L G B T – B B C Woman’S Hour Asks The Wrong Question

[naomi24]

Woman’s Hour posed the question ‘Do you think LGBT rights should be taught in schools?’ amid the continuing row in Birmingham. Twitter users and listeners slammed the organisation for its poorly-worded question, saying it opened up the platform to bigotry.

Responses included this:

//‘Why even frame this as a question? Doing so clearly legitimises ‘no’ as an answer, which is hugely damaging.’//

That is dangerous territory.

Why shouldn’t ‘No’ be a legitimate answer and is it acceptable to frame questions in such a way as to offer only limited responses that suit any particular agenda?

https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/26/bbc-fire-asking-lgbt-rights-taught-school-9030166/

[Kromovaracun]

Well, sure. There's no such thing as thought-crime and it's not illegal to be homophobic so by default yes they should be able to answer 'no' if that's what they think.

(Everybody else should also have the right to respond to their 'no', though).

[naomi24]

Thanks Krom.

[Peter Pedant]

// There should be an opportunity to voice both sides of opinion in any debate.//
hi aog you sweet old thing !

the lady ( nigh ) did say 'right' and this means something that can be enforced in a court. And the person who has to service the right has a realted 'duty' (*)

I leave aside 'right' meaning whatever it is you fancy at the time. [ you know like: a right is a foo-thing that only Abers know about and only about half of them!]

so really - what is there to discuss ?

should people be aware of rights - and therefore duties dependent on them - well yeah !

The head of the school was good ( but she was Head ) - you come to school to learn about english culture, duties, laws and how to behave. Wha
t you do at home is of course what the parents say, and we arent interfering with that .....

I leave aside arguments like - the abortion act doesnt give any rights and so it is moral and 'right' for me to shoot abortionists .... I regret we had a bit of that yesterday .....

[Peter Pedant]

(*) oops - hohfelds analysis of right and duty 1919
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Newcomb_Hohfeld

sozza

[Ellipsis]

> Ellipsis, as far as Muslims are concerned this is a matter of religion

Setting aside the issue of gay Muslims/Christians/Jews for now ... if a religion attempts to prevent children being educated about the world beyond that religion, then education trumps religion. Religion is no excuse for ignorance in a country with universal access to education.

[Ken4155]

Didn't say that Naomi. I agreed that it was very badly worded and elicited only two answers, a yes and a no.
Perhaps the question should have been, "What objections, if any, would you have if LGBT rights were taught to your children in school?" At least that would elicit some sort of narrative.

[Ken4155]

Sorry Naomi, didn't really answer your question, did i? There is absolutely nothing wrong with answering "No" if, indeed, it was just a yes/no poll and not a question to open a debate.

[woofgang]

Naomi
"the point is should 'no' be a legitimate answer or should questions that are likely to elicit a 'no' response from anyone be worded in such as way as to prevent that?"

I think that a bald "no" is a legitimate answer but not a useful one.....the no could be "no because I am a homophobe" "no because it doesn't go far enough" "no because I prefer to deal with the issue at home"....each of those longer answers comes from a very different place on the opinion spectrum. I think that questions should be worded to elicit useful information and not to confuse but i don't think questions should ever be posed to stifle any response or to elicit a desired response......unless its "you don't want the last of the wine/chocolate etcetera do you?"

[-Talbot-]

education trumps religion




That doesn't appear to the case. Emboldened by the success in Birmingham the 'religion' has taken on Manchester and has vowed to go nationwide.

[spathiphyllum]

Sheer hysteria.

[dave50]

Twist and turn, shuffle the question around, re-word it, anything so that nobody can say 'no' so that no-one gets upset. Cant have anyone with contrary opinions can we? People should 'man up'. Oops,there you go, Ive upset someone, oh dear how sad never mind.

[ludwig]

It's a perfectly reasonable question in it's own right to which 'no' is a perfectly legitimate answer.

However, as a reference to the Birmingham schools situation it's a bit midleading, because I don't think that's what's going on there.

[youngmafbog]

Any question is a correct question and any answer to any question is valid.

Still it is twitter so I guess Generation Z were running for their safe spaces as they furiously typed it in. After all they are used to de-platforming opinions they dislike.