Whose choice?

Abortion activists claim they are pro-choice – meaning that every woman has the right to choose to abort her baby.  LGBTQ+ activists similarly claim their absolute right to choose how they identify in terms of sex and orientation.  But both groups categorically deny the right of choice to those who in any way disagree – regardless of whether such disagreement be motivated by faith, personal conviction, or simply arising from a desire to help.  Up to now the campaigns of both groups have felt unstoppable, driven by a momentum of crusading, and what often appears manic zeal, but cracks are appearing…

In an interesting twist to the battle for ideological dominance, for instance, the rampantly aggressive LGBT ‘charity’ Stonewall has recently come under attack for its promotion of transgender rights.  A lesbian barrister, Alison Bailey, has brought a legal action against them for trying to silence her after she founded a rival organisation, the LGB Alliance, opposing Stonewall’s view that trans women should be legally regarded as women.  In a report in The Times, Ms Bailey described the view that “trans women are women” and “trans rights are human rights” as the “mantras” of trans activism.  She added that while people are appalled at what they see happening, they are too afraid to speak out and –most damning of all – she labelled trans-activism a cult (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stonewall-fails-to-stop-lesbian-suing-in-trans-row-qr9b7vpdp).

Interestingly, this is how many describe the whole LGBT+ phenomenon – as a vicious cult that savages its opponents, attempting to terrorise them into silence with hammer blows of ‘bigotry’, hate-speech, intolerance….  To return to Ms Bailey, however, she reportedly said of Stonewall: “This was an attempt … to intimidate and silence me and others critical of what we see as its malign influence in British life”.   And she summed up the campaign against her and fellow LGB activists with the scathing accusation, “new trans activism operated a crude but effective system of punishment and reward: agree with every demand of the trans lobby and be safe; object and face vilification, abuse, boycott, character assassination and cancellation”.

This is self-evidently true, because it is exactly what Stonewall and other like-minded organisations have attempted to do for years, whenever challenged, stridently demanding that their version of ‘values’, human rights and equality trump all else.  But what Ms Bailey signally fails to add, of course, is that all who dare question the new Weltanschauung are subject to the same attack.  The sad truth is that anyone who dares express views running counter to the narrative of same sex rights and sexual libertarianism is demonized, with dissenters branded bigots and intolerant.   And Bible-believing Christians especially have been singled out for attack, because they uphold traditional belief which, by definition, does not accord with the ‘new’ morality.   Such people are unacceptable bigots, LGBTQ+ activists say, and their antediluvian views must not be allowed public expression.

One feels like saying to Ms Bailey, welcome to our world: except, of course, that this is not our world, because the LGB Alliance would doubtless employ similar tactics against those they too label Christian recidivists.   And the tactics currently being employed against so-called conversion therapy are a perfect case in point, because even, for example, where a married man with children seeks help to escape unwanted feelings of same-sex attraction, because he values and doesn’t want to jeapordise his family, he must be denied help.

How is this right or fair?

In a society ostensibly committed to the defence of democracy and freedom, how is it that people must be free to choose to identify as LGBT, but they do not have the same freedom to ‘choose’ to identify as heterosexual?   And why do those who seek to offer help – which for those who want it can, without doubt, be startlingly successful – have to be bludgeoned into silence?  No, however viewed, this is cultural and political totalitarianism – a one-way street, with no turning off or reversal for those who discover they’ve gone the wrong way.  And all must agree.

Similarly with abortion.  A hospital consultant has recently committed the cardinal sin of offering treatment to women who changed their minds after taking the first of two abortion pills sent by post during lockdown.  Following a complaint by leading abortion provider MSI Reproductive Choices – formerly Marie Stopes International, before changing their name to escape identification with their eugenicist founder – Dr Dermot Kearney is now under investigation by the British Medical Council, with the threat of being struck off.  Once again, it would appear some choices are unacceptable.  A woman can choose to have an abortion, but she can’t ‘choose’ to keep her baby.  What hypocrisy is this, when a doctor whose only crime is attempting (with some success) to save life, is accused of medical malpractice (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9632581/NHS-consultant-banned-saving-babies-mothers-started-pills-post-abortiions.html)?

The positions taken by LGBTQ+ and pro-choice activists are in their different ways equally unconscionable and untenable.  Both sectors seek total domination for their unholy views, and both pose a threat to the future well-being of society.  They must be resisted.