In the context of Gordon Brown’s Bigotbottom scandal, Cranmer had this to say:
Even intelligent commentators seem to think it unarguable that deeply-held beliefs against immigration, homosexuality or some religious beliefs are bigoted.
He writes as though it were a good thing to hold strong beliefs. This is a common error. That someone might have any beliefs at all is a bad thing, that they might be deeply-held is worse. Even if beliefs are not always bigoted, they’re unlikely to be right. If they were, no belief at all would be needed to hold them; the weight of evidence and argument, reason, would be sufficient. It should be an adequate refutation of a point of view merely to show that it is a belief, especially a deeply-held one.
And bigoted beliefs are always deeply-held. Cranmer continues:
Anyone who maintains their view in the face of modern social pressure is only following their conviction, which is often rooted in faith.
Well, that’s true enough, though disingenuous. Hatred of gays, transsexuals and other completely normal, natural forms of human sexuality, for example, has to be maintained not in the face of “modern social pressure” but in the teeth of modern knowledge.
The word ‘bigot’ does have an accepted meaning: it is the obstinate and blind, often nasty and hypocritical, attachment to a particular creed.
Well, yes. Quite.
A self-refuting argument. That calls for a new tag, I think.
