Thursday 23 September 2010

Brokebackwards Thinking

Returning once again to comfortable mornings of coffee and Radio 4 with the papers, I am happy to be listening again to a much wider range of political views than those I heard in The Pub. Although I find these new inputs much less disturbing sources of opinion in general, they are of course not without their biases and flaws. I have heard several and repeated references to the phrase "Brokeback coalition", as used by David Davis. Though the phrase was coined back in July, it is still being used by newspapers and journalists across the board, though of course always in quotation marks: everyone knows that means it doesn't count. This comment sounds to me like a thinly intellectually veiled version of schoolkid taunts such as, "You're gay, you are.", or describing male friends as "Bum Chums". Whilst I am not surprised that members of our esteemed democratic House are capable of using such base sexual insults, I am surprised that as yet I have heard not shock, dismay or even a hint of reticence over the use of this phrase. The implication of this comment is firstly that men who work together closely must be gay, and secondly, and most importantly, it implies that this would be a bad thing. Am I the only person who finds these repeated assertions of homophobic views insinuating themselves into allegedly intelligent media sources extremely disturbing?

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