LAST Monday I visited my local Florence Nightingale Hospice shop, looking for birthday cards. It is spacious, well-organised and the staff are always friendly. I happened to glance up at the far wall – to see a large Pride Month display, complete with rainbows and messages announcing ‘Diversity’, ‘Inclusion’ and ‘Equality’. Such a display had probably been happening for several years, but this was the first time I had noticed it. I was shocked. I know it is hard to avoid Pride Month in its public manifestations – but here? Why would such an important, worthwhile charity, dedicated to palliative care for the dying, be promoting this particular ideology?
I decided to write to the charity’s CEO. In my letter I argued that although Pride might be ostensibly a ‘charity’ it is in reality a powerful political pressure group, in contrast to the truly charitable work done by hospices. I pointed out that Pride also celebrates a way of life deeply at odds with Christians and Muslims, including others who have no specific faith, and that it is divisive, political and controversial.
I mentioned that some years ago Tesco had planned to join a Pride march through London. Thousands of its customers (including myself) who strongly believe that a food retailer has no business joining in a public politicised march without obvious links with the food industry, protested. Tesco took a pragmatic grocer’s look at a possible drop in sales and backed down. In my letter I argued that the Florence Nightingale Hospice had no more links to Pride than Tesco.
I suggested as tactfully as I could that ‘Pride is not an organisation that celebrates babies, children, traditional marriage or traditional family life – or indeed the lifestyle of most ordinary people’. I said I suspected that the hospice organisation knew it would draw down much angry publicity if it did not put up such a display, publicity which it would wish to avoid. In this context I referred to the stand J K Rowling has taken against the transgender movement, saying ‘it takes courage today to make a principled stand against something one believes to be wrong’.
In conclusion I referred to the Third Reading of the Assisted Dying Bill which would take place at the end of this same week, as well as to the wonderful work of the hospice movement, a charity to which I have always given financial support. I pointed out that the pressure for ‘euthanasia’ had nothing to do with proper palliative care and that if the Bill were passed it would inevitably draw much needed funds and support away from nursing the dying – the very charity that the shop existed to support. I asked the CEO to change the charity’s policy and to withdraw from future rainbow displays on the grounds that it wished to stay outside a political campaign, to ‘remain true to the original vision of the founders of the hospice movement’ and to concentrate on the ongoing battle against the powerful euthanasia lobby.
I forgot to mention that great Victorian pioneer of nursing herself, Florence Nightingale, inspired by her Christian faith, whose name had been adopted by this charity. However, I did point out to the CEO that if the late Dame Cicely Saunders, one of the founders of the modern hospice movement, a heroic woman and devout Christian, had been alive today ‘she would have politely pointed out to Pride that her responsibility and the responsibility of her movement was to terminally ill patients, to their families and to their carers – and to no political pressure group’.
Within a few days the CEO replied to my letter. Without wishing to belittle the response, it was written according to a standard AI template of modern robotic ‘niceness’, the sort of response always trundled out by liberal progressives when those of a traditional and conservative outlook cross their path. The implication is always that they are being ‘kind’; that we are therefore ‘unkind’. The letter acknowledged that ‘social and cultural issues can be deeply personal and divisive’ but was emphatic that the Pride displays in their shops were not intended ‘as a political statement but as an expression of our commitment to inclusivity and respect for all individuals.’
The CEO informed me that Pride represented for many a ‘celebration of a diversity, acceptance and the right to live without fear of discrimination’ and that it was important that ‘everyone who interacts with our Hospice and Charity feels welcomed, safe and valued, regardless of their background, faith, gender identity or sexual orientation’. The letter reassured me that the intention ‘is not to alienate anyone but to nurture a hospice community grounded in kindness, compassion and care’, concluding that ‘while we do not support party politics or political campaigning, we believe that fostering an inclusive environment is very much in keeping with the spirit of the hospice movement, as envisaged by Dame Cicely.’
All these insidious and weasel words and phrases: ‘inclusivity’, ‘acceptance’, ‘the right to live without fear’, ‘safe’, ‘valued’, ‘nurtured in kindness, compassion and care’, ‘fostering an inclusive environment’ and so on. It felt like being slowly strangled by sinister word merchants of the misuse of meaning. It makes those of us who want to point out all the obvious contradictions, obfuscations and distortions of this misuse of language the new pariahs: unloving, bigoted and contemptible. I want to respond, ‘Wait a minute! What about those who are now excluded from your shiny new world: those of religious faith and traditional morality? The unborn, the elderly, the dying? Those who believe that raising a family is the bedrock of civilisation, indeed the only way a country can flourish? And others, uneasy in conscience at the moral debasement of our society, all of whom feel very definitely discriminated against; not welcomed, not safe and not valued?’
The questions die on my lips. It was said that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Last week abortion up to birth was decriminalised, helping the sick to kill themselves was legalised, the annual Pride Month neared its end. Parliament debates while our country is being destroyed.
