Freedom of Speech Part 2: Margaret Court and gay rights

[stui magpie]

Thread split from "Freedom of speech, just not on Anzac Day thanks" thread.

More freedom of speech issues.

Margaret Court was a great tennis player and has Margaret Court Arena named in her honour. Nowdays she is a pastor or preacher or some such religious thingo and doesn't agree with Gay Marriage, so she's said she'll boycott Qantas because of their stance on it.

Predictably, there's an outcry, she's labelled a homophobe and there's calls to change the name of the arena.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/tennis/australian-tennis-legend-margaret-court-protests-against-qantas-for-promoting-for-samesex-marriage/news-story/c0573fe58324203a4b57d8f2d0a1fa16

Personally, my opinion is she's entitled to her opinion. She's old and religious and even if she's not in step with current opinion she's entitled to express it. She hasn't gone out like our ABC friend to self aggrandise in poor taste, she just expressed an opinion.

But because that opinion doesn't fit the agenda, she's pilloried.

yes, our ABC friend copped a bit of a hiding on social media, but she's the exception that proves the rule that it's the progressives who use social media to bully anyone who speaks differently to their agenda.

/rant

[watt price tully]

[Jezza]

[ronrat]

[David]

I think WPT more or less sums up my thoughts on this. Court is certainly no shrinking violet, and as for the question of social media abuse, that's no better or worse here than in any other case. As worrying as that phenomenon is, it's certainly not a unique feature of left-wing internet spaces.

The question over whether the tennis arena's name should be changed is an interesting one. There are plenty of artistic institutions, scientific research centres, streets and so on that are named solely because of the person's achievements and with little regard to what political views they held or what they were like in their private lives. It raises the question of what, exactly, we want to celebrate in our society: is it mere achievement, or is it some combination of achievement plus being a sufficiently 'good person'?

The careful erasure of Rolf Harris's name and face from all public pedestals in the wake of his conviction was a sign that the latter view has increasingly become dominant. Court, of course, hasn't committed any crimes, but she has made a number of highly offensive and ignorant remarks while lending her fame (and the platform it gives her) to vigorously opposing equality for gay and lesbian people. It's pretty understandable that some tennis players and fans would feel unhappy about a major arena being dedicated to her.

Even as someone who staunchly supports the separation of work and personal virtue, I confess to feeling pretty ambivalent about the question, because it's one thing to be sacked from your job because of your political activities and another to not be able to have your name on a major public venue. At worst, this is the thin edge of the wedge.

If I would ultimately oppose the name being changed, it's not out of regard for her but out of regard for the sport she played � and more broadly, human endeavour itself. If we no longer celebrate the greatest names in sport, art, philosophy, science, politics and so on, but only the ones whose personal lives we can morally approve of, we devalue those fields. Worse, we perpetuate the illusion that some human beings are better or more virtuous than others, and that such matters somehow can or should be assessed from a distance � that some people have lived absolutely blameless lives, just because we don't happen to (yet) know of anything bad they did. How much better would it be if we remembered that our heroes are flawed human beings just like us?

[Pies4shaw]

^ It's high time we prohibited performances of Mozart because he wasn't an exceptionally nice person.

[David]

Quite! Newton's theories, too, are a bit overrated given how much of a jerk he supposedly was.

[stui magpie]

[David]

I don't necessarily disagree with you. But how far do you take that view? Is there anything a sportsman could say (pro-terrorism, rape or child abuse, say) that would make you think twice about having a stadium named after them? What if they were an active member of a neo-nazi group?

By the way, if you're really worried about this sort of stuff, as I am, don't blame the so-called "SJWs". They don't have much power to change anything once they step outside their student union. The real threat comes from the mainstream apathy of the tabloids, both major parties and the virtue-signalling corporate world. So long as they perpetuate the status quo of policing people's personal opinions, totally ordinary, mostly apolitical people like Casey Dellacqua will be inclined to see the tennis world's continued celebration of an unabashed homophobe bewildering. Suffice it to say that there a good deal more normal people like that than there are "SJWs".

[stui magpie]

To answer your question, if a famous person who had honours or stadiums named after them committed a serious criminal or morally repugnant act (rape, murder, paedophilia etc) then i have no issue with wiping them.

I don't believe in penalising someone for their opinion.

That ABC chick who this thread was started about, I didn't like what she said, she copped some flack for it but if she was actually sacked by the ABC for it (and I don't believe she was) then that's wrong.

Inciting violence or attacking a minority is one thing, a bad one not to be condoned, but expressing an opinion about refugees or gay marriage, either for or against, is not the same thing.

One of the problems these days is that so many people are convinced that their opinion is a universal truth. They hang around on-line echo chambers that reinforce those beliefs and viciously attack, insult and bully those who they believe are too stupid to see the clear truth they do.

And while IMHO the behaviour seems to be more on the "left" than the right, I'm sure it swings both ways.

[Mugwump]

^ exactly, Jezza. Since when was it "highly offensive and ignorant" to oppose gay marriage, David ? I can see that calling for homosexuality to be criminalized might warrant that, but hardly a dispute over the meaning and purpose of "marriage".

Most Christians fear where the gay marriage thing leads - once enshrined in law, the discrimination laws will then be invoked to demand that Churches must solemnise it, just as the cake store owner must produce a cake extolling it or be prosecuted. That's how this liberal bigotry works.

I have a good friend who has often argued, with real conviction, that bringing children into the world is a deeply immoral act. Is that, too, so deeply "ignorant and offensive" that we should bar him from naming rights on a tennis arena ?

[David]

Court does a lot more than oppose same-sex marriage. Read the material that the young tennis player Dellacqua quoted when she called for the arena to be renamed. She refers to Dellacqua's girlfriend as her "partner" (quotation marks included) and her sadness at their child's lack of a father. That's pretty personal and obnoxious.

Are you friends with David Benatar, by any chance?

[Mugwump]

^ well, is it any worse than, say, writing about Margaret Court's "church" and expressing atheistic sadness that her children (if she has any) might be brought up Christian ? Or calling her a God-botherer ? I don't know if others have done these things, but they probably have, and they do not seem to me that offensive.

I think we're entitled to express such beliefs in good faith about how other people choose to live, as long as we do not call for real hatred or violence.

And no, I did know who David Benatar was ! Perhaps he had an influence on my very pessimistic friend. It's actually an interesting philosophical point of view, I think.

[stui magpie]

I do happen to think that the best possible parenting option for a kid is a good mother and a good father.

A large number of kids don't get that option. They may have 2 bad ones , one good and one bad or only one parent who may be either good or bad.

having 2 mums or 2 dads, if they're both good, are better than a number of the options but not as good as the ideal IMHO.

It's about balance, not sexuality.

[David]

Disappointed that you'd take that view, Stui. For me it's 100% about people, not gender.