Saturday, January 29, 2011
Assumptions and Presuppositions
and Views
Wandering around in the British Press, I found another of those social commentary articles and, as one does, indulged in the guilty peek into how those people think view the world. NB: Teh Snark is strong in this article.
This is a follow up article on the deluge of abuse being suffered by a couple who runs a little [seven bedroom] B&B in Cornish village of Marazion. The problem occurs because Hazelmary (66) and Peter (71) Bull belong to a particular religious group and have Views about unmarried people sleeping together in “their” home.
“I’m not anti-gay. I’m not anti-sex – I’m as fond of it as the next person! – I just believe it should be contained within marriage,” she says firmly. “To me, a civil partnership is not the same as a marriage. And you know it’s not just gay people I won’t allow to share a bed, it’s unmarried heterosexuals, too. I’ve turned away dozens of couples down the years,”
So it’s not the person, it’s the behavior that troubles her?
The rooms are kitted out with family furniture, lending a homely feel, and the Bulls like to spend time with their guests in the public areas, all of which appears to have lulled them into a false sense of their own dominion.
“A false sense of their own dominion” over their own home and business. Silly twits and their arcane, ancient Views, thinking they own their own home or business.
Despite being fully aware of new anti-discriminatory legislation, they have continued to enforce their bizarre Fifties house rules, because the Lord is on their side even if, as now transpires, the law isn’t.
“Most people think it’s all terribly quaint, and simply go elsewhere,” [Hazelmary] says.
You mean, like free adults?!? Quaint, indeed.
In the sitting room there’s a framed snippet from the Gaelic Rune of Hospitality, as translated by W B Yeats: “Often, often, often / Goes the Christ / In the Stranger’s Guise”.
The irony of the sentiment is evidently lost on the Bulls, but then they do stoutly maintain that gay people are welcome, so long as they don’t share a room, which would place their souls in grave moral danger.
Concern for the soul of another? Refusing to participate in something they believe will harm another??! How .... vicious.
But wait: the Plot thickens…
Even without the book of Psalms, St Michael’s Mount isn’t Fire Island and Chymorvah is more Last of the Summer Wine than La Cage aux Folles. No wonder the Bulls suspect they were set up – not least because they had received letters from the gay campaigning charity Stonewall some time before the booking was made, by telephone.
When Preddy and Hall turned up, the house rules were explained to them, whereupon they allegedly announced that they were going to report them to the police and sue them. They were, of course, entirely within their rights to do so, and their case against the Bulls was upheld by law. Interestingly however, the judge gave the couple leave to appeal and, given they are being supported by the Christian Initiative, this almost certainly isn’t the end of the matter.
Set up, you say? hm…
“We’re not telling gay people to change their lives, just not to sleep in the same bed while they’re under our roof. ...”
...“Christians have a history of tolerance, but why do exceptions and allowances get made for other religions and not ours?” asks Bull...
Even the ‘author’ of this snark-fest is forced to ask questions.
But it’s hard to escape the uncomfortable feeling that this elderly couple – narrow-minded, eccentric, singularly lacking in business nous in their batty rejection of modern mores, gay and straight – have been miscast as both persecuted and persecutors and will come off badly whatever happens.
Strikes me that nothing is so batty as the narrow-minded rejection of any worldview even slightly different from your own whilst—in the same breath—touting your toooolerance and ‘open-mindedness.’ Shockingly, a few of the comments on this article reflect my puzzlement…
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