Time to Rethink Punishment?

I came across this article in the Telegraph the other day, and it got me thinking.

Firstly, I was concerned that only “loving mothers” are referred to in the paragraph about the research. I think this demeans the important role male parents play in childhood and particularly it demeans families like the one I grew up in, where the father is the primary or only carer.

What I really want to talk about, though, is the role of punishment.

I’ll start with an anecdote. I have been smacked exactly once in my life. I remember it vividly. I couldn’t tell you how old I was except that I was young and I couldn’t tell you exactly what I’d done, but Dad told me to go to my room and I was feeling contrary so I refused. And refused. And refused. And I saw something change in his eyes and realised that I’d pushed him too far so turned to flee up the stairs – just fractionally too slow to avoid the stinging open-palm blow to the back of my calfs.

It was not that look of unbridled fury nor the pain that meant I never pushed my Dad that far again. It waas his utter, profound guilt and contrition. The pain was fleeting but the look of horror on my Dad’s face – a look his that I had driven him to had put there – was something I never wanted to see again so I never pushed him that far again. But it was the guilt, not the anger, that acheived the change in my behaviour. He also learnt from the experience – Agent Echo and Agent Whisky were never on the receiving end of a blow and they were no less capable of being crazy-making – but I know from speaking with him that he still feels guilty even though this was over 2 decades ago.

Whilst I cannot condone smacking a child in anger, in this particular instance the punishment worked. I did not reoffend. Most anecdotal evidence I have heard, though, suggests that smacking is not an effective punishment, as those children who have been smacked are as likely to misbehave again as if they hadn’t been. I won’t say smacking is never effective but I think that it is never the better option. The comments section of the above article includes a lot of people saying that not all parents know any alternatives to smacking as a form of discipline, and that is concerning to me. They recognise that it isn’t ideal but don’t educate themselves on alternatives or don’t feel able to ask for assistance. That, I think, is a sad reflection on society. Other comments imply that not smacking your child is a sign you don’t love your child because, the commenter suggests, it isn’t a nice thing to do so you don’t want to do it even though it is better for your child: it is selfish not to smack your child. Other commenters suggest that loving your child instead of smacking them is what leads to the lack of respect amongst youth of today.

Well! ‘Lack of respect amongst the youth of today’ has been a charge levied at younger generations since written records began (or at least, there are Latin texts saying the same), so I think it’s unlikely that today’s youths actually are any worse than those that came before. Also, when there were the London Riots in 2011 I got into a debate on FB with someone insisting that those involved were all involved because they hadn’t been smacked as children. This struck me as erroneous: smacking as a punishment appears more prevalent amongst lower income families and it wasn’t just middle/upper class individuals involved. I doubt that only non-smacked individuals were involved in the riots. Furthermore, most of my peers were rarely or never smacked and they are very respectful individuals – in fact, even my peers who were repeatedly smacked are respectful/respectable so I would suggest that there is far more to making a responsible individual than whether you choose to smack your children or not.

Anyway, back to the point. Punishment is given after a crime. Law is intended to be impartial, so it seems to me that punishment has a two-fold purpose: to deter others from performing the same action and to reduce the chances of the individual repeating the action themselves. this two-fold purpose is important: if only the second point mattered, then the death penalty could apply to any transgression: no one would offend a second time. However, the death penalty does not appear to act as a successful deterrent so is not a suitable punishment. Corporal punishment similarly does not seem to provide either deterrence or reduction in reoffending, so fails on both counts. In the UK, criminal punishment comes in the form of prison sentencing, curfews, fines, community service or other restrictions. The question is, how effective are these at deterring new offenders and reducing reoffenders? I understand, not very. Fines are not effective when weilded against the very wealthy who can ignore the cost and when weilded agaisnt those who cannot afford to pay them can lead to problems which increase risk of reoffence. Prison is often considered to be a place where criminals come to learn their trade, which is supported by high reoffending rates.

Do we need to rethink our punishment systems? Most crimes come from the fractured state of society, so perhaps the money pumped into punishment should be redirected to addressing the root causes of crime – that seems to me to be a more effective way of reducing crime: not by punishing it, but by preventing the need for it. If someone does commit a crime, looking at what lead that individual to carry out those actions and finding out what can be done to improve things not just for that one person but for others in the same situation rather than punishing that one person and allowing others to follow… It would be expensive and difficult and it sounds idealistic but I think it is possible.

I understand the gut reaction desire to inflict punishment, but that makes punishment revenge and that is not the purpose of law. Punishment does not seem to work to prevent crime. Let’s try education, support and respect instead.

Back on Track

I started this blog with the intention of posting every few days with some tale of goings on in my life or my views on some current event, interspersed with discussions of equality based on gender, sexuality and road use preference.

I therefore apologise for the recent dearth of posts and the rant-heavy few that have followed. I am away this weekend so it is likely the next post won’t be for a few days at least, but I will try to make it less ranty.

Caring hurts. But it’s better than not.

Today, at one minute to closing time, I was passed a phone call that made me cry.

It’s simple enough. Someone had water damage in a flat they’re trying to sell – a flat their mother died in – and we’re the managing agents for the block. We were told on Tuesday that an overflow was going, who was responsible for fixing it? We explained, a colleague and I because both the Executor as owner and the estate agent phoned in, that the owner of the flat the overflow related to was responsible. If they could just check for us to confirm that it wasn’t their flat? Oh no, they lived too far away. Well, could the agent look? The agent didn’t know which flat it was and anyway, from the owner, surely it was our responsibility.

It being a block I am involved with, I phoned the Chairman of the Lessee-owned Freehold Company and he very kindly took a look. When he phoned back, he advised that there was evidence an overflow in that area had been leaking, but it did seem to have been fixed. I phoned the agents back to let them know and this was when I was told there was resultant water damage in the flat and who was going to fix this. We would need to look into it, I explained. Could they send us some photos as a first step, as the actual property manager (for whom I act as assistant-cum-secretary) is currently unwell? These, strangely, came from the owner even though he lives too far away to know which overflow was going. They also showed some small mould formation that could as easily be condensation as actual water ingress. He phoned shortly before 5pm to check they had arrived, wondering why he hadn’t had a response (there is an auto-response on emails coming into the office saying that it can take 5 days to respond, so we very rarely bother with additional acknowledgement unless one is clearly required. In this case, the damage looked minimal and, assuming the source of the damage to be the leaking overflow and not condensation, the source had been fixed – it wasn’t going to be getting any worse). I took his number and left a message for the property manager to phone him if he was back in the office tomorrow.

Wednesday morning, and the PM for the block was indeed back in. He accordingly phoned and confirmed he would look into it – and then we sent him home for not being well because he was clearly very ill (we suspect stress but fear glandular fever). As a result, I don’t know whether he has had a chance to take a look or not. The agent phoned and I said that I couldn’t tell him any more, but maybe tomorrow.

So this morning, the agent phones again and I explain, no the PM is still unwell so no, I don’t have an update. I can ask the lady who deals with insurance, but she’s in a meeting right now and I may not be able to catch her. I will let you know whether I do or not (knowing but not admitting that her part-time hours mean she may end up going home straight with the meeting finishing if it overran, knowing it was likely to overrun, knowing neither she nor I will be in tomorrow). I didn’t catch her. More urgent issues arose at another block we manage, so when I spoke to the PM when he phoned in, it slipped my mind to ask about this small patch of damp. I phoned the agent back to apologise that I didn’t have an update and that I wouldn’t be in tomorrow so it would now be Monday before I could get back to them.

At one minute to 5, the Boss’s daughter took a call. She passed it to me, telling me it was the owner. I nearly, so nearly, said I couldn’t take it, but that wouldn’t have been a very responsible or professional thing to do so instead, against every self-preservation instinct in my body and brain, I let her transfer him to me. He asked for an update. I explained I had spoken to his agent earlier and repeated what I had said. This was simply not good enough. He started getting an aggressive edge to his tone. I apologised but explained it couldn’t be helped, he would have to wait til Monday. He started twisting my words, making out that I’d said things I hadn’t. He started shouting. He wouldn’t let me speak. He accused the company of being useless. Implied we were money-grabbing. I find that difficult – somehow I am expected to keep calm, to keep civil when people are talking shit to me.

There’s a rule in our office: if someone swears at you, you hang up. No questions. You make sure you tell someone or write down why you hung up, but hang up you do. The Boss gets very unhappy if he hears we have let a customer swear at us. Most of us, of course, break this rule 99% of the time. We can put up with a lot.

I was very ready to hang up on this person.

This person did not swear.

He said we were useless, implied we over-charged. I have worked for other companies in the same industry and I took the job with this one even though it came with a lower salary and none of the perks of another position I was headhunted for because this company genuinely (even with the prejudices I’ve mentioned before) wants to do what’s right for its customers. This company has kept its fees down to try to help customers out. This company has stopped charging the additional fees it used to charge to help its customers out. I have issues with the attitudes towards minorities expressed within the office, but I cannot fault the company’s commitment to its customers. I wasn’t allowed to get angry back, so I started to shake. The upset got right through me, crawled under my flesh and into my fibres, crackled through my bones.

He insisted I make someone phone him first thing in the morning. He shouted his number at me in double-time. My hand was shaking so much I couldn’t have written it even if he’d spoken slowly. It took me 3 attempts to get the number.

It was well-gone closing time. The office is quieter in the afternoons, as a lot of the staff are part-time and finish between lunch and 3. The Boss and the other property managers were all out on various site visits or meetings. Despite this, I had all bar 2 members of staff who should have left at 5 stood around me, offering moral support. They could hear him shouting and see me shaking.

I wrote the number down and told him I would leave a message for someone to call him and hung up, cutting him off mid-sentence as he talked over me.

I wanted to burst into tears but there’s a weird culture of not showing tears in the office – even when it would make sense. If someone does get teary, everyone looks away.

I swallowed my tears.

I was shaking so hard my ring flew off.

The various staff told me that I should have hung up sooner, that I didn’t have to put up with people like that. They left.

The Boss’s secretary didn’t tell me I should have hung up sooner. She didn’t leave. She pulled my drawers out to rescue my ring. I was so upset I considered leaving without it. She let me get a glass of water and then asked me to write the person’s name and the property address down so she could take care of it for me in the morning. She understood (I know because I have seen her in the same state) that I couldn’t have hung up sooner.

This is not the first time someone has made me cry on the phone. It will not be the last. There are people who believe that I need to harden up, but I think they’re wrong.

I was very angry with the man who made me feel like this. I felt very hurt by him. I still feel hurt and a little angry, but it’s no longer directed.

The thing is, I know his mother hasn’t been dead for very long, so I know that he’s probably hurting inside. I know that trying to sell a property isn’t easy (even if you don’t live there or maybe especially when you live a way away) and I know it won’t be the only stress in his life.

I think he was being unrealistic in his expectation that it would all be resolved already and I think he was being unreasonable in taking it out on me, but I understand.

The sensitivity that makes me so hurt by this also means I can empathise with people in need – which means I am better able to fight their corner when necessary and better able to understand the importance of my job and so am better suited to it.

I see some of the hardened people and they don’t understand when someone is upset that there is water getting into their flat. They don’t make it a priority and the damage gets worse. Financially, this is bad as it results in a more expensive claim but more importantly it is bad for the customer.

I want to care for my customers. I will accept the bruising.

Prejudice in the Work Place

Warning for more swearing than I try normally to include.

It’s so insidious that it creeps through you until you don’t even notice the way their thoughts and comments are creeping into your mind, pretending to be yours. I wouldn’t have even noticed the prejudice in the Boss’s daughter’s comment if she hadn’t thrown in “not being racist”. I’m glad she did, because it shook it back into me, the hideous prejudice that pervades this and the previous office I have worked in.

It is predominantly nationalistic racism – that is, some of the racism is based on skin colour but more is based in country of birth. Or probably mother tongue – Americans and Australians don’t suffer as much as, say, the French or Germans. I would say that people with Indian accents working in call centres are probably the most abused, maybe followed by South Africans (and this is where I can see the ways it is infecting me – I was going to add “but this is probably because white South Africans think that it’s ok to treat other people as servants” and then I was going to justify myself by saying that “they” do treat us as servants. It’s ridiculous: yes, some people with South African accents treat us like dog dirt, but then so do some people with pretty much any accent and especially British – probably because the bulk of the people we deal with are British).

The call centre thing is a problem – it’s always followed with “I’m not being racist, I just can’t understand a word they say because they don’t know English”. English is one of the official languages of India. The people on the other end of the phone are, to my ear, no harder to understand than someone with a thick Irish accent (which seems to be the other call centre accent of choice), but my colleagues never accept that. I try to make the point that I have (second-)cousins who are half-Indian to try to encourage my colleagues to tone down their language, but it doesn’t work. They say that they know not all of “them” (it’s always a dehumanising “them”) are “like that”. My colleagues’ behaviour/attitude/comments don’t change. Another thing that rankles is that my colleagues accused me of being racist when I smiled at a lady’s name – she is Chinese by birth and her name is “Ping”. It’s not that her name made me laugh – it was the beautiful way her name sounds in her native accent. It made me smile with joy, not malice. Does that make it better? I don’t know, but I think so.

It frustrates me that the colleague who is the worst for speaking shit about Indian call centre workers also claims to be “pretty liberal” in her outlook because her son is gay. Which transitions me nicely to the next area of prejudice. The office is painfully homophobic and the Boss even seems to take a pride in this behaviour. There’s an undercurrent of misogyny in the homophobia: the language is very gay male based and when I have queried whether gay women were as “disgusting”, I have been informed by female colleagues that it’s a bit weird and by male colleagues that it’s hot or there’s an implication that the women are so ugly no man would want them. Although, one male colleague does pull a face whenever he has to see one client who is a lesbian. The Boss’s son was telling me how homophobic his grandad his and I misheard, thinking he was talking about his Dad and I commented that I’d noticed and got a weird look. When it was clarified, he laughed and said his dad was not homophobic, not really. I hate to think what someone who’s “really” homophobic is like, then.

MtF cross-dressing is seen as creepy and wrong. Women, also, should prefer to wear skirts (this from my female colleagues). I wear trousers to work because I cycle. I sometimes wear a skirt in the summer but really, I prefer trousers unless I’m dressing up or slumming ’round the house. The skirt comment is made pointedly at me from time to time.

Generic Christianity, Catholocism or lack of caring are the only acceptable religious positions. Jehovah’s Witnesses are particularly despised. There’s a degreee of anti-semitism, too, although that’s a racism thing rather than religious prejudice. Apparently, Jews* are all aloof and up themselves and – like white South Africans – treat us like servants. Oh, and the reason white South Africans hate black South Africans is because they aren’t civilised like black people in this country – they’re barbaric, savages – the colleague who claims to be liberal actually described native South Africans as “sub-human”. I had no response. (My boss at the last place I worked confided in me that he’d wanted to move to South Africa as he really approved of their polotics, but then they got rid of apartheid, so there went that plan.)

Nearly all the people I work with are well over the age of 40 – most pushing or over 60. There are a lot of comments about the flaws of young people and the lack of discipline in young people of today that wasn’t the case when they were young. I bite my tongue to refrain from mentioning that I studied similar comments written by the Romans when I was studying Latin as an extra-curricular activity at my school.

This is the first place I have worked where the misogyny is epidemic amongst the women as amongst the men. Women should generally be subservient – this immediately becomes overturned in more or less any individual circumstance where it looks like abuse is occurring, fortunately. But then, those women in the office who answer back to the Boss are criticised by the other women who then sit around moaning that he doesn’t listen to them. I find it easier to take criticism from him than from the woman who is probably the next most senior member of the company and I justify this by saying he’s a bit gentler than she is but is that true or is it the gender stereotypes that pervade society have shaped my expectations of the interactions? I think she is harder, because she is of the generation where women who want to succeed in business have to out-macho the men. Relationships are very much about men taking or possessing women. Men are good at technology and maths (although, all the senior non-accounts and the junior accounts people come to me for help with maths because that’s my degree). Everyone was shocked when one man brought in some yummy, yummy cakes he’d baked without his girlfriend’s help – so surprised that he hasn’t made them again which is such a shame because they were such good cakes.

It’s been eye-opening but not nice.

The thing is, I like where I work – despite their prejduices, I like the people and I really like the job. I find the prejudice difficult. Challenging it is a thin wire – if I don’t, then it begins to creep into me but if I do then things can be difficult for me personally and I like my job. I try to challenge as much as I can without making too many waves, but that does rely on my self-esteem being sufficiently strong.

Sorry this is a little disjointed, there’s been a lot of racism today.

 

 

*I am aware that in the US, ‘Jew’ is a perjorative term. However, I am British and in Britain this is not the case (to the best of my knowledge; please correct me if I’m wrong). It’s also the word my step-mother uses to describe her ancestors and my uncle uses to describe his ex-wife and their children, so it’s the term I’m used to using.

Sleeping Service

We’ve needed a new mattress for awhile, the Husbit and I. Our old one – a memory foam mattress we got off E-Bay when I was still at uni – is no longer moulding to our bodies. It’s just flat. And kinda lumpy. We’re both waking up in pain and the shoulder injury I picked up at Jitsu last autumn just isn’t healing and I think the mattress is part of why.

A few months ago, when we were shopping for cat bits and pieces, we spotted a bed shop so went in for a browse. The bed department was upstairs in a furniture store – the stairs split, with one direction leading to sofas and the other beds. We hadn’t finished going up the stairs in the beds direction when we were accosted by the sales demon assistant. She hounded us so intensely when we just wanted to get an idea of how much we needed to save up that we left and put the idea of a sound night’s sleep out of our minds again.

We have just come into a bit of spare cash, so decided to restart the mattress hunt. Reluctantly, we decided to go back to that shop because I wanted to pop into the next-door pet shop again. We pulled into the car park and spotted another furniture store selling beds in the retail park, so we went there first. They didn’t actually have many beds, but as we wandered through and lay on those we could afford, we were chased by two young girls playing ‘it’, with a mother shouting to them to “come here!” and not mess around but never looking over to see whether they obeyed, or seemingly even noticing that they never did come hither (they were perfectly polite children, smiled at us and apologised when they got in our way). The sales assistant caught Husbit’s eye on the way in but waited until we reached the last beds before bothering us. Mattress we liked best in our price range was in a 10% sale which included delivery, so that seemed like a bonus but we wanted to get the best we could afford so needed to shop around.

Which meant going back to the other bed place. We took the stairs up in the other direction, towards the sofas, this time (another couple were fleeing the sales pitch onslaught down the bed stairs) so managed to have a bit of a look around before we were accosted. Same sales assistant, on spotting us, came running over. Started the same explanations she’d given us last time – we cut her off (I felt a bit rude but she was being so insistant), explaining that we had been here before. Every few minutes, she came back over to see if she could help.

To be honest, the beds weren’t as nice and were more expensive but, for politeness’ sake, we admitted to liking a couple so she then tried to get us to try others. She seemed very put out by our low budget when we explained we couldn’t afford the ones she was showing us, and then tried to sell us a mattress that was available for us to take away there and then because it was a roll-up mattress. When we declined, she admitted roll-up mattresses aren’t as good, being less sturdy.

We ran out of there.

The next day, we went over in the other direction to the shop Husbit bought the bed from originally. I was all buzzed from having been allowed to drive over to our friend’s the night before – the longest I’ve driven in the Scooby – so was feeling shiny and excitable when we got there. Child-like. Or annoying puppy-like. We scooted in, avoiding the sales assistants and bee-lining for the beds. We were testing the first when we were approached. Smiley, friendly assistant who explained the shop layout to us and then – relief, oh relief – left us to it.

And we found a lovely mattress. A little over our budget, but not insurmountably so. And then I lay on the bed next to it and…. heaven! We snuck to the nearest cash point to check if we could scrape the money together, it being substantially above our (admittedly conservatively estimated) budget. We did. By delightful coincidence, the projected delivery date is my birthday!

The thing is, it needn’t have been a chore, the first day. Why do some sales assistants think that the best way to get a sale is to pester pester pester? I don’t know anyone who doesn’t find it frustrating. If you’re worried about the person feeling ignored, make eye contact. Approach and ask if they need help and if they say “no” then piss off to an appropriate distance and leave them be!

Respect on the Roads

Friday 8th February was a momentous day. My route home from work in cludes a right turn into a main road. Both when we drive and when I cycle, we/I tend to sit right by the centre white line, so cars turning into the side road have to either take the corner properly or stop  to let us/me out. In the car, roughly every third vehicle lets us out. On my bike, the first vehicle this year to let me out was on Friday 8th February. The second vehicle was actually the same vehicle for a second time last Thursday.

Drivers do a lot of talking about what cyclists should and shouldn’t do – mustn’t cycle on pavements, must wear bright clothing (no similar rules on cars not be dark colours, though, and I know which’ll do more damage if you don’t see it), mustn’t undertake on the left.

It’s about respect. When a driver tells me that I mustn’t undertake stationary traffic even when there’s space and it’s safe and the weather’s miserable, but that same driver then pulls up right beside me when I’ve stopped behind the car in front, well, what message does that send? If the car is beside me, seems to me that the car thinks that there is a second lane so why can’t I use it?

I passed my driving test about 3 1/2 years ago and have barely driven since, due to the cost of insurance (driven up by the fact our car is a Subaru Impreza WRX Japanese import, which of course all insurance companies think is a perfect first car. Yeah). This year, we found a company that would insure me for less than all our money so hurray! I’m driving again.

Which is crazy. I haven’t driven for 3 1/2 years, and now they’re perfectly happily letting me loose on the roads in a car with somewhere between 240 and 250 break horsepower. Fortunately, I am not so reckless (and the car is Husbit’s darling baby), so I booked myself a couple of lessons with my old instructor in his new car and have only driven the Scooby a couple of times on a short journey with Husbit two steps from a panic attack beside me.

Here’s the interesting part: when I drive my instructor’s Corsa, I drive with greater skill and confidence. It’s more akin to the Clio he had when I learnt to drive; he’s better practiced at hiding any concern he has when I make mistakes; I know that, if it all goes tits up, he has dual control and can take over and save the day. So I drive well in it, only minor mistakes – to be honest, by the end of my second refresher lesson, I felt like a better driver than I was when I took my test. All the same, other drivers were crowding me, cutting me up, driving too close behind and generally (unsuccessfully – too many years as a cyclist) trying to indimidate me with their lack of patience.

In the Scooby, I don’t drive so well. The journeys have been very short so I haven’t yet become used to the car. The steering is a little stiffer so I’m turning slower and it’s a petrol car when I learnt in a diesel which requires different use of the accelerator pedal so I’ve stalled a few times. The engine has a lot more power so I’m far more nervous about actually using the gas. And despite stalling and being in the wrong lane and driving way below the limit, despite all that the other road users give me space, treat me as another valid road user. This is why I fought when Husbit said we needed to get me learner plates – having cars crowd me when I’m driving a car I’m already nervous in would be too much and probably actually intimidate me (and make my driviing even worse).

It’s frustrating because everyone has to learn at some point and crowding a learner only makes it more difficult for them and doesn’t save you anything.

Anyway, the car is due for its MOT and service soon and the garage we use is a nice drive away – clear, open roads with little traffic and a decent stretch away so, as long as Husbit can hold his nerve, this should be very beneficial in getting my confidence in that car.

It is nice to be driving again though.

Marriage

The House of Commons have voted in support of a bill which will mean that the gender of the participants in marriage will no longer matter.

On the one hand, I have a sense of pride that this significant event is happening in my lifetime. On the other, I can’t understand why it is necessary – marriage (as I understand it) is a way for people to show they’re in love and I don’t understand why it was ever the case that the gender of the participants would matter.

The most common arguments seem to be a) the state should not be able to redefine marriage; b) marriage is for procreation and raising children; and c) the bible says marriage is between a man and a woman/homosexuality is a sin. I’ll start with a).

A friend found a wonderful quote from the debate, from a Conservative MP, Nick Herbert:

“If marriage hadn’t been re-defined in 1836, there wouldn’t be any civil marriages; if it hadn’t been re-defined in 1949, under 16-year-olds would still be able to get married; if it hadn’t been re-defined in 1969, we wouldn’t have today’s divorce laws – and all of these changes were opposed.”

(Source)

From this, it is clear that the state has already meddled in the definition of marriage and I would anticipate that if you asked most of the nay-sayers, they would agree (at the very least) that under-16′s should not be getting married.

Moving to b), that marriage is for procreation and child-rearing. This would indicate that infertile, heterosexual couples or those who don’t intend to procreate were also barred from marriage, which of course is not the case. Further, homosexual couples do (through adoption or surrogacy) raise children.

c) is probably the most contentious, because any argument I try and make can be met with “you’re discriminating against me” by those following the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam, Christianity). The very first argument i want to make – and the one which I am fairly confident can’t be countered with shouts of discrimintaion – is that we are not a Christian (or Jewish or Muslim) country. It will take another blog post to fully explain myself, but my argument is that if we are a nation of any faith rather than being secular, then we are Heathen and should be proud of this. If we are not a Christian country, then it doesn’t matter what the Bible says when it comes to how marriage is defined.

The argument that the Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman ignores that the Bible also refers to polygamous marriages. I would also draw attention to this article from the (normally bigotted) Daily Mail, which refers to same-sex church marriages being enacted historically; it seems the aversion to same-sex marriage is a more modern phenomenon.

Finally, the argument that homosexuality is a sin is usually supported by the verse in Leviticus (which, by its wording always implies to me that it’s ok to lie with another man if you act as a woman in that relationship) – a verse that is in amongst a lot of other laws that are ignored utterly. Other people have gone through this better than I. The Bible also, as far as I’m aware, does not refer to female/female relationships, only male/male, yet the current definition of marriage disallows this also.

Another Biblical reference I hear a lot is to Sodom and Gomorrah, whereby we are told that God got cross and killed everyone because they were gay. I don’t know how many people who spout this haev actually read the relevant scripture, but the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were not homosexual – as best I read it, they shagged anything that stayed still long enough (more like bonobo monkeys). Not only that, but the ‘righteous man’ God chose to save, Lot, proved his righteousness by offering his daughters up to be raped by the lustful multitude. That is not a righteousness that I can support.