Chris Grayling has said that he thinks there is a difference between a gay couple being turned away from a hotel and a gay couple being turned away from a B&B that is the proprietor's own home. There isn't. Both the hotel and the B&B are businesses. They are businesses that exchange goods and services for money. As such, they have to obey all the rules that any other business must obey. One of those rules is that no one should be refused services because of their sexual orientation.
Now, of course, opposing parties have used this clanger of Grayling's, the shadow home secretary no less, to accuse the Tories of still being the 'nasty party' and that they're one way when the cameras are on and another way when the cameras are off.
As Simon Schama put it most eloquently on the most recent edition of BBC's Question Time, this isn't evidence of the Tories being politically correct shells with an odious homophobic goo inside (these are my terms, not Schamas), it just exposes a serious lack of judgment and a misunderstanding of the law.
The shadow home secretary, or any MP, should see that it is wrong to refuse a service to someone just because they do something that is quite legal that you happen to find (morally or otherwise) wrong. If your religious conviction hinders you from performing your duties as the owner of a B&B the solution isn't to turn away homosexuals, it is to find a different line of work.
That Grayling doesn't understand this means that he is not fit to serve as Home Secretary. That Cameron doesn't seem to think this warrants a sacking or a demand for resignation means he is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Grayling has apologised for offence he may have caused. I'm not offended, Mr Grayling. I'm just of the mind that you think that it's okay to turn away gay people purely on the basis that the service they are willing to pay good money for happens to be in someone's spare room, and as a consequence are either an idiot who doesn't understand the law or a homophobe and are therefore unfit for government.
Grayling has since kept a low profile. I suggest a lower one, out of politics.
I'm not voting Tory.
