Please explain why you have an issue with me, a gay man, criticising someone's homophobic views.

Thanks.

Well, if you weren't alive at the time, you have no idea of the context of the time. Being gay at that time, was still illegal in Scotland. The laws and views at the time were very much different to what they are now. You can't judge a historical figure out of the time period that they had influence. Homophobia didnt exist at that time as a concept

I was alive when he was pushing the idea that gays were an abomination. Next question.

I spoke of nothing to do with his time way back when.

He was speaking homophobic bile as recently as 2018. He was in the House of Lords until 2022.

Next.

No, what’s stupid and ignorant is pretending bigotry wasn’t bigotry just because it was popular at the time.

“Being gay wasn’t acceptable”, yeah, we know. That’s the problem. It’s not some neutral historical fact, it was oppression. And people like Tebbit didn’t just go along with it, they actively fuelled it. He didn’t just reflect the times, he helped shape them into something hostile, cruel, and dehumanising.

Homophobia did exist, gay people just weren’t allowed to speak about it without risking violence, arrest, or losing everything. The fact that people got away with it doesn’t make it less wrong.

So no, I’m not judging him by “today’s laws.” I’m judging him by the damage he did to real lives. If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe look at why you’re so desperate to defend it.

So his views, rooted in archaic attitudes, are not allowed to be scrutinised, but judgment of them, rooted in modern viewpoints, are ignorant and hateful?

Sorry but age doesn't give you carte blanch to be homophobic. Plenty of older generation views have moved on as societies views have shifted. He hasn't been frozen in time during that period, he's lived to see if shift, more than most, and if he didn't move with it, it's because he didn't want to. Sucks to be him if people take issue with his views.

Forget left and right: Norman Tebbit was a working-class hero. Politicians now could learn much from him

The iconic Tory had strong clear beliefs and was a fighter when his party needed
fighters. We could do with more like that now

No, what made Tebbit an icon was that he believed in that change and he fought for it.
He was a fighter, at a point when the party needed fighters

Courage, energy, authenticity – these Tebbit had in spades, and they are the things of
which political icons are made.

He certainly held many views with which readers of this newspaper would profoundly
disagree, then and now, and his views on social issues were wildly out of step with
modern society.

But an icon is not a hero, except perhaps in the Greek sense; recognising one does not
require agreeing with all or even any of what they stand for. Every movement will have
its own icons, and one of democracy’s great strengths – or indeed, basic requirements
– is recognising that there is space in public life for more than one.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...s-tory-fighter

Even the Guardian understood

Awful man. Sad for his family though, as a loved one passing is always heartbreaking.