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July 07, 2009
Conservative Party and gay rights: the slow seeping of spirit?
I was pleased to see that - in response to accusations of homophobia - the UK's Conservative Party has responded by emphasising their openness to gay men and women. Whatever one thinks of the Conservative Party, it is interesting that the party which was responsible for homophobic measures such as Section 28 now seems to view homophobia as unattractive.
In his novel take on Hegel, Slavoj Zizek has argued that change may can occur through the 'slow seeping of spirit'. A change - such as the increasing unacceptability of homophobia -seeps slowly through our social reality, without being particularly noticeable at the time. There reaches a point, though, where one looks around and realises - after the change has taken place - what has happened: in this case, it now appears that a more accepting attitude to gay men and women has come to dominate 'mainstream' public political discourse.
I should emphasise that I am not claiming that homophobia is no more. Clearly, homophobia is still a problem; however, it does now seem to have become relatively politically unacceptable. I should also make clear that this 'slow seeping of spirit' would have been enabled by the hard work of large numbers of people: numerous activists, for example. However, the relatively quiet way in which this more open attitude seems to have moved through the political elite - and the sudden public exposure of these changes - does seem to fit the idea of a 'slow seeping of spirit' extremely well.
Posted by jon_mendel at July 7, 2009 06:12 PM
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