h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Or to put it another way...it came up because you went off on one with your silly tirade against the concept of hate crime.

I mean...what was I meant to say?
"You're quite right, SoRB. For years our criminal justice system has been taking into account factors other than the pure physical results of a crime. This nonsense must be stopped! Thank you for pointing it out."

The story rumbles on -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7040841.stm

"Avon's chief fire officer said he has received a death threat after disciplining four firefighters for being on Bristol Downs."

That's 'cause he's for the poofs, see?

I guess I have an issue

Much has been made of the fireman's homophobia, and that is the reason this case has gained so much publicity.

Were the firemen to have raided some dogging site I have no doubts that had anyone complained it would have resulted in the same punishment for the firemen.

But would it have resulted in the same publicity ?

>>But would it have resulted in the same publicity ?

No. The firemen probably wouldn't have gone to the press in a blatant attempt to stir up moral outrage. Because that's what happened.

You obviously have knowledge I don't because when I read the story it said ~ "The disciplining of the men was not made public but was leaked to the Bristol Evening Post"

It doesn't say ~ "The disciplining of the men was not made public but was leaked by the firemen to the Bristol Evening Post, in a blatant attempt to stir up moral outrage."

>>
Kevin Pearson said he had received up to 300 abusive e-mails since then and was still receiving them.

But he insisted: "Many of the responses I received were nothing short of hysterical homophobia."
<< SWL's bbc link

Hey, he should count himself lucky that he's not being subjected to intellectually agressive, but still completely idiotic homophobia.



>>
Mr Pearson said: "The reaction we got from the media [shows] that homophobia is evidently still widespread in our society.

"It is not my job to make judgements about people's lifestyle. It is my job to make judgements about the behaviour and actions of my staff.

"There was no evidence of illegal or sexual activity. The reports made a connection to activities that may or may not take place on Clifton Downs.

"I would point out to people that whatever their views on disciplinary sanctions, the officers involved were advised they could appeal and none of those involved chose to."
<<

We know very little about what happened. The firemen involved haven't made any public statements have they? The fact that they're not appealing is interesting.

I'd suspect that appealing might lead to further problems - "how often have you done this ?" "Have you done this in other areas ?"

When you're caught breaking the rules its usually best to take the punishment and wait for it all to die away, not prolong it. Which is why I doubt the accuracty of what Edward's claiming.

That was my thought too. Sometimes, when you're in a hole it's best to stop digging. I wouldn't say a lack of an appeal has any particular significance.

I bet it does have significance, we just don't know what it is.

Nice that they're not doing any big, defensive, macho dickhead stuff though. At least not in public.

>>You obviously have knowledge I don't because when I read the story it said ~ "The disciplining of the men was not made public but was leaked to the Bristol Evening Post"

>>It doesn't say ~ "The disciplining of the men was not made public but was leaked by the firemen to the Bristol Evening Post, in a blatant attempt to stir up moral outrage."


Yes I do have such knowledge, McKay - although I honestly forget in which news source I read of the Terence Higgins Trust's denial that they had leaked.

However, one only has to apply one's critical faculties to make a reasonable guess as to the source of the leak. Who Might have had a greater interest in a local newspaper running a 'Political Correctness Gorn Mad' story:
- An organisation concerned with promoting AIDS awareness and safe sex amongst a difficult to reach target audience?
- A bunch of homophobes aggrieved at having their sordid pastime censured?

Thinking about it, I'm inclined to trust the THT's denial. Aren't you?

(The other possibility is a sympathetic third party within the Fire Service)

For the reasons stated above I consider it unlikely that the men themselves would have leaked the story.

However anyone with a political agenda could have leaked the story, both pro and anti would have had a reason to raise the profile of the story - but not the men themselves.

And as ever the homophobia flag is being waved - I'm of the opinion that if you look for anything hard enough you can find it.

Regardless of whether it's there or not.

Likewise anyone can refuse to see the elephant in the living room if they try hard enough (or at least pretend it's not there).

Police have been ordered to protect doggers and arrest anyone suspected of committing a hate crime against people taking part in outdoor sex.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8048230/Doggers-should-be-protected-from-hate-crime-police-told.html

Dooes that include firemen?

>>"and arrest anyone suspected of committing a hate crime against people taking part in outdoor sex."

That's in the subheading of the article, but doesn't really seem to square with the content of the article itself, which only seems to talk about not dismissing complaints out of hand.

Still, I guess some people don't really bother reading the articles if the headings are enough to massage their preconceptions.

Surely the point is that if people are doing things discreetly, and other people are seeking them out in order to have a go at them, that's quite different from people not taking the trouble to be discreet and ending up disturbing regular citizens.

In the latter case, if people complain, there's no reason for the police not to investigate.

However, when it comes to public spaces, 'public' covers a whole range of situations.
If a couple go out of their way to be out of everyone's way, and someone else, knowing what the couple is likely to do, follows them, that person doesn't really have obvious grounds for complaint at what they see, and if they're going there to cause trouble, should be liable to be held to account for that.

Outdoor sex is legally frowned upon not because it's *immoral*, but because it can expose people to things they have some reasonable expectation of not being exposed to.

If the only people being exposed to it had made a choice to be exposed by seeking it out, that would somewhat remove the reason for the illegality of that particular instance of sex.

>>
>>"and arrest anyone suspected of committing a hate crime against people taking part in outdoor sex."

That's in the subheading of the article, but doesn't really seem to square with the content of the article itself, which only seems to talk about not dismissing complaints out of hand.
<<

I thought the article was talking about a manual instructing police to be proactive around hate-crimes directed at people having sex in public. i.e. the police are to treat such people as victims of crime despite the fact that they are also breaking the law.

>>It states that even though 'outdoor sex is unlawful', people who take part in dogging or cottaging still have rights - which protect them from becoming victims of hate crime.