Hard to escape the bubble of babble!
Widdecombe
MY FELLOW housemates and, I suspect, millennials in general, tend to see the world in terms of anything goes as long as it makes you happy and does not hurt anybody else. They seem to have no concept of hurt to society as a whole or, in other words, they are guided by what the last Pope described as “moral relativism”.
When I told Shane Janek, the drag artist that I thought he was adorable but that his alter ego Courteney was a tart, Jess (from TV’s Ex On The Beach) said: “There’s nothing wrong with being a tart, Ann.” Oh, but there is. It demeans womanhood, encourages men to think that women are for sexual exploitation and promotes tawdriness. None of those things are good for women or for the growth of understanding and civilisation.
Similarly when I objected to the infliction of actual physical pain in one task as immoral, Ashley James (from Made In Chelsea) replied: “Everybody is entitled to their own views on that.” Well, yes, everybody is entitled to his or her own views on anything. One can believe the Holocaust did not happen, that Islamic State is right to rampage about Iraq and Syria beheading and crucifying or that murder is OK in certain circumstances but the mere holding of a view does not, as Ashley seems to think, accord it validity.
Inflicting pain for the purposes of entertainment is simply wrong. It belongs to the age of the Roman arena and, although anyone is entitled to think it acceptable, that does not make it so.
Next came a conversation with former footballer John Barnes in which I said that I did not take my beliefs from the Koran. He seems to believe that all religions are equally valid and that no one has a right to dismiss any. Wrong, John. Nobody has a right to prevent anybody else practising a religion, short of that religion promoting violence or suppression, but that does not mean we all have to accept every choice as valid. There is simple logic behind that. Two contrary propositions cannot both be right.
NEEDLESS to say I am in a minority in the Big Brother House on gay marriage, which I reject. What people do in private is nobody else’s business but when they ask the state to re-define marriage itself then the state must consider whether it has a preferred model by which society regulates and protects the family unit. The idea that there is any such consideration is alien to anybody here under 30.
Indeed so right does Ashley think her free-for-all approach that she asked me if I would change my views as a result of being on CBB. She honestly thinks that people who hold a contrary view must simply live in a bubble in which they have never met anyone of a different way of life. I pointed out that there were lots of gays at Westminster. Ah, she said, but I had probably never met a drag artist.
Eh? After five pantomimes? Indeed what about Craig Revel Horwood, currently playing Miss Hannigan in Annie and to whose wicked queen I played opposite in Snow White? It is all just so naïve