The following is a clarification of my following tweets.

@robjhicks: Anyone got a link to Cameron's explicit targeting of homosexual kisses on tv? Mail article seems a little loaded.

@robjhicks: @thisisdavid see this http://t.co/n6YVdf7 not clear if its banning erotic kisses full stop or just banning gay kisses. Thoughts?

It was written in haste and on a train upon realising that 140 characters was far from enough space to explain such an issue. I have not used the luxury of hindsight and further evidence to edit this post.


My tweet arose from this Daily Mail article and the subsequent tweets that I saw of people accusing David Cameron and the coalition of homophobia.

Alas, the Mail is often preoccupied with erronesouly blaming the perceived erosion of things that it likes with things that it doesn’t like (the sanctity of childhood and homosexuality for example) which provoked the question from me – do the government’s plans explicitly target homosexual kisses before the watershed and place them under greater scrutiny than heterosexual kisses or is this article largely indicative of the Mail’s views on homosexuality? The former is completely unacceptable, serves to undo hard-fought equality legislation won by LGBT campaigns and should be immediately condemned. You will find me standing should to shoulder with those doing the condemning if this proves to be the case.

At the time however my only evidence for this being the case was the Mail article which, for the above reasons, I was disinclined to take at face value, hence my probing for further clarification on the exact nature of the plans.

There is a case that the government could be trying to make (not one I necessarily agree with I hasten to add) that some kisses, without gender as a deciding factor, are too ‘erotic’ or over-exuberant for young audiences to view. The implementation of such a policy would be an equality minefield (and rightly so) and should be subject to intense scrutiny from those who champion equality. My point however was that as difficult as such a policy might be to implement, it is not in itself inherently homophobic and, if undertaken, should not immediately be condemned as such. Call it silly, unnecessary, an attack on TV makers’ artistic licenses if you will, but if full equality is stated in its objective (admittedly another minefield) then it should not be condemned as homophobic until it is proved as being so.

Such sensitive policies rightly make equality campaigners wary. It is to our credit that our attention and our morals are immediately alerted to areas of policy where equality might be compromised but I am of the opinion that it is always best to allow a policy or opinion to be fully explained before denouncing it as prejudiced. We do ourselves, and consequently our causes, no favours by attacking others before we are fully informed of their intentions which is why I shall wait for full details of the watershed plans (and ask the necessary questions on Twitter!) before I make accusations of homophobia.

Let us also keep this in mind - it is far more desirable for this government to be fully committed to the equality of LGBT people than for it not to be. Cathartic though it may be to attack our opposition, a liberation campaign has achieved the most precious of victories when it no longer needs to attack.