Is Melanie Phillips onto something...or is she misguided?

[sp1814]

Melanie Phillips is pretty awesome. As Mark Thomas says:

"I am constantly impressed by Melanie Phillips’ ability to type and wave a pitchfork and flaming torch at the same time."

But are there serious concerns sitting behind her furrowed brow? Is there a gay agenda which seeks to "destroy the very ­concept of normal sexual behaviour"

http://www.thefirstpo...mail-outrages-twitter

http://www.melaniephi...rticles-new/?m=201101

Or is she just a mental right whinger who's 'preaching to the converted'?

[andy-hughes]

clokey has pointed out the essence of this approach from Ms Phillips - with the phrase 'sordid sex'.

The root of the right-wing fear is shrouded in a cloak of nonsense about 'demanding rights' and 'gay agenda' but the truth is - it's gay sex that really upsets them.

They find the notion of gay sex to be perverted and disgusting - in the purient way that used to be taught to children about masturbation back in the 1960's - it is this knee-jerk disgust that fuels the anti-gay lobbyists.

They don't object to black people (well pretend they don't anyway) - but when it comes to gay sex, they foam at the mouth with moral outrage.

The fact that homosexuals remain a repressed minority in our society means that they have to speak out to try and obtain the levels of tolerance and acceptance that heterosexual people accept as their right in a civilised world. It's easy to hi-jack that agenda and infer it is OTT demanding and ranting, which it patently is not.

Aim that argument at a right-wing readership and you can be hailed as a heroine, speaking out for 'right-minded' people.

It still boils down to an undercurrent of disgust - and that is the attitude that needs to be addressed.

[clokey]

Andy // They don't object to black people (well pretend they don't anyway)//
Why bring race in.
Have a view on any Gay matter and they try to link you with the Nazis.

[sp1814]

Clokey

"Gay is good straight is bad" - where on earth did THAT one come from? Who said that?

Naomi24 - still don't understand your point. Someone raises questions about 'the gay agenda' and people respond. No one is saying she should stay silent, but by the same token we should be free to challenge such daft statements like "homosexuality will soon become mandatory".

Seriously - when someone writes that, shouldn't we question their sanity?

[gingejbee]

Sorry, but hasn't this subject been done to death on here recently? The argument goes round and round because there is little new to say. The same people repeat the same opinions over and over.

[clokey]

10/10 gingejbee

[jackthehat]

Is someone pressing your fingers and making you type answers.................?

[andy-hughes]

clokey - I 'bring race in' because it is the other major bone of contention for the right - they firmly believe that this country is 'theirs' and not for some Johnny-foreigners to come and occupy it's green and pleasant land.

This attitude - like their sexual repression - is a throw back to our boarding school / colonial past where homsexuality was a phase to be hushed up, and foreigners knew their place in the empire.

We have - thank god - moved on, to a status where more people accept that the land of their birth is a fortunate accident, not a right of ownership, and that sexuality is an individual status, and a simple majority does not make other concepts wrong, merely different.

If everyone accepted that this world belongs to all of us, and we should all be tolerent of each other-s then there would be an end to this constant 'This is my country / religion / sexual orientation - hands off' attitude, and the world would be better for it.

We all put our trousers on one leg at a time, sleep at night, eat when we are hungry, cry when we are sad. Far more unites us than divides us, let's look to those things first.

[Sqad]

<<<<<"It's all part of the ruthless campaign by the gay rights lobby to destroy the very concept of normal sexual behaviour,"<<<<

Gay rights lobbyists exist......dont let´s deny this.......and I have no objection to it.

"Norma sexual" behaviour.......and here lies your problem...... defining "normal sexua behaviour" Up until some 30 years ago it was easy ....if it was heterosexual it was normal............now we must get used to the idea that homosexual sex is normal.

Al this takes time........Melanie Phillps is just, in a rather exaggerated manner, voicing the concern of many.

[Backdrifter]

naomi24, I haven't said anywhere that I hate her or consider her a nazi. I very clearly said I find her a sad figure, being apparently so propelled by the rage she feels about gays and other subjects, and I contested the suggestion that she's "mad". I said she seems to be on the same spectrum of obsessive hatred as Hitler. That doesn't make her a nazi, I don't think she is a nazi. She is obviously at the non-genocide end of that spectrum. You also made an assumption about "Expressing opinions that oppose the liberal left" - this I'm sure will apply to some people but I couldn't give a toss about the liberal left and whether it's opposed; I think some of what she says opposes the concept of just being humane.

I don't wish to silence her - okay I wouldn't lose any sleep if she suddenly went away but I agree, people should be free to express their views, of course they should. The trouble is, as Lazy Gun says, she makes herself into a cartoon figure and renders it difficult to take her seriously. I believe she does something of a disservice to the debate in the same that way that, yes, those on the other side do when they scream "racism" or "homophobia" without justification.

flip flop - re irony: you criticise people who over-react to views that oppose their own, but in doing so you support Phillips who does exactly that, as do many of her supporters. She says: "It's all part of the ruthless campaign by the gay rights lobby to destroy the very concept of normal sexual behaviour". She doesn't agree with gay rights, so says this. Can you honestly tell me, hand on heart, that you agree with it? Or that at least, it isn't the same as the "homophobia" wailers? (to use your word!).

By the way I do agree about Thomas. I never used to be too keen but I'm a big fan now.

[starone]

I think everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Melanie Phillips is able to broadcast hers to a wide audience, which is the problem. But I am sure there are gay columnists and comedians by the look of it, who can broadcast their opinions in the same way to counteract her writings. Why on earth don't they let people get on with their own lives peacefully (which I am sure most people do). As for teaching children, the kids around here could teach me a thing or two - they all know how many beans make five.

[andy-hughes]

Sqad - homosexual sex is normal - if you happen to be a homosexual.

Problem?

[clokey]

Andy let me explain something to you, I have no problem with Gay people or Black people what i have a problem with is people trying to shove down my throat that Gay is good.

I agree when you say //If everyone accepted that this world belongs to all of us, and we should all be tolerent of each other-//

Why try and brainwash the children is it because it worked in Germany before the second World War. This is what Melanie Phillips could be thinking ?

Wherever you go on this planet you will meet someone who does not like you and nothing that you do will change his mind and i am sorry to say that you will just have to live with it.

[jno]

an interesting quote from her piece:

"To oppose the gay rights agenda no more means that one is anti-gay than to oppose multicuturalism or extreme ­feminism means one is anti-black or anti-woman"

She draws a parallel between "gay rights" and "extreme feminism".

So wanting rights = extremism, according to her parallel.

(She means, I dare say, rights for other people. Rights for Jews, Daily Mail columnists and so forth aren't extreme, they're normal.)

[starone]

clokey - yes exactly so.

[Sqad]

Andy....but that is the point..........that is NOW.....but homosexuality wasn´t recognized or accepted until some 30years ago and up until then, normal sex was heterosexual sex.

So you now have a generation (coming to an end) that has difficulty accepting that homosexual sex is normal.
Have I got a problem......YES.....but luckily I am in the dying generation that I have spoken about.

Have the present generation got a problem with homosexuality is more to the point and in my opinion it is becoming less of a problem.

[Backdrifter]

clokey, I think only an idiot would argue with your final parapgraph above, you are absolutely right.

But where the debate breaks down is people saying things like "brainwash children" and "shove down my throat that gay is good". Why do you have to express it like that? When and where have those things happened? Aren't they simply saying, "gays should be accepted and treated equally" ? Is that wrong?