Gay Marriage: Why Not?

The first gay couples to tie the knot in the UK have now done so and as far as I can tell the Earth is still turning and the price of eggs has not gone up.  For the record, legislatively, I view gay marriage as an equality issue and I remain unconvinced by various arguments made against its introduction.  I do not think that religious groups have a monopoly on defining marriage or that a society does not have the right to change the way in which it views marriage.  I do not believe that marriage, by definition refers only to relationships that might give rise to the birth and nurture of children (out the window go older couples and those who either cannot have children or who choose not to) and I do not believe that society will suffer harm if a few thousand gay or lesbian couples marry each year.

At the same time, it is a mistake to conclude that everyone who opposes gay marriage is homophobic.  Some may, be but many are not.  It is possible to believe (rightly or wrongly) that something is harmful or even immoral and yet not be remotely bigoted.  I might be tee-total (which I am not) on the grounds of health, religion or personal preference, but that does not necessarily mean that I am alcophobic!

Few social changes have occurred within my lifetime that compare with the changes in attitudes with regard to sexuality.  Some headlines this week in the UK trumpeted that 20% of people invited to a gay marriage would choose not to attend; that means, of course, that 80% would.  Such an outcome was, literally, unthinkable forty years ago.  In the space of a generation we have gone from being told by doctors, psychiatrists, politicians and religious leaders that being gay was a wilful perversion, to it being an illness, to it being a lifestyle choice to it being quite simply what some individuals are.  That is quite a movement!

What I find particularly interesting though in the context of our society is the way in which minorities seeking to change legislation or social practices are often met with the question, ‘why?’  The response, I think, ought to be ‘why not?’  When the majority asks ‘why?’ it immediately puts the onus on the minority to prove that it has a right to be listened to; that the majority ought to ‘permit’ a change in the way society shapes itself.  In other words, it is a subtle way of asserting that minorities are dependent on majorities for any rights or ‘privileges’ that they might enjoy.  Surely the right way to go about ordering our society is for all of us to empathise with everyone in our society, however challenging that might be.  The question then becomes, why should minorities not be able to express themselves in exactly the same ways as majorities?  There might still be some cases where this is not a good thing, but I suspect they will be many fewer than at present. 

Why not gay marriage?  Why not racial equality?  Why not religious freedom?  The irony is that some of the voices raised most strongly against gay marriage come from within minority groups, such as churches, who will soon have to realise that their freedoms depend on the majority taking a ‘why not’, rather than a ‘why’ approach to their practices.

No News is.....No News

When the news first broke that Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370 had disappeared off radar screens, it seemed like another tragic, but ‘ordinary’ air-crash.  When it became clear that this incident was far from ordinary, the world’s media flung themselves at the story with energy and relish. A modern-day mystery to rival the Marie Celeste was an unexpected gift to jaded news editors.

What has emerged since then is…..nothing.  This has not stopped a flood of articles, news items and ‘special reports’ engaging in rampant speculation over the fate of the airplane.  Experts in everything from aviation to psychology have promoted their theories with varying degrees of certainty; the net result of all this wisdom: still nothing.

Of course, it is entirely correct for the media to follow this story.  What is unpalatable, however, is the media’s obsession with peddling just about any theory imaginable rather than simply stating that until the airplane is found, there is no way of knowing what happened to it.  While ‘sorry’ might be the hardest word, ‘we don’t know’, seems to be the hardest phrase for the news media to use. 

Understandably, there is no news in the media stating that there is no news, but the issue goes deeper than that.  The news media need to keep us reading and watching because, in the interests of self-preservation, they need to keep us reading and watching. However noble their aspirations might be to inform, to influence or to challenge us, none of these can happen if they lose us as their audience.

Spreading the news and shaping public opinion costs money.  There is a danger that the primary concern of newspapers becomes selling newspapers; the primary concern of TV companies becomes raising advertising revenue (or in the case of the BBC maintaining its ratings so that it can justify the licence fee).  No one ‘in the industry’ is likely to admit this; rather, they will suggest that journalistic integrity always comes first: sales are just a means to an end.  
Facing financial reality is inescapable if the media is to survive.  What concerns me, however, is that by keeping one eye on the market, the other eye loses focus on what matters: hard news and informed opinion.  When that focus is lost, folly is presented as informed opinion and nonsense is heralded as news. 

Selfless Selfies?

I don’t know who started the idea of asking women to post ‘make-up free’ selfies on facebook, though I imagine that there are advertising executives around the world kicking themselves.  Awareness of cancer research has soared, but amid the ranks of the boldly bare-faced there has been no shortage of detractors. Many negative comments reflect little more than jealousy-inspired grumpiness; one issue, however, caught my eye almost as much as those pale, but mostly smiling faces.

With varying levels of intensity numerous critics have pointed out that cancer research often involves causing deliberate suffering to animals.  Is such behaviour, even in pursuit of an end that might increase human happiness or minimise human suffering ethical?  Is it ever right deliberately to inflict suffering on other creatures? Is this too great a price to pay for medical progress?

It is easy to turn a blind eye to all of this, but to do so is a mistake.  It is an uncomfortable fact that human cancer research involves a great deal of suffering for a great number of other sentient creatures.  Can this be justified?

Much treatment of animals that was once common-place, such as flogging working animals and cock-fighting is now, unacceptable.  Factory farming is widely criticised as is the use of animals for testing cosmetics. Fur coats have been consigned to the rubbish bin of fashion history where they belong and the use of animals in entertainment is under the spotlight.  It is entirely conceivable that at some point in the future, children will gasp in amazement and horror at the idea that their forebears once killed, skinned and ate other sentient creatures.

It seems to me that there are really only three arguments that can be used to support animal experimentation in the cause of medical research. The first is to hold that humans are intrinsically more important than animals and so, while inflicting gratuitous suffering on animals is unacceptable, there is nothing objectionable in inflicting suffering to advance human wellbeing.  The second is to say that while humans might not be intrinsically of greater value than animals, it is the natural order of things for species to promote their own welfare above others: a straight-forward Darwinian survival of the fittest struggle.

I suspect that both of these arguments will sit uneasily with very many people.  The third argument, however, is the most practically persuasive and the most honest.  If it comes to a choice between saving my child’s life (or even my own life) and inflicting suffering on an animal, I will instinctively act in favour of my family and myself.  Most other people, I suggest will act in a similar way.  When push comes to shove, I will act in ways that I would otherwise never dream of acting. My relational attachment to ‘my own’ as well as to myself trumps other considerations.  Maybe there is no such thing as an unselfish selfie….

A Crimean Shame?

It is difficult not to get drawn into a ‘Russia bad, the rest of the world good’ mentality as the media continue to howl with indignation at the behaviour of President Putin, the Crimean parliament and assorted Russian Ukrainians.  I am very far from being a Putin fan and I don’t believe that his interests in Ukraine are motivated by as much as a thimble-full of concern for the welfare of his ‘compatriots’, but jumping on the media bandwagon obscures what is really going on.

 

‘Patriotism’, Samuel Johnson noted, ‘is the last refuge of a scoundrel’; it is appalling to think that well  over two hundred years after his death it is still childishly simple for ‘leaders’ to play the patriotism (or nationalism) card to get what they want. 

 

Nation States (and many ethnic groups within states) have always acted in ways that their leaders perceive to be in their best interests.  The over-riding concerns are not justice or peace, but, at best, security and economic development and, at worst, power and dominance. Actions are limited much less by ethical imperatives than by a simple calculation of how much intervention is necessary to achieve the desired results. 

 

Almost a century ago the world was plunged into bloody strife, fuelled by patriotic passions.  Two decades after the ‘war to end all wars’ was over an even more brutal and devastating conflict destroyed millions of lives as countless ‘ordinary’ people colluded with crazed despots, allowing themselves to be led by the nose down the road of atrocity, allured once more by the sickly aroma of patriotism. The main motive behind these and so many subsequent wars has been the same: self-interest, more often than not covered by the cloak (or flag) of patriotism. It is easy to see this in ‘other people’s wars’, but devilishly difficult to recognise its influence in our own conflicts, be they in Vietnam, the Falkland Islands, the Gulf or Ireland.

 

Patriotism is fine if it is confined to cheering national sports teams or to bizarre competitions such as the Eurovision Song Contest, but it has been a major bane and curse of the human race over the past few centuries.

 

Leaders know how to manipulate and the greater a grip a leader has on power (or conversely the greater he or she fears losing power) the greater that manipulation is likely to be.  Putin’s actions are just the most recent example of a leader playing the patriotism card for political and personal gain, but I confess that when I look around, I don’t see many other clean hands.

The death of the 'Most dangerous man in Britain'

Many people will not recognise the name Tony Benn and not all of those that do will remember just what a captivating individual he was.  His death today leaves a gap that will be difficult to fill.  Once vilified by the right wing press as ‘the most dangerous man in Britain’ and dismissed by his own Labour Prime Minister as having ‘immatured with age’, he was one of the rarest of creatures: a conviction politician who preferred principle to position.

Tony Benn had a privileged upbringing: Westminster School, Oxford and a ready-made peerage to inherit; not the usual credentials of a dedicated left-wing opponent of both Britain’s class structure and capitalism.  He entered the UK Parliament at the age of 25 in 1950 and stayed there through successive elections until 2001 when he retired, ‘to devote more time to politics’. The only break in his career in the House of Commons came when he inherited his father’s peerage and was automatically ‘elevated’ to the House of Lords. A fierce believer in democracy, he fought through the courts and won the right to renounce his peerage so that he could stand again for election to the ‘lower’ chamber.

Tony Benn espoused many causes that were deeply unpopular at the time: abolition of capital punishment, opposition to both Gulf Wars and, as part of his commitment to equality, supporting the ordination of women to the Anglican priesthood. Unlike some other conviction politicians he was unfailingly courteous to his opponents, charming as well as compelling in debate and entirely devoted to his family’s happiness and wellbeing. Above all, his instincts were to do what was right, regardless of personal political cost, to make the world a fairer and safer place.

Tony Benn followed the truth as he perceived it, however uncomfortable that might have been.  He might have believed, mistakenly or otherwise, that he had a better grasp of the truth than most others, but he also embraced genuinely open, personal dialogue, stating: ‘You have to be tremendously respectful, throughout life, of other people’s convictions’.  

Never a stranger to the well-turned phrase, Tony Benn recognized the power of ideas over structures and systems claiming, ‘People will die for what they believe in. They won’t die for the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement’.

Regardless of whether his politics were right or wrong, his instincts were unerringly and implacably ethical; it is sad to think that it is hard, if not impossible, to identify a candidate to fill his shoes now that he is gone.