An egregious breach
Maggie Chapman is in hot water.
The dean of the faculty of advocates has criticised Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman for what he described as “reprehensible” comments attacking the judiciary following the Supreme Court judgement on the definition of a woman.
Ms Chapman – the deputy convener of Holyrood’s equalities committee – was filmed at a weekend rally condemning what she called “bigotry, prejudice and hatred coming from the Supreme Court”.
In a letter to the committee, Roddy Dunlop KC called the remarks “outrageous” and said they created a “risk of danger” to members of the Supreme Court. Chapman said she stands by her comments, and that it was her role to “stand up and represent trans people”.
Why is that her role? She’s a Member of Parliament, not a nanny for trans people.
Protests were held at the weekend by pro-trans campaigners, with First Minister John Swinney saying he understood why the trans community would feel “uncertain and anxious” over the court ruling. Chapman – a long time supporter of trans rights – attended a protest in Aberdeen and told the crowd: “We say not in our name to the bigotry, prejudice and hatred that we see coming from the Supreme Court and from so many other institutions in our society.”
Which is how we got here – by deciding that women who say men are not women are expressing bigotry, prejudice and hatred as opposed to familiar everyday reality. That’s how so many of us lost so many friends.
Roddy Dunlop KC said the comments were “beyond the pale” and that Chapman should consider her role as deputy convenor as her remarks conflicted with Scottish Parliament guidance on impartiality.
Dunlop, writing on behalf of all the governing body’s office bearers, said her comments “fail to respect the rule of law” and “constitute an egregious breach of Ms Chapman’s duties to uphold the continued independence of the judiciary”.
He added: “But they go further than that, and create a risk of danger to the members of the court themselves. This behaviour is irresponsible and reprehensible.” He added that he expected a “swift and fulsome” apology from the MSP.
Chapman has said she won’t apologize.
Swift apology, yes, but “fulsome”? I hope not. I’d hope for a lot more contrition and sincerity than that.
If you think that, then you didn’t read or understand the Court’s decision. The opinion was thorough, careful, and considered. It was not governed by emotion. It examined a number of contentions dispassionately, and it circumscribed its ruling to the 4 corners of the Equality Act 2010.
Well spotted. “Fulsome” is one of those trap words – it should be drummed out of the language.
Heh…language–like a river–carves its own path.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fulsome recounts the recent history of the word.
It doesn’t matter how thorough, careful, and considered the court’s decision was. If the result is that “woman” is defined biologically, and that men can’t be women, then that decision was “bigoted.” Anyone not giving what trans people demand is “prejudiced.” Anyone denying them anything is “hateful.” That’s what “standing up” for trans people means. She’s all in, so there’s no result that didn’t cave to this position that would have satisfied or mollified her. She has lost sight of all of the non-trans constituency that is presumably part of her territory on the Equalities Committee, having already dismissed the possibility that there might be any kind of conflicts of interest and rights within this group of people in need of said equality.
Must be something in the beer over there. I have had the occasional what might be called ‘XY does not equal XX’ rant, and have not lost a single fried over it. Could be likewise down to the beer.
I reckon that there should be an investigation by the UN. You’ve heard of the UN Human Rights Commission.? Well, I reckon that there should be a UN Beer Commission.
Worth a try, surely. ;-)
Fulsome, adj. copious, giving abundance; used of a garment: somewhat too large; of food: satiating, ‘filling,’ surfeiting, luscious, rich. – Chambers Scots Dictionary
Cambridge dictionary: “expressing a lot of admiration or praise for someone, often too much, in a way that does not sound sincere”.
Omar @ 6 – That’s nice for you, but some of us had quite a few friends in the atheist-activist-social justicey-argumentative-chatty communniny, and lots of those friends decided we terfs are pure evil, so shrug it off if you like, but it was and is a real thing.
OB:
I can only speak and comment from my own experience, and that of my feminist friends past and present, from their accounts in conversation with me. But the trans mob are ~ 2% of the western population, which is the one I know most about. They appear to punch well above their weight in the noise generation game; which is at least understandable, though some of their claims and demands are unsupportable..
I know only a few people who consider themselves trans. I know a great many more people who are “allies”, and it is from this latter group where I have lost friends. We discuss here regularly the deplatforming and firing and ostracizing and cancellation of people who have disagreed with transgender ideology, with many instances involving those who were previously friends of the person involved. It seems odd to joke, “Well, I haven’t seen it, must be the beer over there.”
I have strained relationships with family over the issue, and I’ve been vilified and ostracized on a discussion board where I thought many were friends. I’m hesitant to bring it up with IRL friends. I love them and respect them, but they have drunk the Kool aid. I’ve been able to broach the topic with one close friend, who was taken back a bit by my strong views, but who respects me enough to say they would think more on it. They’ve swallowed the T position on the “science” of gender, and the red herring of DSDs, but it’s been touchy.
The word ‘fulsome’ may be defined as NiightCrow says in the Chambers Scots Dictionary, but the word does not appear at all in The Scottish National Dictionary, which I possess, nor in the The Online Scots Dictionary. The OED first definition is, indeed, “characterised by abundance, possessing or affording copious supply; abundant, plentiful, full”; but all the examples provided of this positive sense come from the 15th or 16th century – bar the last, which is from the 19th century, and, despite the writer’s protestation that he is using the word in its original meaning, it is negative: the world is “fulsome”, there is “too much of everything” – so I do not think it should be included as an example under this definition. The other definitions – there are seven in all – tend, in nearly every case and from the earliest examples, very strongly towards, the negative.
I do not recall hearing or reading the word being used in a positive sense by British people, but I have heard it quite often from Americans; I wonder if it is simply a case of the positive sense of the word having been retained in American English. I suspect that Roddy Dunlop KC has been transatlantically influenced.
Omar @ 10 – Actually you don’t have to comment in the first place, so saying you can only comment from your experience is beside the point. You especially don’t have to comment for the sake of shrugging off the social consequences of the defense of trans ideology, any more than you have to comment in a discussion of illness or pain or poverty or abuse to say that you’re not affected so it’s not a big deal.
At the risk of derailing, my copy of the Concise Oxford (1991) says “1 disgusting by excess of flattery, servility, or expressions of affection; excessive, cloying. 2 disp. copious… In fulsome praise, fulsome means ‘excessive’, not ‘generous.” I get definite Uriah Heep vibes, and I don’t mean the rock group!