There was a strange non sequitur in Jack Straw’s latest policy announcement. The Justice Secretary revealed that inciting hatred of homosexuals would soon be a crime punishable by seven years in prison. And justifying the legislation, he said this: ‘It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last ten years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality. It is time for the law to recognise this.’
The logic of this quite defeats me. It seems to be saying that because homosexuals are no longer loathed or despised, it should be against the law to loathe or despise them. Yet if we are now in a position where homosexuals are not discriminated against and subjected to abuse, and they have got to that position without the benefit of such legislation, then such legislation must surely be superfluous.
It is a long time since I have incited homophobic hatred against anyone; I think I was about nine years old the last time it occurred. My mother had patiently explained to me that homosexuals were like vampire bats, passing on disease and filth through their ghastly and peculiar sexual practices. Her colourful image stayed with me for a year or so and I would level the term ‘poof’ or ‘bumboy’ at anyone who got on my nerves. I don’t know if the people at whom I levelled this abuse were, or would become in later life, homosexuals, so I don’t know if my behaviour would have fallen foul of Jack’s legislation. Whatever the case, I don’t do it any more.
My children may do, though. Quite recently my oldest son asked me about Auschwitz, because he’d heard of the place from somewhere or other.
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