Watch: Gay Historian David Starkey Defends Anti-Gay Christians
Openly gay historian David Starkey, who has been nicknamed the "rudest man in Britain," has come to the defense of hotel owners who turn same-sex couples away as a result of their anti-gay Christian beliefs. He made the remarks on BBC’s "Question Time" earlier this week:
“The way to do that is not to ban them, not to fine them. It is for them simply to put up what seems to me to be a quite proper notice in a small privately run hotel which says 'we are Christians and this is what we believe.' Otherwise, we are as I said, we are producing a new tyranny...speaking as someone who is gay and had a mother who was a Christian and passionately hated and opposed it. The hatred and the opposition made me what I am. Nice and sweet about gays isn't wholly a good thing."
Starkey himself claims that he is atheist.
In January, a UK court found in favor of a gay couple who claimed discrimination against a Christian hotel owner who refused to allow them to book a room in their hotel. Another couple has also sued an English bed & breakfast whose owners also turned them away because of their religious beliefs.
Watch his remarks, AFTER THE JUMP.
Did he miss the part in US history where Segregation was a bad thing? People don't get to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. Western societies are intentionally secular so as to avoid all the conflicting religions' hatred and bigotry towards outgroups.
Posted by: Iko | Mar 5, 2011 9:19:03 AM
If you offer services to the public, you should offer them to all the public. If this offends your delicate religious sensibilities, get a different line of work.
Posted by: candideinnc | Mar 5, 2011 9:24:02 AM
Most gays of a certain age are very damaged goods...They have deep, deep self hatred that they will never get over. This man just said being nice to gays isn't a wholly good thing, because his mother hated who he was and he was better for it...Truly damaged goods...I don't generally trust gay men over forty, they are psychologically sick...Though there are some exceptions, one of whom I have great respect for and consider a mentor, but finding an older gay man who isn't screwed up in the head is very, very rare!
Posted by: Pedro | Mar 5, 2011 9:40:44 AM
I'm with you CANDIDEINNC.
Posted by: terryp | Mar 5, 2011 9:41:30 AM
@Pedro - a ridiculous generalization, just as the the owners of the inn generalized about gays, cloaking it in religious belief, you generalize about gay men" of a certain age," cloaking it in your selective observations, with exceptions of course, just as bigots have exceptions which prove their rule.
Posted by: Dennis | Mar 5, 2011 9:54:12 AM
This is something @PEDRO. Being an older gay man I at first took ofense. But now I have to agree with your statement of "damaged goods". But I also think it is not just older gay men, the young men I know
seem to be as "damaged goods", of course not
all.
Posted by: terryp | Mar 5, 2011 9:54:57 AM
David Starkey has made a career in the UK media out of taking unpopular and contradictory positions on topics, but this argument really tries my patience. I think IKO, above, has raised the obvious counter-argument: what if this were a case of hoteliers denying a room to a couple because they were black?
I think David Starkey is responding to a personal inhibition about imposing his sexuality on others. Having grown up in an era of huge prejudice and condemnation, he has internalised it and it seems natural for him to privilege the ugly sensibilities of bigotry over his own freedom to live as himself. What amazes me is that this man is used to challenging the arguments of others and he seems to be blind to his own homophobia here. His statement that experiencing rejection and prejudice made him what he is today is staggering.
Posted by: Greg | Mar 5, 2011 10:01:03 AM
Pedro those older gays you speak of where the ones out in the streets fighting for the rights you now enjoy, in a much harsher climate then there is now. So maybe you might want to sit down with a few of your older gay peers and have a chat. You might actually learn something you silly boy!
Posted by: The Iron Orchard | Mar 5, 2011 10:03:22 AM
Candideinnc, In the US, the term for this is a "Public Accomodations Law": if you are a business open to the public, you must, indeed, not discriminate, but serve all the public.
There are various ways to avoid it: but not sure how they would play out in British law. Generally, if they don't state a reason for denying service, they can get away with it: it's that they chose to make an anti gay statement (and link it to religious antipathy) that resulted in this controversy.
Pedro, I don't know anyone who is not damaged by life to some extent above the age of 12. No sure as to your point, and, yeah, just like the twits in Brit, you've overgeneralized.
Posted by: MR Bill | Mar 5, 2011 10:07:43 AM
Let me get this straight. This guy is saying that people demanding to be treated equally, are somehow fostering a new tyranny? Is he kidding me?
Posted by: mytwocents | Mar 5, 2011 10:17:02 AM
There is no united gay community, but we should keep together once in a while, like in this situation.
Posted by: Matt26 | Mar 5, 2011 10:18:24 AM
It's no recommendation that he credits the prejudice he's faced with making him who he is - he's not a very nice person.
Posted by: DD | Mar 5, 2011 10:22:39 AM
I would also assume that they don't allow unmarried opposite-sex couples to stay in the same room. Am I correct?
As for damaged goods, I think this is cultural and not about age. I do agree that most of us have internalized some of the homophobia with which we were raised and it's mostly a matter of the degree to which was have transcended that.
Posted by: Houndentenor | Mar 5, 2011 10:26:08 AM
One of the things that annoys me about those who argue against these equality laws is that they claim - and it was also said on this programme too - that these Christians would be 'forced' to rent their rooms to gays and that they were being dictated to in their own homes by the law. They are not. There is always the option of runing their business and renting their rooms by private invitation only, then they could ensure that every visitor matched their exact moral criteria. It is ONLY when they choose to advertise publically for custom that they are not allowed to engage in hurtful blanket discrimination. They don;t own the public space and despite what Starkey claims, they are not being persecuted at all.
Posted by: Den | Mar 5, 2011 10:33:53 AM
Business who refuse couples based on religious beliefs or their attitudes toward homosexuality are fully within their right to deny service. There are plenty of other businesses who are accepting, and we should give them our business. We should not be trying to force these backward-minded people to accept our business. Why on earth would I want to give my money to them knowing they openly hate and/or reject me? What we can do is publicize. We can let EVERYONE know that these are hateful/spiteful people and not give them our business. Those who are sympathetic will likely choose not to bring their business there either.
Posted by: Davey | Mar 5, 2011 10:43:03 AM
IMHO, I think most US gays probably are (I really don't like this term) "damaged goods" in some respect due to the homophobia with which we've had to deal all of our lives. Age has nothing to do with the degree of "damage". Granted some have had it worse than others; granted our lives do seem to be improving. However, to give legal sanction to such blatant homophobia as this British "Christian" innkeeper couple exhibited should not be tolerated no matter what David Starkey believes. It's wrong - past, present and future - if you're business is serving the public. The British courts ruled properly in favor of the gay couple who wanted to stay in the inn.
Posted by: HadenoughBS | Mar 5, 2011 10:48:24 AM
I agree whole-heartedly with CandideinNC above. If you can't handle serving everyone in the public equally, don't go into public service. Not a complicated concept really.
Do we want a world where homophobic doctors let gays die on the operating table? Where homophobic resataurant owners refuse to serve gays? Do racists get the same accomodation to their views? Of course not.
No citizens should be held hostage to the weird views of shopkeeps, when they are just try to go about their daily lives. Who wants to live in a world where you are constantly in danger of being turned away from every public venue, just for being who you are.
Posted by: Kurt | Mar 5, 2011 10:50:51 AM
I understand what he is trying to say;that forcing someone to like you is not going to make make these christians see your POV, or change them. That said, there is the bigger issue of equality in our society.That issue trumps these other considerations. I don't think crucifying this guy for this opinion is appropriate, it is just invalidated by the larger issue at hand.Who does deserve ire is the jerk that classifes older Gay men as damaged. That is pointing a finger at a generation (what few have survived), as responsible for a disfunction that ALL Gay men share(especially the young ones). "Pedro" your sorry ass can write this drivel ONLY because those men risked everything, in a very hostile world. You should be kissing their feet, and asking forgiveness for your ignorance. But you won't, because you know it all, and will go on the stain our hard won victories with your ignorance.
Posted by: booka | Mar 5, 2011 10:51:58 AM
You know, this guy really is on to something: obstacles present opportunities for growth and the strengthening of inner character.
In the wake of both the "It Gets Better" campaign and Lady Gaga's neutered "race without bias", too many modern gays seem to feel they are entitled to a life without conflict and complication. Why on earth would you want that? A life without conflict and complication is a life without intellectual challenge; A life without struggle is a life without strength. This seems to be born out of the the idea that heterosexuals don't have to suffer through what we suffer through, and that this is terribly unfair. In reality, though, we should be grateful to be suffering through more.
Why? Because their exclusion of us from their system has freed us from the trappings of their system. We don't have to sacrifice all of our dreams and goals in order to achieve domesticated hell. The 'outsider' status they've placed on us has given us the unique opportunity to see what exactly is wrong with their philosophies and, in turn, this puts us in the unique position of being able to educate and possibly liberate those who fall victim to those misguided philosophies. The oppostition they show us forces us to GET STRONGER, to FIGHT, to ASSERT OUR INDEPENDENCE and our PREROGATIVE TO LIVE. As a result, our lives will be filled with more passion, more direction and, ultimately, more adventure then the 'normals' will ever get. None of this would be possible if we had been fully integrated and accepted into their system.
It's important to remember that the continuous evolving and reworking of man's ideas and philosophies is what's made human history so eventful and exciting. If we take away all problems, we take away all need for problem-solving and, without the need to excercise that intellectual fucntion, our minds will become just as flacid and useless as those who oppose us.
Be grateful for the opportunity to be unique and different. Be grateful for the opportunity to be an individual. Be grateful for the opportunity to be gay.
Posted by: Tim | Mar 5, 2011 10:54:05 AM
I think the inn owners and David Starkey are producing a tyranny against Christianity by blaming their prejudice and intolerance on Jesus.
Posted by: Dastius Krazitauc | Mar 5, 2011 10:55:01 AM
I don't know what's more disturbing: that this self-loathing man would suggest that being decent to gay people is not all good, or that it seemed half the audience seemed to hear their own bigotry being vindicated and applauded approvingly.
He has a history of sexist remarks and also stereotypes Christianity as intolerant. This is ironic since he was raised by Quakers and, though his parents themselves may have been intolerant and sexist, the Quakers as a whole have been supportive of equality for all people.
@Pedro: There are certainly some 66-year-old men like Starkey who are psychologically damaged by the internalized ideas they grew up with that gays are worth less than other people... just as there are a lot of urban 25-year-olds who are ignorant to the degree to which many freedoms they now have are recent, precious and fragile.
But your own stereotyping suggest to me that your exposure to older gay men may be limited, perhaps to a few people here and there and maybe just in a pretty isolated community.
I have gay friends who are as much as a generation older that I am who are among the most positive, successful and thoughtful people a community could have.
Posted by: GregV | Mar 5, 2011 10:55:51 AM
@DD: You make a brilliant observation. Apparently he's widely considered the rudest man in Britain. I hope when viewers hear him recommending intolerance because it "made him what he is today," they will consider the implications.
Posted by: GregV | Mar 5, 2011 11:01:08 AM
He's spouting nonsense based on his scarred psyche rather than on law or reason.
When you are a hotel serving the public in a place where there are non-discrimination laws, you are not at liberty to deny service based solely on personal prejudice. (@Davey: When a couple arrives unknowing to their lodging after a long day of travels, the last thing they should be expected to do is look for other accommodations. The couple had every reason to expect a warm welcome. This was 2010, not 1965.)
If, as a business owner, you would prefer certain types of clients, you can exercise your free speech rights and easily reflect that in your advertising and website. By saying "Christian-owned" or "gay-owned" etc. you give signals to your clients that can help them know ahead of time whether they'd be welcomed or not. But the Christian couple didn't do that. They simply expected that their bigotry was acceptable. It isn't. They have no case, and neither does Mr. Rude Gay on their behalf.
Posted by: Ernie | Mar 5, 2011 11:04:20 AM
Ernie: In a different world, the phrase "Christian-owned" would mean "an environment of tolerance that embraces all."
Isn't it funny that "Christian-owned" has come to mean "small-minded, judgemental people who don't want anyone here that we don't aprove of."
A sad commentary on people who consider themselves Christian in faith or philosophy.
Posted by: Jeff Kurtti | Mar 5, 2011 11:39:47 AM
Forgetting the questions swirling around David Starkey for a minute, the underlying issue (IMO) is that both of the businesses are Bed and Breakfast type accomodations, meaning that the guests are staying in the innkeepers' homes. If we were discussing any other type of hotel, motel, lodge, cabin, etc, I'd agree that the innkeepers would have no right to discriminate. But I can't imagine why a gay couple would WANT to lodge with (and share meals with) a host who is so thoroughly at odds with the guests.
Posted by: Lilith | Mar 5, 2011 12:11:29 PM