Question time last night was monumental. A commentator on Radio 4 this morning equated it to Frost/Nixon, personally I think that's stretching it a bit but it was fascinating political viewing.
Nick Griffin's view were repulsive. I was expecting to be repulsed, I was expecting him to be a racist, islamaphobic, homophobic bigot and he proved that he was. Yet, none of these areas attack me personally, I am a white Christian straight guy - I watched as my left liberal self, ideologically and theologically opposed to what he was saying but never feeling directly attacked.
And then he called used the word 'Christian', when defending why he thought that Islam was 'Wicked' claiming that the British wanted a country based on 'Christianity' and this in effect us what he was offering.
When talking about sexuality he said 'that a lot of people find the sight of two grown men kissing in public really creepy. understand that homosexuals don't understand that but that's how a lot of us feel, Christians feel that way'.
I feel my faith has been violated by the hatred of this man.
I was struck by the way that he selected particular texts from the Koran, divisive texts, texts that will breed hatred. Texts taken out of context, not just of the Koran but of the faith tradition within which they were placed. Yet, his use of them was still powerful, none of the audience of panel responded directly to his three 'texts of terror'. They were ignored and by doing do I feel that they bred hatred, fundamentalisms and division.
Sayeeda Warsi managed to wind me up aswell with her views on imigration. Her views were that Britian needs the most skilled and gifted imigrants so that we can use their skills, my views are that we need the most broken and marginalized imigrants so that we can restore their human dignity.
And as for Jack Straw...what a blithering wreck.
Tags: BenEdson, QuestionTime.DickGriffin
