S onewall and the great bigot debate

I've posted before about the use of the word bigot. I've always said that while people may agree with your point of view that doesn't make them a bigot, what does lead to bigotry is the way that you over expound the difference using non-factual, inaccurate arguments or even over-egg the debate.

Yesterday was the Stonewall awards and as is traditional there is the bigot of the year award. Hardly surprisingly Cardinal Keith O'Brien who won it spoke out against the award, but so too the recipient of the politician of the year, the Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson. Now the Cardinal had compared equal marriage to slavery (though not in the correct historical context), called it a grotesque subversion of a universally [huh? hardly universal] accepted human right and declared a war on gay [sic] marriage. All of which I personally think fit into the dictionary definition of bigot:

big·ot  (bgt)
n.

One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

Definition from The Free Dictionary 

Even if the Scottish First Minister and Miss Davidson disagree with me on the issue of whether LGBT organisations should be pointing out bigotry, or whether the Cardinal met those criteria. Sadly many of us in the LGBT community face bigotry everywhere we go. Here in Northern Ireland we can face if from our elected and elevated politicians (one of whom was shortlisted for the award the Cardinal won)

Personally I'd love there to be no need for Stonewall to award a Bigot of the Year award. As I said before I don't mind a debate on LGBT rights, I don't mind people having a reasoned debate to oppose things. But when I hear that being in love with a human being of the same sex is equivalent to beastiality. Or that what two consenting adults get up to is the same as pedophiles. Or that LGBT people seeking equality is just like the Nazis denying it to groups (including the LGBT one), then there clearly are bigots out there.

However, one nominee I want to see for next year's Stonewall awars is the audience at last night's awards who booed Miss Davidson. They are bigots and we should not shy away from calling them thus.

Cameron is Davidson's Prime Minister not her boss

Ruth Davidson, new leader of the Scottish Conservatives

The BBC in talking about the new leader of Scottish Conservatives in a different way to some of the tabloids, for more on that see Scottish Liberal. What they have picked up on is that Ruth Davidson under the new structure of the Conservative Party is a colleague of David Cameron with a final say on what goes on in Scotland.

You see the thing is that the Scottish Conservatives like Scottish Labour are both going to be lead by a leader of the party overall in Scotland and not have a leader of their MSPs as previously. Or to put it in a Lib Dem sort of way some sort of federalism. I'm not sure if the same rules are being brought into the Conservatives and Labour parties in Wales but it has happened in Scotland. Surely this move can't be solely down to the fact that any party that wasn't the SNP did poorly in the Scottish Parliament elections in May.

The Liberal Democrats have always operated on a federal format with leaders and policy making for Scotland and Wales devolved to those national conferences and party members. Of course unlike the Tories and Labour that policy making is further devolved to the conference reps themselves who get to vote on the policies. Conservatives and Labour are merely handing over the decision making and policy differences to the leaderships, heaven forbid if they started to once again trust the members of their party to actually make any real decisions that actually affect the real people they see around them all the time without being told just what they need from the Westminster 'experts'.

However, it is a step that Scottish politics will it seems now be decided by the Scottish parties (in whatever way they allow this to happen). It may put a bit of a kibosh to the SNP talking about the Westminster parties when all of them can clearly point to policies that differ from Westminster to talk into account Scottish needs and situations.