Current mood:	concerned
Entry tags:	blogging

... since they appear to have turned off the comments option only have Disqus comments and I don't see them as an option because of my anti-tracking-software-blocker.

The relevant post is here. My immediate reactions are as follows:

1. While I totally agree with you that one shouldn't be sent to jail for tweeting offensive crap, no matter how offensive it is, I think you REALLY drop the ball on the other half of your post


2. Calling someone a bigot does not in any way shape or form equate to a 56 day jail sentence.


3. Calling someone a bigot does not restrict their freedom of speech either. I got called a bigot myself yesterday, for saying that those advocating prayer as a method for healing cancer should have to adhere to the same rules as everyone else. My freedom of speech has not been infringed one jot.


4. The science on parenting seems to show that it doesn't matter what gender a child's parents are, or if they are biological parents, or even how many of them there are, but how much money they have. Parents with money tend to produce far "better" children, who have better life chances and live longer, whether they are gay, straight, single, couples or poly, than traditional married couples with no cash. The reason traditional married couples correlate with "better" children is that it's only the rich folks that tend to bother getting married these days. Chris Dillow has collated a lot of research on this point if you want to find out more.


5. Nobody wants to force churches to hold equal marriages if they don't want to, but it would be quite nice if all the religions who are in favour of equal marriage (reform judaism, quakers, etc.) could be allowed to marry non-het couples if they want to. Whilst I agree with you that it would be illiberal to force religions who don't want to have equal marriage to have it - which is why nobody sane is pushing for that - surely it would be equally illiberal to force religions who WANT to have equal marriage to not have it just because some religions don't want to?


6. Your posts are normally a lot better thought out than this, and I'm fairly sure you normally allow comments too. Are you feeling OK?