do protesteth too much.... but who cares as long as they're only making somebody else's life more difficult, instead of their own.
The charge of hypocrisy is a valid one, and I can certainly see why it would be difficult to trust someone who voted for homophobic legislation at the same time as being involved in homosexual activity. It makes them at best stupid, and at worst ignorant and deceitful.
That said, I would like there to be one standard against which we can judge all politicians. So rather than saying it is worse if you voted for Section 28 despite your sexual orientation, I'd say it is appalling that anyone voted for Section 28. And stop there. The issue shouldn't be whether or not they were hypocritical, but rather than they voted for a fundamentally illiberal and discriminatory piece of legislation.
To some extent this is ideal world musing, but I want politicians to be held accountable for what they do politically, not privately.
TNL
Good point, TNL. But hypocrisy does go to the point of trust, as you point out. It's all very well to argue about the illiberal and discriminatory politics, but how can you trust anything the hypocrite says about anything, including their politics/
It bothers me not about an individual's sexuality, nor about their beliefs. The only thing that counts is their competence.
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