Lynne Choona Featherstone Interviewed by The Times

Mirandola · March 2012

Taking it to the logical conclusion, shouldn't we be banning anyone red-headed/with glasses/shorter (or taller) than average /with a surname that rhymes with something rude/ Tottenham supporting/bad at sports from having children round here because their children might be bullied?

chrisn4 · March 2012

a mixed race couple who are a man and a woman have the combined male n female skills to be good parents ... andy - you haven't added any constructive comments to the discussion so is it you that is being the 6 year old? you won't be able to show that my arguments are incoherent as they are quite straight forward and easy to understand...

chrisn4 · March 2012

just because some but not all opinion polls might state certain things does not prove anything is morally right... for example most people voted labour in about 97 they were deluded and look how tony blair trashed the country i wouldnt really trust the british public's opinion anyway always,they are fickle and dont always do what is common sense...

Arkady · March 2012

Define common sense. So far you have confirmed my understanding that it is merely a bit of guff used to justify an opinion without evidence or logic.

chrisn4 · March 2012

with regard to mirandolas argument that lots of people should be banned if you take the argument to its logical conclusion - no.because politics is the art of the possible.when you identify a group such as gay marriage people who you believe can damage childrens life chances you can target them for a ban on gay marriage as they are a minority and they arent the majority of your voters - so you can ban gay marriage without affecting how many people vote for you ...but if you ban others it means you loose alot of votes..cynical perhaps but maybe that is how politics works take your point about spurs fans though...

chrisn4 · March 2012

arkady - common sense to me is what is a morally right view point.So it is a philosophy...my philosophy on life... others will say it is what most people believe - that is common sense... - a less well defined definition...

andy · March 2012

It's not an argument, there's nothing to argue against. It's just a list of stuff that pops into your head. It doesn't go through any sort of critical filter at all. Evidence doesn't seem to matter, experience doesn't seem to matter, the last thing you said doesn't seem to matter. Argue against it? It's not even wrong.

chrisn4 · March 2012

52% of over 65 year olds disagree with gay marriage in the opinion polls...ah the wisdom of age...young people have been brainwashed by politically correct crap that the biased broadcasting corporation the bbc feeds them or maybe they have made a genuine decision and i am wrong that kids lives will be damaged by gays in marriage... i am surprised that the majority of opinion polls show that people are in favour of gay marrriage though...i should have googled that before i started my discussion...well done mirandola for catching me out...fair play...just shows that british people have lost the plot and that england is going to hell in a handcart of political correct bullshit... even if lots of people believe in gay marriage...doesnt mean that if it was banned it would not be a bad thing as i doubt it is a main issue for most people in the uk who are trying to get on with daily life and are not in a gay style marriage...alot of people state political correct opinions as they want to be seen as british and fair but in private they arent fair at all and say what they really think ...perhaps this may have happened when pushy left wing types interviewed people...the general public did not really want to admit what they feel...or maybe they just dont care about childrens welfare or are thick

chrisn4 · March 2012

andy - you are full of shit mate,can you form a philosophical 3 point argument rather than just lame abuse...you run this forum...so maybe you will ban me as you have banned others... time will tell...

andy · March 2012

Take the sentence above. It goes: assertion (you are full of shit) question, (can you make an argument), non sequitur (you run this forum) hypothetical (maybe you will ban me) speculation (time will tell). How do you argue against that? What on earth is your point? And that's just one sentence. Above it are paragraphs and paragraphs of drivel which at best could be described as "thinking out loud". What's worse is you don't even seem to realise it.

vetski · March 2012

I hate to do this but... @chrisn4, gender doesn't determine parenting ability. I am of mixed race (sorry, you're 40-odd years too late to ban me), with 1 female parent and 1 male parent, who were married. The male parent wasn't very good at parenting. At all. By the way, isn't calling people who disagree with your point of view 'thickys' bigoted? You are using a pejorative term to describe those whom you perceive to be of a reduced capacity in the intelligence department!

chrisn4 · March 2012

vetski - if you think that calling someone a thicky is bigoted then you really need to grow up and meet some real bigots and n4 pubs have a few...and as for your stupid smear about mix race parents...well its just silly... its pathetic really that some people on this thread can't debate the issues but that's just thickys for you... i really am lowering myself to talk to some of the people on sg.org who frankly aren't up to having a decent discussion...

vetski · March 2012

It wasn't a smear, or a generalised comment - it was an observation based on specific personal experience! Read my post again - I said that I am the product of a mixed race marriage i.e. my parents were heterosexual, married & interracial, and that my father wasn't very good at being a parent. Not because of his race, or his gender - he just didn't have the right kind of personality or temperament to be a good parent. Not everybody does. There are many forms of bigotry...

JoeV · March 2012

@Chrisn4 Your opinion is based on feeling, not facts so man up and admit it. Stop hiding behind made up statistics, fictitious anecdotes and dubious reports in newspapers quoting this and quoting that, which supposedly support your position. If you feel you have morality on your side just say you hate the gays, hate gay marriage and civil partnerships and hate the idea of gay people having families. Why hedge yourself by saying you ‘respect’ gay people when you clearly don’t?

Arkady · March 2012

"common sense to me is what is a morally right view point.So it is a philosophy...my philosophy on life..." Philosophy is an internally coherent world-view. Common sense us usually presented as being the opposite of philosophy, so interesting that you should conflate the two. In essence you are confirming the assumption I made above. You are just using 'common sense' as as a way of legitimising whatever opinion you happen to hold at the time. You have not subjected that opinion to any reasoning, evidence, or indeed any attempt to be objective. You seem not to know what any of those processes are, in fact, so that's not surprising. As Andy inferred - it's not just that you are wrong; you don't appear to have any internal mechanism to filter what is right and wrong. You cannot be rationally argued with, because you didn't arrive at your 'thoughts' through any rational process. Your 'common sense' opinions are merely whatever instinctive guff has floated into your brain at any one time. At least you're accidently entertaining, unlike many of the legions of people (and you have company on this forum) that have that problem.

chrisn4 · March 2012

no arkady - i understand the point you are making about common sense and i agree with it.its a good pont.people use the phrase common sense to basically mean whatever their own personal point of view is...which is a lazy use of words that perhaps i am also do...its a clear logical point that you are making and i agree i am objective and will change my opinions with new evidence like mirandloas evidence - the opposite of a biggot... for example i thought that it would be common sense that people would be against gay marriage...but if the majority of people in opinion polls are pro gay marriage as mirandola shows then it is common sense view that gay marriage should be legal as majority of people believe it . as for hateing gays - not at all - you can argue discuss insult and debate without hateing anyone - thats an assumption that people will make and people will always try and smear others to try and win an arguement or close down a debate that is understandable - or just try and mind read others...

chrisn4 · March 2012

conservative mp peter bone argued this, " that parents and teachers who objected to promoting same sex marriage in schoools could be ostracised.If marriage is redefined schools will have no choice but to give children equivalent teaching on same sex marriage even those children of a very young age including those at primary school.So what happens to parents because of religious or philosophical beliefs take their children out of lessons.parents who object will be treated like bigots and outcasts,possibly excluded from being on the pta parent teacher association or from being a govenor.They will be discriminated and persecuted becase they hold views that have been enshrined in our laws for 200o yeaars.And what of teachers who object to teaching about same sex marriage will they face disciplinary action and how will it affect their careers."

chrisn4 · March 2012

the left wing wants to protect minorities.But if the above proves to be true it could be the case that muslim parents and other minority parents are branded bigots (if this thread is anything to go by) by parents if they take their kids out of classes as they disaproove of teaching that same sex marriage is morally good.And then those parents feel excluded from life of a school as they are ostracised by people smearing them as bigots and the like....

chrisn4 · March 2012

joev - i am not hiding behind anything.i have the facts on my side which are that kids get bullied if they are perceived to be different and gay marriage will brand them as different in the schoolyard and so victims of bullying.its a fact as studies on bullying show the causes of bullying.also a bigot is someone who consistently uses aggressive hate language which i never have done...just using one part of a wikipedia definition and the trying to smear someone as a bigot really is not constructive... vetski - take your point.its arkady who is bringing up mixed race ... andy - you are hypocritical as on this thread most of your comments are sarcastic and not constructive ...yet you accuse me of the same thing...people will see that... also it should be noted that the left wing use smears such as racist,sexist,homophobic,bigot to try and close down arguements ...effectively to try and bully people into silence...it is an effective technique as many people will want to take part in this discussion and they wont want to be smeared by hot heads so will stay out of it....its a way of trying to shut down freedom of speech by bullying really and its very predictable that it will happen when people talk about anythingthe left wing are campaigning on

chrisn4 · March 2012

i think one weakness of arkady's logic is that he says "where is a study that shows evidence that proves a point" but for many issues there is no study that shows evidence that can be proved but that does not mean an opinion is not correct even if there is no conclusive evidence for example if a man says i believe in god and god says gay marriage is wrong because homosexuality is wrong... you cant prove that that is true or false as there is no study that prooves or disprooves conclusively that God exists so joev or andy or arkady - says you are basing arguments on feelings and not evidence of a study or facts...however as i have explained even someone who bases their argument on feelings and no facts is not necessarily wrong... so i think some of your logic is weak saying you need facts to prove an argument

ActionVerb · March 2012

I've always thought that the bleeding-heart liberals are the bullies of the world.

chrisn4 · March 2012

<A href="http://c4m.org.uk/">http://c4m.org.uk/</A>; coalition for marriage

andy · March 2012

I now do not know what @chrisn4';s position on gay marriage is, nor why he holds it.

chrisn4 · March 2012

try and keep up andy - its not rocket science... if you click on the link above which takes you to the coalition for marriage website there is video clips of people like Peter Tatchell (gay campaigner) talking on tv news and lots of newspaper articles on gay marriage....quite good... people can adopt kids in civil partnerships so arguably gay marriage wont necessarily increase gay people adopting kids as they can do it already - not sure why all the pro gay marriage people arent arguing this...seems like the weakest point in my argument to me....but even if gay marriage encourages one couple to adopt kids its too much...

chrisn4 · March 2012

if you click on the link from the coalition for marriage website above and watch the clip from tv news called "bbc lynne featherstone doesnt own marriage",the bloke being interviewed says that when people understand the issues fully then 51% of people are then against gay marriage his opinion polls say....there is also a clip where a lesbian says she is against gay marriage...

ActionVerb · March 2012

If a lesbian person is against gay marriage, then it's definitely wrong.

JoeV · March 2012

You’re entitled to your views. But at least be honest Chris -- you’re a hater. Own it. If your views were open and if you were objective you would stop hiding behind bogus ‘evidence’ that you say supports what you say as true, as common sense or in the majority, because as shown by the link Mirandola provided, your opinion is not in the majority. In fact everything you have stated can be refuted or reinterpreted, especially since you’ve provided no facts for any of it other than it’s what you feel to be morally right or common sense. You’ve explained nothing. For instance you seem to be fixated on gay people adopting children while ignoring the fact that gay people do not have to adopt to have children. Gay people can and do have biological children (as did Elton John) so your argument linking marriage rights for gay people and gay people having children is without merit. You define a bigot as ‘someone who consistently uses aggressive hate language’. Then if you object to be being labelled one stop using agreesive hateful language: ‘generally homosexual men are more promiscuous than heterosexuals so unsuited to be parents of kids’ ‘kids lives will be damaged by gays in marriage’ ‘homosexual men are more promiscous than heterosexual couples’ ‘…they live together as couples for a shorter amount of time due to homosexuals sleeping with many men and the gay couple breaking up’ ‘so then the child is left with one dad as the other dad has gone off with another man...the children will always suffer’ ‘any gay man will tell you that homosexual men sleep with plenty of men compared to the amount of people heterosexual couples sleep with’ ‘it could have been possible to ban gay people adopting kids but sadly the liberal metropolitan elite took over england from the winston churchill style common sense tories that used to run the countries now kids are at the mercy of the likes of the queen...not her majesty... i mean elton john.’<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>

Arkady · March 2012

"think one weakness of arkady's logic is that he says "where is a study that shows evidence that proves a point" but for many issues there is no study that shows evidence that can be proved but that does not mean an opinion is not correct even if there is no conclusive evidence for example if a man says i believe in god and god says gay marriage is wrong because homosexuality is wrong..." Brilliant. OK, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you are genuinely flailing about for a valid epistemology. Here’s some principles for you: There is an important distinction between supposition and facts, between arbitrary opinions and well-supported theories. I’m aware that there are some people who hold opinions that they cannot support with evidence. Some of them do so because they choose to believe in the veracity of Bronze Age Palestinian texts, etc., others simply because they don’t know better. They are entitled to their opinions, but if they are ever right – and they rarely are – it is due to coincidence, nothing more. The only way to have a valid, objective opinion is through the marshalling of evidence using logic and reasoning, ideally subjected to the dialectic. It’s imperfect and uncertain, but it’s all us poorly evolved mammals have. Please go away and read about some of the terms used above. Then reconsider all of your opinions in light of this new information. Do that for about ten years, then pop back and let us know how you’re getting on.

chrisn4 · March 2012

if you look at the coalition for marriage website and read some of the articles on the link above you will see that the haters are often from the pro gay marriage side of the argument... if you think standing up for the rights of children who will suffer from homophobic abuse in the playground is hatred then that is pathetic... some of the vitriol of some of the people on this forum is a bit well....the readers will know what i am talking about... as for you arkady - you are arrogant and you always have to be right...you are also patronising and rude...as are some other people on sg.org .... i find the thicky and rude brigade quite tiresome on here to be honest now.... and a bit immature...grow up....

JoeV · March 2012

Don't cloak your hate in virture. The vast majority of children being subjected to homophobic abuse in the playground is because they are perceived as gay by bigoted people or the children of bigots, who don't know better. Why you make the connection that only children of gay people are or will be subjected to homophobia is beyond me but if you want to be a stand up guy than take a stand against people who dish out the abuse. Don't blame the victims or their parents, the vast majority being heterosexual.

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