No room for hate speech in Scottish Politics

Homophobe suspended from Scottish National Party

First of all dears, let me make myself clear; I do not like the Conservative Party.  I despise what it stands for, I hated Margaret Thatcher with a vengeance, I loathe Lord Snooty and Chums, aka David Cameron and the UK government, and the way they are openly lining the pockets of the rich at the expense of the poorest of the poor angers me almost to violence.  I can make many comments about Tory politicians.  The one thing I would never do is make online attacks upon the sexuality of any of them.

Sad we cannot say the same for one particularly nasty piece of work, who goes under the names Laird O’Callaghan and SparkyBhoyHH.  Yes dears, I will name him, I’ll even go as far as giving his real name, Marc Hughes, as stated in The Scotsman.  This pond life decided to attack Scottish Conservative Party leader Ruth Davidson, not on her policies, not on her past track record, but rather by posting vile Tweets about her sexuality.  Ruth Davidson is openly lesbian and is the highest ranking LGBT politician not just in Scotland, but the whole of the UK.

The Tweet stated that Ruth Davidson, “needs a good f**k, not a lesbian battery one, but a real c**k one, miserable c**t that she is.  Tory f***y muncher.”

I think we can all see what a real charmer Mr Hughes is.  But then, I think we can all see the level of his intelligence.

Kudos to Ruth.  Her immediate response upon seeing it was to reply “Nice.  Classy.  Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?   Bet she’s really proud of you…. *blocked*”

More importantly however, kudos to the Scots Nat online community, who immediately rallied around Ruth with messages of support and condemning this knuckle-dragger.  If he had online friends before, it was pretty obvious they would have been sorely depleted after his comments.  The support Ruth recieved was so strong that she stated that she had been treated with gallantry from the Scots Nats.  Ain’t that sweet?  For once I actually felt for the evil, reactionary bitch.

Hughes later phoned Ruth to apologise.  She says he was contrite, promised never to post homophobic comments again, and that she accepted his apology and did not intend to make it a police matter.

That however was not the end of the matter. Having identified Hughes as one of their members, the Scottish National Party (SNP) swung into action and suspended his membership.  SNP First Minister of the Scottish Parliament, Nicola Sturgeon, condemning the attack upon Ruth Davidson, stated in the parliament, “The individual in question in that case has been identified and this morning suspended from membership of the SNP pending full disciplinary processes.”

So, that should be an end to the matter.  Oh, I wish.  Since then I have seen a minority on Facebook thinking that the comments were “funny”, that they have “a right to get my fun where I see it” and that it is a freedom of speech issue.

I would like any who think like that to tell me, is it funny when someone is continually harassed for their sexuality?  Is it amusing when they are refused a job for the same reason?  Do you chortle when someone has the shit kicked out of them?  Are you splitting your sides when LGBT people commit suicide due to harrassment and depression?

In short, would you find it funny if it happened to you, or someone you love?

You don’t have a right to laugh at anyone’s sexuality.  And no, it is not a matter of free speech, it is hate speech, which just happens to be illegal in Scotland.  Frankly, Marc Hughes can think himself lucky that Ruth Davidson showed herself to be the bigger person on this occasion.  To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, “My right to swing my fists ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

Homophobia is not limited by any means to supporters of Scottish nationalism.  During the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum campaign, the official Unionist body, Better Together once put a rainbow flag, only once – and had to remove it less than 24 hours later due to homophobic comments from their own followers.  Sadly, Better Together did not condemn nor remove anyone on that occasion.  Not that I am suggesting for one moment that they were homophobic as an organisation.  One Better Together campaigner in my area was openly gay.

One hopes, however, that the hatemongers are slowly but surely learning that hate speech, be it homophobic or of any other form of bigotry, is not welcome in Scottish politics, or any politics for that matter.  I don’t care which party they support, they could even be UKIP; I can’t stomach UKIP’s David Coburn MEP, who is openly gay, but I would come down like a ton of bricks on anyone making homophobic comments towards or about him.  Anyone attacking anyone else personally based on bigotry deserves to be silenced immediately and ostracised by all decent people who know them.