Maybe you can point to the line in the OP where it is suggested that they ever did. Besides which it is irrelevant. Your conservatives use homesexualty as a dog whistle issue (witness Rick Perry’s ad) and your politicians and religious loons shriek on long and loud about how gay marriage will lead to the End Days, dogs and cats marrying etc.
Our actual ruling Conservatives introduce it.
If you can’t see that is a pretty damn large difference between the USA and the UK in social attitudes you need to remove the ideological blinkers.
Oh, goodness me! Who, pray tell, sought to buy these ads then, considering that there are no homophobes in England? Imaginary Lord Paisley perhaps? Pretend Baroness O’Cathain?
The Lords is not “reserved for members of the lucky sperm club”, though, that’s why I was puzzled. I agree with the general sentiment that it is anachronistic, but the vast majority of its members are appointed.
We generally think labelling people ‘sinners’ for their sexuality can come in that category - depending on the particulars. It’s inciting hatred. And no - we don’t buy the ‘hate the sin not the sinner’ dichotomy.
And implying that sexual orientation is just a matter of choice or illness can certainly be seen as inciting hatred for a group.
Whether this particular ad would actually be deemed hate speech legally I doubt though.
But I’m quite comfortable with groups not being able to advertise their false medical quakery. They cannot ‘cure’ gayness any more than they could claim to cure Aids by prayer. It is a false claim made with malign intent.
What? I mean - what? In all seriousness and no snark or insult intended - is English your first language and you’tre having difficulty understanding what people are writing?
Look, I have no doubt that your conservatives are “better” than our conservatives, if you want to dance about that.
Still, in the US we would be concerned about free speech in this area even if most of us (except for the bad conservatives, of course) are past the “gay sex is sin” phase.
We even have a president whose views on SSM are “evolving”, even if we have a candidate for president whose views on gay rights are devolving.
Well, we’d be more concerned about the ‘free speech’ of Big Money drowning out everyone else.
And damn right - we want to do our little happy dance when we look at the crippling hold religion has on your society and how much damage it does. We like religion to be kept out of real stuff.
Not as long as he is only cancelling the ads on the public transport and not in London in general.
It is however doubtful how an ad that merely says “Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!” deserves the label “anti-gay.” Would “Not Christian! Ex-Christian, post-Christian and proud. Get over it!” be Christianophobia? And so what if it is “anti-gay?” Some people are anti-gay, get over it.
That’s a very legitimate concern, firmly rooted in the technology of the 1950s.
Meh. We’re a big country with a lot of diversity. Better to compare us to the whole of Europe, rather than one country. SSM is at least legal in several US states. The UK? Nowhere. I guess our liberals are better than your liberals.
Goodness gracious! I was led to believe that the UK eradicated homophobia by way of suppressing bus ads and irreligion! That’s why you’re so much better than the United States. … Trouble in paradise?
Well given the history.
Homosexuality brought the death penalty for centuries in England, then it was merely a case of either imprisonment or hormonal treatment (“chemical castration”) to cure one of these evil urges.
Alan Turing, one of the greatest mathematicians and computer scientists of all time, a man that led the project to decode the Nazi ENIGMA codes and hasten the end of the war, was made to undergo this hormone treatment. He killed himself soon after.
And generally the hatred and bigotry which our culture has shown towards homosexuals (probably less than the US, but still) may seen to be legitimized by the implication of homosexuality as a disease.
Bearing in mind all this history, these comments are going to cause offense and possibly promote intolerance.
In an alternate world where none of that had happened, maybe you could have a sober discussion of whether homosexuality should be considered pathological. But not here. Not on the side of a bus anyway.
Well, we are miles ahead in terms of campaign advertising and financing, but the current cabinet has a disproportionate number of millionaires compared to the Commons in general and it only costs £250k to have a dinner with the Prime Minister in order to get one’s policies considered. If nothing else, at least there are more legitimate channels for the shadow big business casts over politics in the US and the split between legislature and governmnet mitigates some of the effect.
Yes, but the previous Labour government instituted civil partnerships and the UK has an Equalities Minister. A crappy equalities minister, but an equality minister nonetheless. Oh, I suppose the US has a similar position. The UK has nothing like DOMA either.
In all seriousness and no snark or insult intended - is English your first language and you’tre having difficulty understanding what people are writing?