Censorship

Yours truly was censored on a Yahoo! Groups discussion list recently for using a word. The word was “Muzzies”.

The odd thing is that the censoring organisation was the UK’s Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA), which, as its name suggests, is not especially fond of religion. And it’s less fond – or should be – of religions that like to bash gays.

I can’t say I’ve been that frequent a poster, but I’ve posted a fair few over the years. I won’t be doing so again, except to respond to something that really needs a response.

What rubbed salt into the wounds was that a member of the GALHA committee – who censor members’ posts to that discussion list – said the word was akin to “Paki” and “nigger”. Well is it? You wuold have to have a pretty skewed sense of etymology to think so. Those words are distinctly racist, and to be discouraged (although I personally wouldn’t go so far as to censor them, but would merely expect others, and possibly myself, to come into the discussion and give the culprit a verbal going-over, because racism just isn’t acceptable). “Muzzies”, on the other hand, is clearly referring to a religious persuasion.

To give the censors their due, they allowed my next post onto the list, but could they have done otherwise, since in it I felt I had to rebut the accusation of racism? The word “Muzzies” was then used – in my post – because we were now discussing the word rather than merely using it.

Now why am I talking on here about a dispute on a discussion list over the use of a word? Well the word does concern Muslims, which this blog is about. The word was mildly piss-taking, which is what antireligion organisations do (certainly my other blog, Pink Triangle, does, as does another favourite of mine, the Freethinker). And, of course, censorship was afoot.

And I’ve blogged on here before about how the UK is appeasing Muslims, the very people who pose such a threat to our culture, and especially to gays and lesbians, of whom I am one (well, gay, not lesbian – at least not the last time I looked).

I don’t expect this sort of appeasement from a “humanist” organisation. While I would expect it to get excited over out-and-out racism, I don’t expect such groups to waste valuable energy censoring the word “Muzzies”.

By the way, for those of you who are gay, or straight but gay-friendly, and/or are atheists, freethinkers, agnostics, we’ve set up an alternative discussion group called Gaytheist, which can be found on Pink Triangle sidebar or by sticking your email address in the box below.

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