Only if you say things that are favoured in Islington, it would seem.
Some odious Jamaican singer rejoicing in the name of Beenie Man could be charged under British law with incitement to violence because of the anti-homosexual lyrics of his songs.
I am all for the annoying Peter Tatchell trying (with some success) to cause ‘Beenie Man’ and his ilk financial difficulties by getting sponsorship deals cancelled as a result of their hate-mongering: that is civil society in action and an altogether good thing… but unless ‘Bennie Man’ actually starts taking up his bazooka for real, the state has no business suppressing free speech by force.
The essential civil liberties called ‘freedom of expression’ are rather more important that the actual substance of some idiotic reggae song. Has the culture of liberty really decayed so far that this sort of overarching state control can be tolerated? Freedom of expression for the politically favoured or the mainstream are the easy bits… it is when some detestable half-wit homophobic prat like ‘Beenie Man’ opens his noisome trap that you discover what the real state of civil liberties in a country is.
Pathetic. It is just a song and the state has no business banning songs.
The only point to free speech is to protect offensive speech. Nothing else was under threat anyway.
On the other hand, Weenie Man and his kind have guns.
The rest of us have been denied our freedom to express ourselves that way.
Actually, what winds me up isn’t the ‘lyrics’ (after all, it’s what a lot of lowlife scum would like to do anyway). No, it’s the fact that the state is pretty reluctant to do anything in this case but would come down on me like a ton of bricks if I called for people who looked like Weenie Man to be hunted with sharp sticks like pigs in India.
So it’s the fact there’s this endless government negotiation and consultation as to whether a gay man is as politically important (and as worthy of legislation) as a black man, as to whether a gay man should have the same rights as a black man, that really winds me up.
As you say, Perry, the state shouldn’t be getting involved at all.
Has nobody noticed that ‘Beenie Man’ is Jamaican and that his squalid sentiments were published on a Jamaican record label?
Surely beyond the jurisdiction of HMG?
It’s just a natural extension of all this Politically Correct twaddle that we’ve been spoon fed for years. Apparently, if you don’t say it you don’t think it anymore.
I’d say that, far from being eradicated, the mistaken rationale behind racism, sexism etc. is simply simmering under the surface. So long as it is power blocs and societal subgroups defined by race, gender, religion or disability that influence legislation we will have a society divided into those very groups. As long as we’re divided by those arbitrary classifications, we’ll have an ‘us and them’ mentality along those lines.
Editors note: Comment deleted.
Piss off. We have previously banned you from commenting here and spewing your nonsensical ‘race realist’ bullshit. Changing your name does not mean we cannot track who you are.
“So it’s the fact there’s this endless government negotiation and consultation as to whether a gay man is as politically important (and as worthy of legislation) as a black man, as to whether a gay man should have the same rights as a black man, that really winds me up.”
Well, here’s one black man who will defend the legal rights of gay men to say equally offensive things in return – though if you were ever to exercise that right in my hearing, I’d also exercise mine to return fire for fire, and worse 😉
Art, darling, what I mean by the ‘arbitrariness’ of the classificaton is it’s arbitrariness in relation to certain contexts.
It’s an arbitrary classification when it’s used as the basis for a decision such as friendship, staffing or trade, for example. Although it shouldn’t be illegal to discriminate against a certain race when choosing staff, it’s not really a particularly smart thing to do as a business. It cuts an entire subset of the population out of the running for a position. If you’re looking for the best coder or manager or flautist it’s much more rational to whittle down choices by skill and attitude than melanin levels or hormone balances.
My sweet, (since we’re evidently on such affectionate terms) we’re hardwired to do lots of interesting things as humans. I’m hardwired to breed yet have so far resisted the urge. What sets us apart is bringing our mind and free will to bear on that hardwiring which might otherwise lead us to do silly things.
Beenie Man has a UK label (EMI) and frequently tours the UK. It is perfectly fine for Tatchell & Co to expose BM for what he is. However, it is not alright for Tatchell to call for BM’s music or performances to be banned by government.
BTW I would point out that the genre of music in which BM performs is notorious for its neanderthal attitude towards gays. He is not unusual, his fellow “dance-hall” musicians back in Jamaica probably can’t understand what the fuss is about.
David:
I think you are probably right, although jurisdiction would depend upon the precise nature of the “crime” he is alleged to have committed – i.e. whether it is a “conduct” crime or a “result” crime. For more details see (Link):
No doubt some lawyer is being paid a tidy sum to consider the question.
Monica, I agree. This separation of British people into handy chunks with opposing interests has been engineered by the Labourites with a view to chopping up the British populace into bite size pieces. They then set the pieces against each other and pose as their saviour. Of course those horrible white indigines should not be allowed to voice an opinion about immigrants; we will see to it! Of course those tolerant and productive Muslims should be allowed to impose their bigoted, primitive culture on the British; we will see to it! Of course homosexuals should be able to have sex in public lavatories no matter how revolting and uncivilised this is to the 95% of the population that is not a gay man; we will see to it!
Etc.
Tony Blair must have his panties in a twist over this one though, because one favoured group – a black Jamaican is supposedly inciting hatred against another favoured group (especially in the British cabinet). Oooh, err.
What the man said… By all means organise boycotts etc., and charge anyone who actually assaults people, but laws? Laws which are ambiguous in their reach & limit free speech? C’mon.
As for “supposedly” inciting hatred against gays, I don’t see how “bun dem” type lyrics & ones which call on the listener to kill the chi chi man could be interpreted any other way. There’s no supposed about it. Gays in Jamaica have a miserable time; Andrew’s right in pointing out that these lyrics would not be in the least bit contraversial in the Jamaican music scene, or even in Jamaican society in general.
I love dancehall; it’s been one of the most vibrant, dynamic, creative forms of music over the last 20-odd years, but i do wish they’d bloody well grow up. Did anyone see the ‘obviously written by record company lawyer/PR people’ statement Beenie Man issued, trying to get off the hook? Lame as hell damage-limitation exercise, & so obviously not written by him.
& Verity, was that a cheap ‘oo.. gay cabinet’ jibe there, or was I just imagining things?
The controversy over when to ban certain speech is very much like the controversy over second hand smoke. Even when it’s pointed out that no proof exists that second hand smoke is harmful, people still favor laws banning it because it “smells terrible” and “irritates me”. The banning of Nazi-favoring speech in Germany, for example, can hardly, in these days, be justified by a real threat of a Nazi resurgence. But people just don’t want to hear it, so they allow the government to put people in jail for voicing their opinions. Politicians will ever take advantage of such irrationality among those who think life should never irritate them.
A_t – You know better than to give me the benefit of the doubt. Of course it was a cheap shot.
BTW, I have more sympathy with Peter Thatchell than with the rest of the Gay/AIDS industry. I do think he demonstrated physical bravery in the face of Mugabe’s goons, who worked him over seriously. But, having demanded that gays have the right to express themselves freely, his imperiousness in seeking to restrict other people’s rights to do the same is opportunistic and hypocritical.
“Hate speech laws” are the 21st Century equivalent of witch hunts. No ifs, ands or buts. We are in the grips of a mass hysteria aided and abetted by the state.
Maybe they should try tossing Beenie Man into a river with a rock tied to him? If he survives, he can go free.
So it’s the fact there’s this endless government negotiation and consultation as to whether a gay man is as politically important (and as worthy of legislation) as a black man, as to whether a gay man should have the same rights as a black man, that really winds me up.
This is the root problem of the left/reconditioners attempts, through Force of the State, to change the mentality of the average individual. They do nothing but tie themselves up in illogical knots “I must sanction homophobia but what if it’s a black man? – gaaahhhhh”.
The answer is ‘tolerance’, not in the left, bleeding heart sort that leads them to their self appointed ‘mind-mechanic’ positions, but allowing individuals to be truly disinterested in how other people live. Tolerance in the hands of these folks is an occasion for a ‘diversity festival’ while it should be free association and not giving a piss what someone else does as long as they do not directly harm or threaten property. But under the one structure, do-gooder mind controllers have titles and prestige (in their own worlds anyway) and under the other structure they’re nobodies.
What amuses me is the outcry about Beenie Man, while at the same time quite a bit of rap is just as homohaas as “dancehall.” I think the reason BM is getting in particular is that he is a Jamaican and not British or American.
I agree that BM’s “apology” was just pathetic and pretty much guaranteed to makes matters worse for him. However, a cynic could point out that this row keeps BM is the public view and may, in fact, increase his sales.
Andrew, I dunno about the rap/he’s not american thing…
I’d be hard-pressed to find any rap records that’re as brutally homophobic as some jamaican ones (many of them big, big hits; ‘boom bye bye’ a decade ago, & plenty since then; if you pop down the notting hill carnival in a couple of weeks time, I guarantee you’ll be able to find large audiences shouting along enthusiastically, & with some passion to “kill the battyman” type lyrics; it’s made me abandon a number of soundsystems in the past).
Rappers may call each other ‘faggots’ as insults, but this is quite a widespread practise in among macho men everywhere & whilst fucking dumb, doesn’t necessarily indicate much homophobia, at least in any violent sense; they certainly don’t often make choruses out of calling for the burning down of gay men’s houses, or shooting them in the head etc.
I think there definitely *would* be more of an outcry tbh, if a high profile UK or US artist attempted to release anything like what Beenie Man or others from Jamaica have.
The irony of course, is that most of this homophobia which we’re now condemning stems from earlier colonial adventures & attempts to instill good ‘christian morality’ in the heathen savages… I’m not advocating that we wring our hands in guilt over this or anything, but it’s a bizarrely perverse outcome. Ah well! So it goes.
Toolkien: “[…] and not giving a piss what someone else does as long as they do not directly harm or threaten property.” You left out “people or” in form to “property”. Only a fingerslip, I hope.
The irony of course, is that most of this homophobia which we’re now condemning stems from earlier colonial adventures & attempts to instill good ‘christian morality’ in the heathen savages..
A_t,
To blame homophobia on good old Christian morality and colonialism seems a bit trite, could it not have something to do with the fact that the majority find sodomy, buggery and the homosexual thing to be at least repulsive, if not downright loathsome. Or are you suggesting that buggery is quite the normal thing to do, and that homophobia is the real abnormality?
That men, who would disdain from touching faeces with their hands, are prepared to touch it with their sexual organs, is beyond understanding. To me they are nothing more than perverts, and I see no good reason to treat them as anything else. No, I do not recommend having them ‘put down’, but I do reserve the right to ignore them if I so wish…yes, I do find them quite disgusting, and I did not go to a colonial missionary school, nor was I force-fed religion as a youngster.
Strange how the ‘boundaries of freedom’ are non-existent when it applies to sexual practicess and perversions, but are growing evermore restrictive when applied to free speech, thought and expression.
Your remark that homophobia is fucking dumb, when compared to homosexuality which is just dumb fucking, was amusing, no one caught AIDS from being a homophobe, ( at least not in the beginning)….Yes, I know, I left myself wide open to the argument that AIDS is not a homosexual disease…but you believe what you want…
A_t, you point about rap not being homohaas is well taken. However rap (esp “gangsta’) replaces violence against gays… with violence against women and in some cases whites & the police. Not that big of an improvement is it?
What makes me laugh is PC types who tell me rappers/”dance hall” are “expressing cultural rage” while at the same time decrying hard rock for being “sexist”. Basically most of the subject matter of hard rock is about getting hammered and getting laid (or the results thereof).
Ernest, “are you suggesting that buggery is quite the normal thing to do, and that homophobia is the real abnormality?”
yes.
There are certainly documented cases of places in Africa which had traditionally been tolerant of man/man sex, & subsequently became indoctrinated in the Judeo-Christian system of ‘morality’ & decided it was a sin. If the majority find buggery “repulsive” for the scatological reasons you seem to be suggesting, it’s strange that, in it’s male->female incarnation, it was traditionally practised in many parts of Europe (& still is in some) as a means of contraception/preserving ‘virginity’. It also seems strange that this ‘natural’ revulsion has not limited anal sex activities within porn to a small niche. Instead, it seems to be a mainstream obsession; rare are the porn movies without an anal scene. Can you find any explanation for this which fits in with your theory?
“Strange how the ‘boundaries of freedom’ are non-existent when it applies to sexual practicess and perversions, but are growing evermore restrictive when applied to free speech, thought and expression.”
Err.. and your point is? I deplore restrictions on free speech, thought & expression. I also deplore any restrictions on sexual freedom, or any other thing an individual might choose to do with his or her body. Can you say likewise?
Andrew, truth about the heavy metal thing, but on the other hand does anyone still actually criticise rock’n’roll for being sexist any more? I thought we were all post-modern post-feminist it’s-all-a-laugh-really The Darkness types by now! Sounds more like a late 80s/early 90s PC reaction than anything modern.
Also true about the misogyny in rap though; dancehall tends to (on the whole) treat women with more respect (albeit in a bizarre way sometimes; I’ve never known women who would take being compared to a BMW or lexus a compliment, but it takes allsorts), although they have a strange aversion to oral sex in one direction (don’t know why; it’s a Jamaican thing).
TBH, the violence against whites thing ain’t really that much of an issue any more, & hardly ever was; there were some Nation of Islam types back in the day who would go on about the white devil, but these days… beyond mocking references to white boys in the wrong neighbourhood, I haven’t come across much I’d consider threatening. As to violence against the police, well.. I don’t condone, but can understand why one might want to say such things.
“The subject matter of hard rock is about getting hammered and getting laid (or the results thereof).”
🙂 seems there’s been a rapprochement in recent years then, as most commercial hiphop covers pretty much the same territory now.
A_t,
There are certainly documented cases of places in Africa which had traditionally been tolerant of man/man sex
So because it used to be the done thing in Africa, makes it OK now, and we are supposed to be the more advanced people! They also used to be cannibals, does that make that practice OK too? And in case you may have missed it, Africa was the source, and is the country most affected by the AIDs epidemic. Now that makes a good reason to indulge, doesn’t it?
Why don’t you just say that you find the Judeo-Christian code of morality just a little too much for you, and that you prefer to to risk disease and eventual death rather than make the effort to control your baser instincts and perversions.
it was traditionally practised in many parts of Europe (& still is in some) as a means of contraception/preserving ‘virginity’
Once again, ‘it used to be’, is used as an excuse for considering the practice as normal. Do you only recognise progress as being a technical thing, and deny that we make progress on a personal level as human beings?. Surely perverted, disease ridden practices, when used as you describe for contraceptive purposes, belong in the Dark Ages, perhaps you haven’t heard of the Pill and the condom…and I read that abortion is now being used more frequently for contraceptive purposes.
Your reasons for finding buggery normal seem to be no more than lame excuses for leading, or condoning, a perverted lifestyle. Saying that it is normal, just does not make it so.
Err.. and your point is? I deplore restrictions on free speech, thought & expression.
Maybe you do personally, but generally to speak out, or to sing about ‘the new lifestyle’, is to be accused of all manner of things, the least of which is to called a ‘detestable half-wit homophobic prat’. 🙂
I also deplore any restrictions on sexual freedom, or any other thing an individual might choose to do with his or her body.
So do I, but you may have noticed, I have never suggested that you should be stopped from any of the perversions you may fancy indulging in, I mean, it’s not as though you were a smoker, or a burger eater, is it? That you find porn so stimulating and informative, is perhaps par for the course in a world where ‘rights’, such as free speech, and the freedom to publish perverted fantasy, are separated from that unpopular ‘right’, – to exercise personal responsibilty. Which is something that many writers here love to talk about, but few seem to practice.
Comparison with ‘kids let loose in a candy store’, would seem appropriate.
That I tolerate, homosexuality, albeit begrudgingly, does not mean that I accept or endorse the practice as being the normal thing to do.
And toleration is all anyone has the right to demand from you. Acceptance? Hell no, no one has the right to demand you accept their lifestyle.
Ernest, I appreciate your tolerance & similarly am happy to tolerate your views, regardless how bizarre & wrong-headed I find them.
I’m somewhat confused though by your statement:
“to speak out, or to sing about ‘the new lifestyle’, is to be accused of all manner of things, the least of which is to called a ‘detestable half-wit homophobic prat’. :-)”
I don’t know if you’re referring to dancehall here, but have you heard the songs in question? These aren’t just songs questioning the morality of such a lifestyle as you are doing. These are songs which advocate killing battymen; which encourage people to do so. In Jamaica, such killings are routine anyway; this isn’t just idle fantasising.
Again, I’m not for banning them by law, most definitely not, but I find the sentiments excrable. The singers deserve all the abuse they get, & hopefully boycotts can be organised to hit them where it hurts.
“Your reasons for finding buggery normal seem to be no more than lame excuses for leading, or condoning, a perverted lifestyle. Saying that it is normal, just does not make it so.”
The only reason I strayed into the minefield that is defining behaviour as “normal” was your claim that it’s “normal” to be repulsed by anal sex because it involves faeces. Given that the majority of males in the West are probably ‘abnormal’ by this yardstick, where did you derive your version of ‘normal’ from?
.. & finally (honest), to return to my original point:
“To blame homophobia on good old Christian morality and colonialism seems a bit trite, could it not have something to do with the fact that the majority find sodomy, buggery and the homosexual thing to be at least repulsive, if not downright loathsome.”
My point was precisely that in some places at least, the majority *didn’t* find such practices repulsive until they were tought a new ‘morality’ by their colonial masters. You clearly think this morality was correct, & I don’t, but either way you can’t deny there’s something ironic about our nations now condemning the attitudes we had a hand in creating a while back.
A_t,
ironic about our nations now condemning the attitudes we had a hand in creating a while back.
Whose nation are you referring to? I dont see any nation condemming any moral attitudes, whether created ‘a while back’, or even recently. They don’t say that to be ‘normal’ (my definition), is wrong, all they do is to deny any responsibility for shaping moral attitudes, of whatever description. To read your reply one could get the impression that buggery had been made compulsory.
Given that the majority of males in the West are probably ‘abnormal’ by this yardstick, where did you derive your version of ‘normal’ from?
You really must mix with a very perverted crowd, or you have been reading too much of that pornography that you enjoy so much. Given that normal hetero sex gives pleasure to both parties, it is hard to understand the practice of anal sex, where one partner gets the pleasure and the other gets the pain. That homosexual rape is used as a ‘control’ method in State prisons would bear out my assumption that a great deal of pain and unpleasantness was involved for the recipient. With anal sex in the hetero environment, it would seem to be a very poor substitute for the real thing, but then, maybe your partner feels that that is the only fit place for your ‘ding-a-ling’, i.e. the dirtiest place she can find. As I mentioned earlier, because it used to be the norm in the dark ages, doesn’t make it OK now.
I get the impression that you disagree with any form of morality, and your definition of a moral code is to allow anyone to do anything. Hardly very progressive, more a return to less civilised thinking and behaviour. Of course that you associate morality with religion, certainly doesn’t help you to think logically on that matter, atheists always seem to find this ‘sticking point’.
Do you honestly expect me to believe that sodomy is ‘normal’, and practised by a majority. Mind you, that would explain a lot about the decline of the west. culture…
There is no call to ban Beenie Man, et al, or to invoke “hate-speech” legislation (none exists to protect gay people anyway).
No, the call is to prosecute Beenie Man and comrades under plain old common-or-garden incitement to murder legislation which has existed under the common law for centuries.
When one of these singers exhorts his audience to “wipe out the faggots” he is breaking the law. The issue has nothing at all do do with freedom of speech, which most accept has reasonable limits.
Lesbian and gay Jamaicans live under constant fear of violence. To them, the Beenie Man issue is not a philosophical debate about free-speech. That “speech”, free and unfettered in Jamaica, is the soundtrack to their misery.
Free speech is valued when it is in the context of a free exchange of ideas, not as an excuse for the dominant to incite and glorify violence against the weak and the marginalised… and certainly not a justification for a few men to earn record royalties from cheerleading the persecution of other human beings.
Ernest, your arguments would be better served if you refrained from insulting myself or my partner, thank you.
Anti-Gay Reggae Singer To Play Boston
http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/09/091404reggaeBos.htm
by Margo Williams
365Gay.com Newscenter
Boston Bureau
Posted: September 14, 2004 8:31 pm ET
(Boston, Massachusetts) A Jamaican reggae singer who calls for the shooting and burning of gays will be the headline act at the “OneLove Reggae Harborfest” on Saturday.
One of his songs contains the lyrics “Bun Di Chi Chi,” Jamaican slang for “burn the queer.” Another calls for gays to be shot.
Reg-gay fury over artist’s ‘queer’ lyrics
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=44143
By Dean Johnson
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
————
Kill dem niggaboys haffi dead
Gun shots pon dem
Who want to see dem dead, put up your hand
Bad Mon Nigger Mon
If you nuh rasta mon wave your right hand and no!
If you nuh Jamaican mon wave your left and and no!
Some bwoy will go a jail fi kill mon bad mon nigger mon
Tell mi, sumfest, it should be a showdown
You seem to run off a stage like a coon
Kill Dem DJ!!
More Concerts by Anti-Gay Singer Beenie Man Cancelled
Beenie Man’s hit tune, Bad Man Chi Chi Man (Bad Man, Queer Man), instructs listeners to kill gays: “If yuh nuh chi chi (queer) man wave yuh right hand and (NO!!!)/If yuh nuh lesbian wave yuh right hand and (NO!!!)Some bwoy will go a jail fi kill man tun bad man chi chi man!!!./Tell mi, sumfest it should a be a showdown/Yuh seem to run off a stage like a clown (Kill Dem DJ!!!)”.
http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/08/
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http://news.bostonherald.com/forums/index.php?board=14;action=display;threadid=2499
homophobia should not be allowe3d, gays are bullied in every school and town onj earth and are made miserable as of it, and people who are not gay, who are calle3d it, it is not acceptable, to bully, freedom of speech is not so society can be worse, ity is so it cabn ebe better, bad bahviour is not acceptabel, it is funny how republican party members do not mind gays killing themselves from bullying, but hate buirning a cloth red stripey flag, people who say they want to vecome suicide bombers, people who want to beat up gays, and people who say they want to kill people, should be arrested, freedom of speech was not created so life could get worse, it was so life could gety better, the jamaicanm rap sinmger, should bu8rn in hell for eternity, gays are bulluied, and the bullying must6 stopm and the bullies, whether tall, or strong should be burned alivem,
aswdass, if you expect people to actually read your comment, try using paragraph spacing and grammer.
If you think making you feel bad should be a crime, sorry buddy but what makes you so special? You have a right not to be subject to violence but you have no right at all not be have your feeling hurt. Get over it.