PinkNews.co.uk reader Nick Lowe argues that the publication by the Daily Mail of a cartoon which depicts a gay couple checking in to a Christian run hotel as ‘neo-Nazis’ incites hatred of homosexuals. The cartoon showed two burly men holding hands with shaved heads, heavy boots and arms covered in tattoos. The man on the left has a swastika tattooed on his right arm.
Underneath, a line says: “Isn’t that romantic, George, dear? Mr and Mr Smith would like the bridal suite.”
The cartoon depicts two burly men with shaved heads, covered in tattoos and with ear piercings, standing at a hotel check-in desk. This in stark juxtaposition to their surroundings.
The man on the left has a swastika emblazoned on his right wrist and is shown looking sternly on, giving a thuggish, loutish, uncompromising demeanour to the couple as they stand holding their hands.
It shows two comparatively smaller, meek hoteliers looking on with bewilderment, shock and superior distain. The following dry, sarcastic comment is made:
“Isn’t that romantic, George, dear? Mr and Mr Smith would like the bridal suite.”
It is averred by the presentation, therefore, that the position of Christians who hold anti-gay views has validity because they appear respectable and, by contrast, the gay persons do not. This is clear association fallacy as it asserts that the qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association – thus the deduction is demonstrably invalid.
Contextualised with the current news, it implies that there is something inherently wrong, distasteful, disruptive and indecent about people who are gay and that they impose themselves on others in an overbearing, disrespectful way – just by being themselves.
By loaded insinuation, the cartoon implies that the private anti-gay moral views of some Christians, which are subjective, are being subjugated and usurped by the rights of gay persons not to have the dispensation of goods and services denied to them by a business entity, purely based on their sexuality. The two do not equate and are clearly separate concerns.
For all the rhetoric in this area, the equality legislation only ensures that the views of others, no matter how sincerely held, cannot be used to deny such dispensation of goods and services by a business based on immutable characteristics, such as sexuality. (In contrast to being a Christian, nobody chooses to be gay.)
The cartoon merely serves to stoke up anti-gay sentiment and resentment and, therefore, incites hatred based on sexuality.
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