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Originally Posted by Strangelet
One has to assume that the BBC is just doing this as a social experiment, conducted with a sort of detached cynicism at the outcome that is expected from ringing the chow bell so close to the woodwork.
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Y'know I check the Have Your Say boards on a pretty regular basis and I've never seen anything to point to HYS being used as a social experiment for a particular issue. That just doesn't seem to be its remit. Neither is it the norm (ie. I have never seen) a HYS debate headed with/based around a
rhetorical question, or a question that wasn't meant to be judged seriously.
My problem with it - and I don't think I'm being oversensitive here - is that the asking of a yes/no question as the subject of a debate implicitly legitimises both possible answers. I mean, can you imagine any of the following:
"Should negroes face execution - did the KKK go too far? Tell us what you think..."
"Should Jews be gassed? Did Hitler go too far? We'd love to hear from you..."
"Should women be executed? Does the Taleban go too far? What do YOU think?"
All in the spirit of "just having an open debate" and "getting people's views out in the open rather than burying them"? It seems the normal codes of acceptability always break down when it comes to homosexuals.
I think there may well be something in what you say about evolutionary explanations for the visceral reaction against homosexuality, and it seems that certain mindsets (most often correlating with the political right) have a harder time overriding their baser fears than other people. Ditto racism, or, for that matter, anyone markedly different to ourselves.