I’m sorry, but that statement is utter nonsense.

I’m sorry Andy Gilmour but I have provided you with one referendum result and two opinion polls which give a rough measure of public opinion when it is asked about the issue. I could find you many more which would only re-confirm my argument that those who care about the issue tend to have generally favoured the law. I don’t know of any opinion polls which showed a majority against. This anti-section 28 majority is a fantasy of yours and if you think that the Tories were legislating against public opinion on this then you’re stupid.

In any case, I never intended to end up defending section 28, a law I have always opposed and I never imagined I would get into an argument over my personal yuk-factor regarding sex between two men which I explained have no bearing on my personal opinions regarding gay equality (which I support). If I personally find homosexuality to be disgusting that is becasue I think anal sex between males is disgusting. I am simply stating that which is the opinion of all heterosexuals with a few (I suspect dishonest) exceptions. I only mentioned it in order to illustrate why homosexuality was not considered to be the norm by most people. Whilst I will gladly discuss the rights and wrongs of section 28 I don’t see why I should waste my time defending facts which are so obvious as to be self-evident.

And to the worthless piece of pond-life@75 – I’m tired of your witless self-refuting drivel. If you want to think that I’m homophobic then go ahead. If a extremist bigot like you had a high opinion of me I’d be ashamed.

Seriously, you seem to have an issue with last-wordism when it is clear that your homophobia and the items you raise to defend it are not only debunked but also further compound your bigotry.

I am glad that I am not alone in challenging your repeated and unwanted prescence here, don’t you get it yet?

You are quite deluded, you are homophobic, please accept it so that you can at least deal with it. You ahve exploded as you put it, nothing.

Go away and stop using this thread to expose your prejudice.

“The Tories passed the Act because at the time they had a comfortable majority and the vast majority of Tory MPs supported it. In this case, parliamentary opinion merely reflected that of public opinion which has also always been in favour of section 28. That is an undeniable fact. Even those opposed to it (including myself) never denied this. In the 2000 referendum in Scotland 87% of those who voted, voted for its retention.”

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Firstly, I showed you the evidence that parliamentary majorities in our appallingly unrepresentative FPTP system cannot be claimed as any measure of “widespread public opinion”. Your following assertions are simply more efforts at self-justification of your personal “yuck factor” regarding homosexuality.

To support this you then cite the ridiculous, privately-funded by religious bigot Brian Souter’s “Keep The Clause” campaign, ‘referendum’ on Section 2a (as it was called up here) in 2000. I remember it well, being one of the folk they sent a ballot form to.

Many people decided to boycott this vote, and only 32% of those polled chose to respond (even though it wouldn’t cost us a single bawbee). Thus your 87% is only 28% of the electorate at best. Yup, that’s “widespread public opinion”, sure enough.

Also, IF you’d been paying attention (fat chance) you’d have spotted that I never mentioned a Labour/Tory divide – I simply pointed out how few votes ANY government needed in order to have an easy working majority, and it happened to be a minority-voted-for Tory government that brought in section 28.. The same system worked well for Tony Blair on some contentious issues, no? And as for your other ‘evidence’ – did you consider the poll of Sedgefield only asked 715 people, and again, it’s 71% “of those who expressed a view”…?

I’m out of this, I have more intelligent, rational and interesting people to waste my time on.

You haven’t read my comments at @21.

“An Act being passed in parliament has everything to do with how big a majority you’ve got at the time, and nowt to do with that nebulous notion “widespread public opinion”, which is what my stats illustrated. So that’s what I am on.”

You’re talking rubbish. The Tories passed the Act because at the time they had a comfortable majority and the vast majority of Tory MPs supported it. In this case, parliamentary opinion merely reflected that of public opinion which has also always been in favour of section 28. That is an undeniable fact. Even those opposed to it (including myself) never denied this. In the 2000 referendum in Scotland 87% of those who voted, voted for its retention. In another poll carried out in the Tony Blairs own constituency in 2000 71% people voted for retention. This is in Labour heartlands which completely flattens your argument that it had anything to do with a Labour/Tory divide. Also In another 2000 poll by Ipsos Mori poll which was conducted across the country 54% of people thought S28 should retained and that “schools should not be allowed to promote homosexuality” 37% of thought teachers should not teach about homosexuality.

I don’t want to be too harsh but it’s becoming readily apparent that you’re not the brightest bush in the barrel. Do you understand what libertarianism is? Yes? Then perhaps you realize that if you call yourself a libertarian, the personal revulsion you may or not feel when faced with the thought of homosexual sex should be absolutely irrelevant when it comes to discussing public policy, for the simple reason that it doesn’t aggress against anyone, harm anyone, or otherwise infringe upon anyone’s rights in any way. If you don’t believe this, then please kindly stop referring to yourself as a libertarian.

Oh, and “Passing Libertarian”, please explain to me how roads would be commissioned, paid for and built in a co-ordinated fashion without anything more than a nightwatchman state (to return to your earlier comment)

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-231.html

and http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_2/3_2_7.pdf

are not terrible places to begin for theoretical outlines. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/private-highways-in-america-1792-1916/ is a good historical example of private provision of roads. This: http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=64 might be a book you’d be interested in.

No thanks necessary

Dear PassingLibertarian, you said:

“You complete numpty! How the f*** can a general election result be a measure of public opinion on one issue like section 28? WTF are you on?”

But earlier you had made this evidence-free assertion:
“Section 28 could never have been carried through Parliament without widespread public support;”

Maybe you should look at what you write before you criticise responses to it.

An Act being passed in parliament has everything to do with how big a majority you’ve got at the time, and nowt to do with that nebulous notion “widespread public opinion”, which is what my stats illustrated. So that’s what I am on.

What’s your excuse?

I can’t believe you’ve come back, yet again, to a thread where you are alone in your bigotry and the level of debate and thought is stacked against, seriously, go home now.

You are not aware you’ve abused anyone because you don’t see your views as homophobic, which they are. Calling me more names only makes you look even worse than you already do, as for enemy of free speech, you have the freedom to spout your bigotry but not the right to not have it challenged, as has happened here.

I am not willing to repeat what myself and others have said regarding your homophobia. Just re-read it till you get it.

Stop swearing and name calling, your wig is slipping, go elsewhere with the homophobia, it is not welcome here.

The latter doesn’t necessitate the former, so you find homosexual sex “disgusting” for some other reason. Don’t tar all heterosexuals with the same brush.

I am not aware I have abused anyone here on this post. Anyone who whines that he has been ‘abused’ by someone elses opinion as if it were a stick taken to his back, is a scumbag
and an enemy of free speech. That means you.

“Calling people cretins is never a good idea when you’re spouting bigotry”,

If you don’t like being called a cretin then stop talking like one. And if you had actually read anything that I wrote with any care, you would be unable to find any evidence of anti-gay ‘bigotry.’ This is because I do not hate homosexuals. If I did, I wouldn’t have support gay marriage years before most of you were politically conscious (or even born). If I personally find homosexual sex disgusting then that is because I am heterosexual. You might as well scream ‘heterosexual’ at me becuase if being disgusted by homosexual acts makes me a ‘homophobe’, then homophobia doesn’t mean anything and most heterosexuals are incorrigible bigots.

But I can see that in your case the term ‘homophobe’ is just a synonym for ‘thought criminal’. You are a bigoted, censorious piece of human trash who hates free speech.

“Completely ridiculous statement under our first-past-the-post system, as you should very well know. 36% of the votes cast (closer to 25% or so of the electorate, I believe?? that could be underestimate? its late…) can get you a very large majority – as, again, you *should* be aware. I think the Tories got 38% of the vote in the election before Section28 was passed?”

You complete numpty! How the f*** can a general election result be a measure of public opinion on one issue like section 28? WTF are you on?

Says what exactly? What definition would you prefer? Someone who enjoys musical theatre?

If I had to come up with a textbook definition I would say that you would define a homosexual as someone who was attracted to people of the same sex both physically and emotionally. You certainly can’t define it by a particular sexual act. Not all homosexuals actually have sex with other men. Not all men who have sex with other men are homosexual.

The methods pirates employ to protect themselves are not all that different from what states use (who were also actively involved in pillaging on the high seas). By the standards of the 17th century, they were pretty progressive, and cultivated a reputation for fearsomeness exactly so that they wouldn’t have to engage in real conflict as often.

Can’t speak for the recent phenomenon of Somali pirates, although if Johann Hari, is right, they might too be offering a protection scheme to the Somali coast: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html

The main point Leeson is making isn’t that Somalia is a nice place to live, only that in its case statehood turns out to be a cure that is worse than the disease as it inevitably involved more muder and more expropriation than the anarchy is witnesses now. Of course, it was previously a Marxist state, so it would be interesting to see whether a classical liberal order would be rather better.

(Cross-posted in the other thread in case there are people too thick to get the point)

Now you put it like that I feel quite sorry for the homophobe but only slightly, as the time spent working with young LGBT people in London who have been the victim of the kind of backward thinking abuse that the Passing Libertarian (who I wish would keep on going rather than stop here and make a fool of himself) spouts.

Calling people cretins is never a good idea when you’re spouting bigotry, neither does it work calling me a bigot in return when clearly I don’t find LGBT baffling or repulsive and you do. “For most heterosexuals even thinking about it enough to make their stomachs turn” not the case, only if you’re homophoibc would that kind of reaction occur, dear me, the more you type the bigger your hole of bigotry gets.

Uponnothing, Don Paskini, Paul Sagar, Left Outside and Paul Gilmour have all outlined your homophobic hateful views and it may be best you go elsewhere to spout them, rather than typing more hatred.

“Section 28 could never have been carried through Parliament without widespread public support;”

Completely ridiculous statement under our first-past-the-post system, as you should very well know. 36% of the votes cast (closer to 25% or so of the electorate, I believe?? that could be underestimate? its late…) can get you a very large majority – as, again, you *should* be aware. I think the Tories got 38% of the vote in the election before Section28 was passed?

Anyway, just a wee thing there on which you’re patently talking bollocks. A bit like journeyman’s witless diatribe further up the comments…

Ho hum.

I do not think there is anything wrong with discussing it in a classroom but I am afraid to describe homosexual sex as normal is not accurate.

You realise that performing a sex act on someone using a penis is a minority act? There are more men than women. Does that make it abnormal?

Stop equating normal with majority. It is nonsense.

Thanks for saving me the trouble regarding Somalia – though you left out piracy!

Then again, perhaps our libertarian friends are all for pricay. It’s anti-state, isn’t it?

Hoorah for pirates, shaking their cutlasses/AK-47s defiantly at the evil spectre of the states which are probably the only entities capable of restraining them!

Hooray for the pirates, which are a blight to international commerce and capitalism, and whose spread is only contained by that evil entity, the nation state allying with other nation state to use its navy paid for by taxes to contain the blessed anti-state pirates!

Three cheers for the pirates – those murdering, robbing, extorting, raping, savage pirates! If only the evil states would all disappear, the pirates would be free to sail the high seas!

And then they could land ashore for a ride in the Mad Max world of all terrain 4x4s, which will presumably have guns atop them to shoot poor people who come trying to steal food.

Oh, and “Passing Libertarian”, please explain to me how roads would be commissioned, paid for and built in a co-ordinated fashion without anything more than a nightwatchman state (to return to your earlier comment)

And please don’t just call me “thick” or “a cretin”. That’s terribly rude. And also, I suspect, a tad ironic.