ANOTHER VIEW: Bigotry dressed up as 'common sense'

Column displays writer's anxiety over his sexuality

'COMMON sense" can be a dangerous thing. People often invoke common sense when they refer to the commonly shared prejudices of those they happen to encounter in their small circle of family and friends. This danger is starkly illustrated by last week's column on homosexuality, "Same-sex parents have special duty to their children", written by Stephen Mulholland in Business Times.

Most of the column is given over to patronising remarks of the "some of my best friends are black" variety. Isn't it nice to know that Mulholland believes homosexuals are, by and large, not such bad people? Some of us are apparently even quite clever and creative, which, one gathers, is something of which he approves.

Once, confesses Mulholland, he even knew a gay man who never gave the slightest hint of "coming on" to him - as if this "restraint" on the part of the unnamed gay man says something profound about the moral character of gay men in general. Mulholland apparently never considered the possibility that the man did not "come on" to him because of his lack of charm and sexual appeal. Some heterosexual men can be so vain.

Mulholland seems blissfully unaware that he is inadvertently displaying his own anxieties about his heterosexuality while signalling his fear and prejudice of homosexuality. One assumes that Mulholland's remarks reflect relief that the gay man's discretion saved him from the "embarrassment" of being thought of by his fellow homophobes as being open to advances by another man. This ensured that he retained his image as a firmly heterosexual man - albeit not one sexy enough to be "hit on" by a sensible gay man.

Mulholland concludes his column by stating that same-sex couples should be frank with their children and tell them that such relationships "are neither the norm nor ultimately desirable - even if they are loving relationships".

Maybe Mulholland failed to provide reasons for this boldly stated - but highly obnoxious and controversial - view because it was his first column of the new year, knocked off next to the pool with a glass of Chardonnay in hand. But, judging from his inability to explain what he meant when later quizzed about his column on the radio, I suspect something else is at play here.

It seems Mulholland believes his views are so commonsensical that no explanation is needed to justify it. When one is so blissfully unaware that one's own "common sense" views are steeped in prejudice and bigotry, one has truly lived a sheltered life.

Mulholland tried to justify his view by arguing that being gay or lesbian can be traumatic for one's parents. This is not logical, because same-sex parents would hardly be traumatised if their children turned out homosexual. Nevertheless, what Mulholland does not understand is that if any parent is traumatised because he or she has a gay or lesbian child, the problem is with the parent, not the child.

Making an argument in defence of the parents is like making an argument in defence of the racial views of Eugene Terreblanche - it taints one by association. It is the homophobia of the parents that is undesirable, not same-sex relationships.

That is why it is wrong to encourage parents to instil prejudices in their children by telling them that same-sex relationships are undesirable merely because some people have not overcome their irrational fear and hatred of those who do not share their sexual orientation.

In my world, prejudice and racism are undesirable. Physically or sexually, abuse of a partner or a child is undesirable. Allowing a person like Mulholland to publish such a lazy, badly argued, thoughtless and bigoted column is undesirable.

How can it be undesirable for consenting adults to love and support one another? What harm is being done? I can only think that what is meant is that when one treats same-sex relationships as desirable, one challenges the fears and prejudices of others. And, by upsetting them, one harms their sense of oblivious, unearned wellbeing based on the bizarre idea that one deserves only to be confronted by those who look like you and love like you and behave like you and think (I am using the term loosely here) like you.

Personally, I do not think anyone has the right not to have their prejudices challenged and ridiculed. So, unlike Mulholland, I believe every parent - whether in a same-sex relationship or otherwise - has the ethical duty to tell their children that loving and caring relationships (whether between members of the same or of opposite sexes) are desirable, but that bigotry never is.

One should start by telling this to the editors of the Sunday Times, who published Mulholland's column.

• This is an edited extract of De Vos's post on his blog, Constitutionally Speaking