A`peculiar equality

Equality is a much abused term, favoured by a whole slew of carpetbaggers intent only on promoting their own narrowly-focused agenda. As a consequence, we get situations like the one that arose this week when two dicta from different arms of the equality octopus seemed to confound and contradict each other.

The first deals with a heinous crime - rape. The second concerns itself with the much less serious problem of equality between the sexes in a gymnasium or health club. One is of real importance but is subtly undermined by the spurious nature of the other whose only purpose is to provide added froth to the feminist agenda.

We are already familiar with the extreme feminist view that all sex is rape; or, to be more precise, all heterosexual sex is rape. Now, it appears, that this is close to becoming the official position. Any woman who has sex with a man whilst drunk can now, officially, be regarded as having been raped since, by definition, she was not in a position to provide informed consent to the act. On the other hand, should the man be in an equally catatonic condition - but not presumably have been afflicted by the dreaded brewer's droop - he cannot use this as a defence to the charge of rape. Irrespective of his alchoholic intake, he is deemed to be capable of asking for and understanding whether or not consent has been given before proceeding.

From this we can only infer that men are deemed to be the stronger sex in any situation where alchohol is involved. If both sexes were, indeed, equal it stands to reason that they would be affected by alchohol equally and, by extension, would be equally as capable of deciding whether or not they want to have sex. But, this is apparently not the official view.
Which is strange because, in the health club, total equality between the sexes is to be adhered to so rigidly that simply offering a woman a lighter set of weights to lift than a man is regarded as discriminatory.
This might give rise to an interesting dilemma in the future, given our predilection for litigation based on Health & Safety issues in this country. It is not difficult to envisage a scenario in which a petite woman is provided with a set of weights more suited to a hefty male, tears a muscle, ricks her back or otherwise damages herself and then sues the trainer and the health club for failing to follow health and safety procedures.
It would be a delicious irony if any such failure were to be cancelled out by the trainer's strict adherence to the letter of the Equalities Act.

Static Travellers may be oxymoronic but

An oxymoron is a word or phrase that contains within itself a number of contradictory terms or ideas. A frequently quoted example is "a deafening silence".
Modern life is full of people and institutions that seem to embody the same oxymoronic qualities. Civil Servants, for instance, are rarely civil and even less rarely provide anything remotely approaching a service. At a local level, which is where most of us bump up against them, they try very hard to turn the employer/employee relationship on its head.
Stories of local councils dictating how, when and where residents should deploy their rubbisn and recycling bins and punishing them when they fail to comply, are commonplace. To this lexicon of offical bullying, we can add the use of Anti-Terrorist legislation to snoop and spy on people to ensure that they don't, wittingly or otherwise, let their dogs foul the pavements or enrol their children in a school outside their allotted post code.
At Government level, we have various Ministries and Quangos whose functions and titles seem at odds with each other. The performance of the Intelligence Services over the last ten years makes them a prime candidate for the Oxymoron of the Decade award. The Department for Transport and the Ministry of Justice would run them a close second, based on their failures to achieve anything of note in their respective fields.
However, the clear leader and undisputed champion, must be the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
This Quango is, by definition, charged with ensuring equality in all areas of our life: An entirely honourable and desirable objective for any government to pursue.
What it actually does is encourage discrimination, foster racial divides and promote the causes of special interest groups, many of whom form not only its client base but the pool from which a significant proportion of its top executives are drawn.
Thanks to this agency and its predecessor, the Commission for Racial Equality, we have so many minority lobbies active in this country that we are frequently treated to the unedifying sight of them vying for attention - and funds.
The more clued-up among them have managed to push to the head of the queue by identifying themselves as distinctive Communities. Thus, we have a Black Community; a Gay and Lesbian Community; a Transgendered Community, a Moslem Community and a Travelling Community.
This, of course, means that our whole understanding of what constitutes a community has to change. It must no longer be based on a geographic location, such as a town, village or street, but a set of preferences.
In the case of the Gay and Lesbian Community, for instance, what defines them is how, where and with whom they choose to deploy their genitalia.
With the Travelling Community, what brings them together, is the way they choose to live. In which case, look out for the Semi-Detached and End Terrace Dwellers Community to be pushing for recognition soon; certainly before those posh bastards from the Detached Community grab all the attention.
Of course, the whole concept of a Community united by a single, distinctive trait or feature is flawed. What camp does the Gay or Lesbian Traveller belong to? ( Excuse the pun; totally unintended)
What about the Traveller who happens to be a Moslem or Christian? Do they have to establish their own separate faith Community to ensure they get a fair shake of the equalities stick?
Which brings me neatly back to my oxmoronic theme.
Can a traveller who no longer travels, truly be a member of the Travelling Community?
Isn't a Static Taveller an oxymoron?
The question comes to mind because, not for the first time, a member of the TC has managed to buy some highly-desirable, agricultural land and, by obtaining planning permission for two static caravans and two mobile homes, inflated its value many times over.
The land's original owner - a farmer - had been denied the self-same permission. But local authorities have been told to look kindly on any planning applications coming from the Travelling Community; a fact that the said TC is only too eager to exploit. When was the last time you read a story about travellers buying up and moving onto some derelict industrial land? The only land they ever show any interest in buying tends to be in areas of outstanding natural beauty.
The Traveller in the current case claims to be a Gypsy and purchased the land so he could return to his roots. Hmmm.
He has spent the last fourteen years in a detached bungalow in Norfolk. His stated intention is to create sites for two static caravans and two mobile homes on his newly-acquired land. In other words, all four homes will be static - along with their owners. Sounds very much like any other fixed community to anyone with half a brain. They are travellers only in the same sense that someone who once owned a boat could claim to be a sailor.
Sadly, this kind of logic never pierces the fog of sentimentality and patronage that surrounds the Travelling Community.
We may surmise that our friend's motives for buying the land had little to do with rediscovering his Gypsy Rover roots, and more to do with making a profit. But, as a member of the Travelling Community, no such base motives can be attributed to him. His right to reclaim his Romany lifestyle has been sanctioned at the highest level and it is officiladom's job to make damn sure that he achieves it.
If that means making him and the rest of the Travelling Community more equal than the rest of us under the Law, so be it. Anyone who thinks that this is divisive, discriminatory and downright unjust is not only a Racist and a Member of the BNP but, almost certainly, a Daily Mail reader to boot.
On the other hand it reduces another English tenet that we all hold dear to the level of just another oxymoron: Blind Justice.