Off Topic Politics Thread

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breconsaint said:
Why would "homosexual" or "same sex", be any more pejorative than "same sex" marriages?.........
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I don't know, really. I get your point it seems not to be logical, but language isn't always logical, I guess. The AP Style people actually tried to take "homophobia" out but the LGBT community argued to put it back in. And you can use "heterosexual" so it doesn't appear to be strongly correlated with etymology.

As far as AP style/writing goes, they obviously don't want their reporters offending people. But also, they want uniform usage so that readers (especially younger ones) won't get confused by words whose tone and definition aren't familiar to them. So if one word is much more common than the other, that's the one they will have you use. And in the guidelines it says that "gay is PREFERRED over "homosexual" so it's not a total ban.

As far as casual usage, I think it has to do with historically "homosexual" being associated with a medical afflication. Like its a psychological disease that needs curing. And then people shortening the term to "homo" and using it derisively. It's also rather outdated. Similar to how "colo(u)red" was once the non-offensive term, but over time has become very offensive because of the era in which it was used.

Older people who have used the word their whole lives or maybe sheltered people from rural areas who don't run into gay people often (fewer and fewer nowadays) still use it. I don't think it makes people that mad, they just might get politely corrected. If you aren't in that group, then it probably makes people wary about why you chose to use a term that hasn't been popular in 30 years.

I guess it's in that zone where it isn't inherently offensive so much as strange. People might be taken aback, but they will try to gauge your intent. As opposed to some other words where no one would possibly use it unless trying to cause offense. Like, there's no way that could have been a mistake and it's an instant fight starter.
 
Teresa May! New PM and she had a chance to create a united nation but she has goofed badly. IMO she should have picked some cross-benchers to fill her cabinet post such as Mandelson as Foreign Secretary, a member of the SDLP as Secretary of State in Northern Ireland, likewise an SNP member for Secretary of State for Scotland. Alas, she has proven yet again short-sightedness so the message it ****** the country, satisfy the party.
 
The Ides of March said:
Teresa May! New PM and she had a chance to create a united nation but she has goofed badly. IMO she should have picked some cross-benchers to fill her cabinet post such as Mandelson as Foreign Secretary, a member of the SDLP as Secretary of State in Northern Ireland, likewise an SNP member for Secretary of State for Scotland. Alas, she has proven yet again short-sightedness so the message it ****** the country, satisfy the party.
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I'm afraid you're the one being short-sighted. None of those people would ever accept a position in a Conservative government. We operate a system of cabinet government in the UK which means any member of the government must publicly support ALL government policies. Mandelson is a Labour peer and would be highly unlikely to accept that (and that's disregarding his pretty toxic reputation). Equally, no SDLP or SNP MP would accept the government's unionist position and there's no way the Conservative party would support Scottish or Northern Irish independence.
 
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Puck said:
I'm afraid you're the one being short-sighted. None of those people would ever accept a position in a Conservative government. We operate a system of cabinet government in the UK which means any member of the government must publicly support ALL government policies. Mandelson is a Labour peer and would be highly unlikely to accept that (and that's disregarding his pretty toxic reputation). Equally, no SDLP or SNP MP would accept the government's unionist position and there's no way the Conservative party would support Scottish or Northern Irish independence.
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Hey Puck, I think Ides is Far sighted.... Far, far sighted in a galaxy, far, far away :)
 
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I Sorry I Ruined The Party said:
We know it was an attack on a gay community, whether that was the specific motive or not. We don't know if it was done with Islamist intentions but I would argue it needs to be discussed. Why is it that you can mention one aspect of the crime and not the other?
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I have mentioned both. It was obviously an attack on the gay community. It was a gay club and therefore much more likely to result in gay people being attacked. We do know it was done with Islamist intentions from his phone call prior to carrying out the attack. You can argue whether it is ISIS realted if you want but it was definitely Islamist motivated and an attack on the LGBT community. 2 bird s with one stone very likely. I do mention both but I do not feel the need to ignore the LGBT aspect in the way Jones wants' to ignore the Islamist aspect. The facts are there to see. The phone call and the location of the attack.

What you have to consider is that there is a very clear intention of trying to avoid the "Islam" connection by the left in this country and Jones is very in the PC left. The motivation is very definitely to attack the gay community but is that because "a guy" didn't like gays? or was it because "a muslim guy" that took his religion to the extreme didn't like gays?

Is the motive a personal one or a religious one? Can it be both? The answer I would suggest is both and this attempt to claim every atrocity for a cause is very common place today.

Anyway we could argue back and forth on this when we both "seem" to agree it was a combination of motives so I don't think we need to argue anymore on it.
 
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saintgreg10 said:
Can we please stop referring to homosexuals as 'gays' or 'the gays'. These terms can be seen to belittling and derogatory. Thank you.
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Who decided that? homosexual people I know refer to themselves as gays and queens and even fairies all the time. Who decides what is offensive? Is there a high ranking homosexual decision maker in chief?
 
saintgreg10 said:
I don't have a problem with people using the word gay. I meant specifically describing a group of people as 'gays'. It's the same as describing a group of people as 'blacks'.
'Gay people' or the 'gay community' is less belittling.
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Who decided you can't call a group of black people blacks? If I say blacks to any of my black relatives or friends no-one says "hang on" or even changes facial expression.

Who is deciding all this stuff? The same people who told my Dad's generation you had to say coloured? Use the word coloured and most black people will say "I am not coloured I am black. We are blacks not coloureds."
 
Black is the generally accepted word for people from African descent, Gay is the accepted word for Homosexual people. anything else is likely to be derogative and used to cause offence by people that are not part of either minority. Members of each minority might call themselves ******s or Queens etc in an ironic way as to make a joke of it, but if a person not of each minority call a person of a minority any such names it can be construed that they are using it as a term of abuse.
 
Saints_Alive said:
Black is the generally accepted word for people from African descent, Gay is the accepted word for Homosexual people. anything else is likely to be derogative and used to cause offence by people that are not part of either minority. Members of each minority might call themselves ******s or Queens etc in an ironic way as to make a joke of it, but if a person not of each minority call a person of a minority any such names it can be construed that they are using it as a term of abuse.
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But that is not what we were saying. I don't use the n word because I know it causes offence but when pubs used to be communities and not the new model of self segregation where your little clique goes and doesn't mix with others within that pub things in my eyes were different. Not so many years ago you would go to a pub on your own and you would know almost everyone that went in that pub. Not necessarily know that much about many of the people but recognise them.

In those times you would have black white, gay, straight all manner of people and they would uses these "derogatory" terms and you would use the same words back and no-one was offended. The gay barman would exaggerate his "gayness" and play on the words queenie or fairies or "****" and the "non minority" would use the same language back in conversation and no offence was taken whether you knew the person well or just by face or even didn't know them i.e. walked in off the street as a friend of a friend. People seemed so much more comfortable with each other no matter what demographic they were from, poor, aflluent, gay, straight, poorly dressed, smartly dressed, black, chinese, asian, white, young or old.

There was hardly any problems in these kind of pubs and no need for doorman or police because back then if someone did cause trouble in these pubs, the pub "community" would very quickly stop that problem without questioning which minority you were from.

All I see around me is that things have taken a step backward and everybody wants their own little "safe place" rather than the acceptance that used to be there and people are so quick to jump on words that are mostly innocently used to develop a new segregation that wasn't there before. In my eyes while it is quite obvious there is less discrimination these days people are not mixing in the way that they used to and other people are continually trying to re-inforce ideas of difference that weren't really there no matter how much people want to talk about how bad things were.

It is stoking fires that had all but disappeared in the main and something that totally confuses me. After all it is what someone means with using language and not the language itself that should cause offence and like has been said we seem to be in an era where we can champion "freedom of speech" yet completely restrict the freedom of that speech. People are getting offended by things that were never offensive before even though someone is not meaning to be offensive and that is a very dangerous path to be going down.

We are asking for equality but demanding to be treated differently because people are being pushed to alter their language and act differently in the company of different people and that is not equality.

there is a huge difference between using a word and what you are trying to say. No-one seems bothered by the tone or intent anymore and in many cases can't even see what the intent is for some reason. We are basically banning freedom of speech by the back door by saying you can't use that term, word or statement because it "might" offend someone and as said above in a tongue in cheek way that "soon the dictionary will not be viable because every word we will be told "ooh ya can't use that word these days"
 
ImpSaint said:
But that is not what we were saying. I don't use the n word because I know it causes offence but when pubs used to be communities and not the new model of self segregation where your little clique goes and doesn't mix with others within that pub things in my eyes were different. Not so many years ago you would go to a pub on your own and you would know almost everyone that went in that pub. Not necessarily know that much about many of the people but recognise them.

In those times you would have black white, gay, straight all manner of people and they would uses these "derogatory" terms and you would use the same words back and no-one was offended. The gay barman would exaggerate his "gayness" and play on the words queenie or fairies or "****" and the "non minority" would use the same language back in conversation and no offence was taken whether you knew the person well or just by face or even didn't know them i.e. walked in off the street as a friend of a friend. People seemed so much more comfortable with each other no matter what demographic they were from, poor, aflluent, gay, straight, poorly dressed, smartly dressed, black, chinese, asian, white, young or old.

There was hardly any problems in these kind of pubs and no need for doorman or police because back then if someone did cause trouble in these pubs, the pub "community" would very quickly stop that problem without questioning which minority you were from.

All I see around me is that things have taken a step backward and everybody wants their own little "safe place" rather than the acceptance that used to be there and people are so quick to jump on words that are mostly innocently used to develop a new segregation that wasn't there before. In my eyes while it is quite obvious there is less discrimination these days people are not mixing in the way that they used to and other people are continually trying to re-inforce ideas of difference that weren't really there no matter how much people want to talk about how bad things were.

It is stoking fires that had all but disappeared in the main and something that totally confuses me. After all it is what someone means with using language and not the language itself that should cause offence and like has been said we seem to be in an era where we can champion "freedom of speech" yet completely restrict the freedom of that speech. People are getting offended by things that were never offensive before even though someone is not meaning to be offensive and that is a very dangerous path to be going down.

We are asking for equality but demanding to be treated differently because people are being pushed to alter their language and act differently in the company of different people and that is not equality.

there is a huge difference between using a word and what you are trying to say. No-one seems bothered by the tone or intent anymore and in many cases can't even see what the intent is for some reason. We are basically banning freedom of speech by the back door by saying you can't use that term, word or statement because it "might" offend someone and as said above in a tongue in cheek way that "soon the dictionary will not be viable because every word we will be told "ooh ya can't use that word these days"
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I'm cvonfused by your reasoning, are you saying that you want nasty little words like Queers, ****s, Benders, Wogs, Darkies etc be brought back into the mainstream? I tend not to look back because things evolve for a reason,. What might have been acceptable in the 70s is no longer appropriate today we have moved on and everybody has a right to be treated with respect, not to be looked at as different or a freak.
I'm glad that there is no room on TV for Homophobic, racist and sexist "comedians like Bernard Manning, Jim Davidson and Roy Chubby Brown
any more.
 
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Saints_Alive said:
I'm cvonfused by your reasoning, are you saying that you want nasty little words like Queers, ****s, Benders, Wogs, Darkies etc be brought back into the mainstream? I tend not to look back because things evolve for a reason,. What might have been acceptable in the 70s is no longer appropriate today we have moved on and everybody has a right to be treated with respect, not to be looked at as different or a freak.
I'm glad that there is no room on TV for Homophobic, racist and sexist "comedians like Bernard Manning, Jim Davidson and Roy Chubby Brown
any more.
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No. I am not saying anything should come back, most definitely not Chubby Brown or Bernard Manning. I am merely questioning why this year "x" word is not acceptable when I didn;t see anyone being offended by it before. I am not saying that people would address a "gay Barman" as "now then queer" or a black person "oi Darkie". But that conversation would not be altered in the company of a minority to the point that the "gay barman" would use the word "queen" freely and so would the people he was speaking to and neither side were being derogatory, they were talking to each other, they were laughing joking. The ginger bloke would be called Ginge. The short block called Shorty or is some ironic cases the tall bloke called shorty.

I was called "Ethy" through most of my young life because I was skinny and Ethiopia was the news back then. I was then called Sicky by the whole pub for years after an occasion when I drank to much and was sick all over the pub floor. I didn't take offence. I am merely questioning who decides that something is offensive when in real life the people I mix and mixed with never got offended by names. I have never called anyone a Wog or Darkie or Bender but in conversation with gay people I have used queen and fairy because they have used in the conversation themselves and if they are inserting it into conversation as a joke then I do too.

I am ultra careful in company of black people because it can be such a fine line to walk. In the black community there are a lot of words that only they are allowed to utter even to you as a white person but you are not allowed to say them yourself and it all just seems a little funny. I remember an American black chap. A professor or someone famous for whatever they had or were doing on Newsnight a few years back and he said that he was very disappointed with the black community in America and their constant use of the "n" word because the word had all but disappeared. He said that this idea of "reclaiming" the word was ridiculous.

I kind of agreed with him because it seem that someone somewhere in the world decides what this decades yes/no words are and then everyone can suddenly find themselves in the chit when the previous decade they weren't.

I am not saying we should be allowed to offend at all nor we should bring back derogatory words, just who decides and for what reason people decide that a word is now out of action when in the real world no-one was seeming to take offence to that word and in fact using it themself constantly in mixed circles?
 
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