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/tenni ... f2d0a1fa16

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]

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/tenni ... f2d0a1fa16

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

Not only have you managed to misrepresent the situation but your prejudice is showing (again) but you have either deliberately or unintentionally misrepresented what Margaret Court has been doing.

She's not some passive bystander sipping from a cup of tea & munching on white bread cucumber sandwiches who happens to hold bigoted views but has been active & quite nasty religious bigot & has gone out of her way to do so.
Your minimization of this misrepresents what she's been doing: it's far more than simply a matter of difference of opinion. Margaret Court has been doing this for quite a long time not just the media grab that 2 minutes has shown.

If you think that right wing social media backlash only occurs from the so called left then you've been very busy at work.

Having said that she Margaret Court was an amazing tennis champ for Australia. I don't like what she says in fact it's quite dangerous in my view but I have no issue with a stadium being named after her. I just wish the media would ignore nasty right wing religious fundamentalists like her.

Her brother Ross was a rover for St Kilda in the 1966 premiership; for that she ought to be nailed.

In the same way, while Rhodes was a racist scumbag I don't think Oxford Uni should remove his statue.

[Jezza]

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/tenni ... f2d0a1fa16

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.

What Court is enduring is liberal bigotry which political pundits like Peter Hitchens, David Starkey and Brendon O'Neill amongst others have mentioned in recent times. Some good clips below demonstrate this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnzpMKb-Wk4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrX_v29Uzjg

There are a lot of authoritarians who hide behind the banner of progressivism suggesting that Margaret Court Arena be renamed because they happen to disagree with her view. If Court doesn't want to fly on Qantas, then that's her prerogative. I really couldn't care less at the end of the day.

People who disagree with her are entitled to do so as well, but suggesting that certain things change, such as a stadium being renamed is clear overreach.

She's regarded as one of the best women's tennis players of all time and I think regardless of her political views, this should be recognised and acknowledged.

[ronrat]

Her brother Ross was a rover for St Kilda in the 1966 premiership; for that she ought to be nailed.

In the same way, while Rhodes was a racist scumbag I don't think Oxford Uni should remove his statue.

Ross Smith should be pilloried for the dog act of putting his foot into John Greening after O"Dea criminally hit him.

Rhodes may have had a greater understanding of same sex marriage than you think. He founded a mens only club in South Africa that I think today is not welcoming of women. And when his houseboy died he was distraught for months.

[David]

[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.

^ 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.

That quote was just the most recent stuff attributed to Court. Here, she refers to gay sexual practices as "abnormal" and "unnatural", among other things.

http://www.tennisforum.com/12-general-m ... nable.html

It's still well within the bounds of freedom of speech, and of course I don't oppose her rights to say it. But when does a legitimate opinion become bigotry? Perhaps the examples in your quote too are also bigoted, and if repeated often enough would also cause the speaker's status as a sporting hero to take a hit. It's hard to say. All I know is that there doesn't seem much in the way of likelihood that the arena's name is ever going to be changed, so the negative consequences for Court exercising her freedom of speech are effectively nil.

re: Benatar, I find his argument on antinatalism a little hard to swallow, but I think his book on gender, The Second Sexism, is absolutely seminal and should be the cornerstone of a politically progressive men's rights movement (if such a thing ever comes to fruition).