More Conservative anger at homophobic slurs
IN THE RED CORNER: A row has been sparked by a short video clip available online dated July 2000, in which Michal Kaminski (pictured above), leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists and a member of Poland’s Law and Justice Party, uses the word “pedal” to refer to gay rights campaigners in a TV interview. This is a derogatory Polish word for homosexual, usually translated into English as “fag” or “queer”. When asked by the reporter if such a term is offensive, his reply translates as: “That’s how people speak, what should I say? They are fags.” The Tories last month gained enough support to form a new centre right grouping in the European Parliament – the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECRG) – made up of 55 MEPs from eight countries. But the socially conservative views of some of ECRG members have come under the spotlight, with critics claiming they are at odds with Tory leader David Cameron’s efforts to modernise his party’s image.
IN THE BLUE CORNER: A spokesman for Mr Kaminski told the BBC: “The word had different connotations a decade ago and it is not a word Mr Kaminski would use today.” Earlier this week, Mr Kaminski insisted he was not homophobic. He told BBC News: “I’m opposing the so-called marriages for the homosexual couples but I have a deep respect for the people with a homosexual way of life. You can never find anything I said in my past against the homosexuals. I think that its almost impossible to find it because I’m a democrat. I’m a convinced Conservative and I have a liberal approach to the way of life the people are choosing.” Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s The World At One, the Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope insisted the footage was being used “very, very unfairly indeed” against Mr Kaminski. “These remarks, that are completely out of context, were taken from something that was said about 10 years ago in Poland. What happened 10 years ago in the context of the social conservatism of Poland, in other words odd references out of context, are being used over and over again. …It’s a bit like the BBC and the re-runs of Steptoe and Son and Alf Garnett. I mean, I don’t like that language very much. Certainly it would not be acceptable today.”
Messy? Undoubtedly. Important? Relevant? Worthy of political airtime? You decide.
Witanagemot Blogs
Oh God! what can you say?………..nothing, stop the world i want to get off.
“It’s a bit like the BBC and the re-runs of Steptoe and Son and Alf Garnett.”
O/T: Interestingly, I was watching the tribute to Molly Sugden yesterday. They showed a clip of her as Mrs Slocombe, with one of her double-entendres about knowing when there was a storm because ‘My pussy’s hair stands up on end…’ and they faded out there, before she finished the sentence.
Which could still just be heard as ‘…like a golliwogs!’
Come back, Carol Thatcher?
“Messy? Undoubtedly. Important? Relevant? Worthy of political airtime? You decide.”
About the Polish v gay question, I can’t really say. It just amuses me that the people who are usually the first in line to scream ‘colonialism’ when we raise topics like FGM or sharia law in third-world countries are often the same ones that think we should be dictating to other EU countries over this and other liberal policies…
I think its unfortunate that the Conservatives have had to gang up with cranky religious fascists (who, if I recall, argued that because Germany had killed loads of Poles in the 20th C – ignoring that the Russians, in fact, killed more – Poland should have more votes in Europe to reflect what its population *could* have been). An invidious choice, I guess – the Europhile EPP or the retarded totalitarian Catholics and fellow travellers.
Still, the only thing to say is if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. This one will come back to haunt Dave.
Shaun
I am not sure he had a choice. Lay aside some of the fundamental policy principles of his party (anti-federalism) or accept some rather whiffy fellow travellers.
How come we don’t hear anything about Madame Mussolini’s rather fragrant past. After all, she is a fully signed up member of the EPP.
Quite frankly, if that’s the best slur they can come up with, I start to like Dave even more.
(Not in “that” way, you understand. I’m not some kind of faggot, see.)
Charles, I’m quite sure that the EPP has *more* than its share of nutters, corrupted and demeaned further by their ardent adherence and addiction to the
Queen’sEU shilling.However, the price for eschewing that should not be the rights and status of 7% (ish) of our, Poland or the EU’s population. Pandering to those who want that does not do our cause any favours. Why? Well, the pro-Euros will now be able to argue (based on fact) that those who want ‘out’ or ‘less’ of europe mostly want to do so to get back to persecuting gays and jews (see today’s Grauniad), free from criticism or interference.
I mean, today, I have no doubt that anti-smoking zealots would happily lie down with the 1940s Nazi who, after all, banned Smoking on public transport. What are a few jews compared to the health and well being of European citizens, eh? That would certainly be the case I’d make if I opposed them.
All I’m saying is while I may (or may not) want to get out from under EU subservience, I’m not willing to sacrifice 7% of people on that altar and I hope, I sincerely hope (and the Alan Duncan’s of this world give me cause to believe) that Dave doesn’t either. Hague, IDS or Howard well… Another story, innit?
Sorry, I meant the Observer (link to article there) – it may be confected but either way, it shows the vulnerability of the Tories on this one.
I’m on holiday (ish – as a web-dev with mobile broadband, what I mean is I’m away from home and drinking with the wife from noon…) so can’t really tell the difference between the Grauniad, Guardian on Sunday and the Observer. Frankly I’m lucky if I don’t leave the shop with the Torygraph and a copy of the Morning Star for the wife (’sorry dear, they didn’t have the times’)…
Please edit that link LFAT – alcohol plus shoddy GPRS mobile connection stopped me closing the link after ‘Observer’… Drinking and ranting – its not big and its not clever but its not as dumb as vandalising a bus stop!
Of course, it may be that Mr. Kaminski is an heterosexual, married man, with children, Roman Catholic, and follows his conscience, governed as it is by the standards of Moral Law and Moral Order so ably expressed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church .
Strange huh? A politician who once had deeply help beliefs.
We used to have politicians in the United Kingdom who really believed something, for the fact they believed it to be correct, not for the gadfly behavior of the fickle electorate. Tony Benn and Enoch Powell come to mind.
Those who surrender their liberty for security deserve none (to paraphrase someone).
It appears that he considers that *pretending* that the deviant acts of a minority should be equated with the Ordained requirement of God, that of marriage between a man and woman, further to procreate as commanded by God, as having some kind of moral equivalence, *is wrong*.
That of course is a sin in our Frankfurt School inspired, communist dominated modern world.
Until thirty years ago such ‘opinion holding’ was the mark of a free liberal tolerant democracy.
Hmmmmm.