Preference

Sorry, I know I'm a bit late to this party, but what about that David Davies?

He's a Tory MP, so it should come as little surprise to hear him saying something I disagree with. Par for the course that, and something I can usually bring myself to ignore. Good job really, since if I wasn't able to ignore the blatherings and blusterings of Tory MPs I'd probably collapse in on myself like an imploding star. The resultant black hole would probably be no good for people of any political preference.

Which leads me (sort of) to the specific thing David Davies was going on about which got me wound up enough to blog about it.

Preference.

We all have preferences. It would be a dull old world if we didn't. They're very personal for the most part. Some are less so, driven by a sense of right and wrong. There are also many, many things where people have no preference.

For example: Given the choice of kicking David Davies in the left shin or the right, I would have no preference. They would be equally enjoyable and amusing. There would be, as far as I can reasonably foresee, no advantage to doing one or the other.

Mr Davies told us on the weekend (in the midst of the wider, tedious discussions on gay marriage) that he "thinks most parents would prefer their children not to be gay".

This has been irritating me since I heard it.

He's not being homophobic by saying that you understand. He can't be homophobic, because he once sparred with a gay boxer. Not only that, he LIKES AND RESPECTS said gay boxer. Obviously this is the best argument in the world; I use a similar one when my mum asks why I don't like Brussels Sprouts: I can't dislike them, I ate one when I was seven.

Erm, anyway, he thinks parents would prefer their kids not to be gay because they want to be grandparents. My sister is gay. She has a four month old baby. For goodness sake David, this is 2012, of course gay people can have children.

But that's not the point. It isn't the role of anyone's child to simply pander to the whims of their parents. Even if Davies' statement is true (and I really, really hope it isn't) it doesn't matter one bit. Just ask the millions of dads who would prefer their sons to become professional footballers. What a parent might prefer and what is actually going to happen can (and probably should) be a world apart.

Among my list of non-preferences is the gender of the people my son ends up doing the naked pentathlon with. I honestly couldn't give a solitary shit. And if I did give a shit, I would hope I'll have raised my son well enough to know that he should tell me to fuck off.

Which is exactly what I'd prefer David Davies to do.