The Stork, The Guinea Pig & The Elephant

I am all for freedom of speech etc, but when the BBC, a media company paid by the viewers posts a question on it’s debate page where it reads ‘Should homosexuals face execution?’ (a question that later on was re-worded to ‘Should Uganda debate gay execution?’ due to the homophobic feelings that were being posted in the site), one has to wonder how far are they willing to go. Yes, we are all entitled to our opinion, but I hardly believe they have thought ‘long and hard’ about this debate (as they assert in the post), when a sentence like ’should homosexuals face execution?’ is posted as their heading.

What the BBC has given is a public space for Daily Mail readers and BNP supporters to air their racist and homophobic views, without considering the repercusions this could cause. They went for a sensationalist approach to a very important and hard-hitting subject. They did send an Editors comment explaining why they did decide to allow such debate to occur, but they never explained whose was the brilliant idea to call it ’should homosexuals face execution?’. I don’t want an apology for letting such debate happen but I do think they should explain why they allowed such homophobic words to appear on their site. Should such an idea (the killing of people for being different) be allowed a pro and against approach? Surely they know that anyone who agrees with such a statement is going to be fuelled by homophobia, which, last time I checked, is not allowed on a public service!

Would they think ‘long and hard’ about starting another debate about the mass murder of any other minority group in any part of the world? Will they give more prejudice a wider forum? Are they going to ask next is adulterous women should be stoned to death? (like someone in their comments page asks?).

Freedom of speech, I’m all for it. Inciting homophobic (or any other kind of) hatred by wording their headlines in a very especific way and allowing for sensationalist approaches to difficult matters, not at all.

Have a look at both the debate itself (of which, to be fair, I stopped reading after several pages, due to the despair I felt at the views posted on the site) and the Editors’ comment, and make up your mind.

I want to copy GrahamSmithLondon’s words posted in the Editors’ Comment site, which more or less, summarise my feelings on the matter:

This reply from the BBC is utter nonsense, a typical attempt to excuse an appalling error of judgement that is, quite frankly, as bad as the original mistake.
Let’s be quite clear, you set up a page which implied, without any clarification, that you believe there is a legitimate debate to be had over whether innocent people should be executed because of their sexuality. You implied that this debate had two equal and legitimate sides to it. Have you no idea how distressing that is to gay people here and abroad? You are hosting a discussion on whether or not I should be executed… how dare you.
I ask you, would you ever consider posting forums which ask “Should Jews be gassed?” or “Should children be raped?”
There are numerous ways in which you could have legitimately raised the Uganda issue, but instead you presented the matter as a legitimate debate with two equal sides, no more than a point of interest for general discussion.
The execution of innocent people for no reason other than their personal characteristics is tantamount to genocide.
You should be ashamed of yourselves for posting this forum. I personally, and I know others too, have found this to be deeply offensive and distressing.
You must offer a full apology and remove the page from the site.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.