The new Pop Justice

The legend is, of course, that when confronted with popular culture, certain members of the English judiciary affect a haughty disdain that they should even concern themselves with such things. 'Who are The Beatles?' is, of course, the sine qua non of this, with technology causing bafflement too.

Well, as from today, no longer do judges have ignorance as an excuse to hide behind, when one of their brethren can write the following in a judgment:

In short, what is protected is the applicant’s right to live freely and openly as a gay man. That involves a wide spectrum of conduct, going well beyond conduct designed to attract sexual partners and maintain relationships with them. To illustrate the point with trivial stereotypical examples from British society: just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates. Mutatis mutandis – and in many cases the adaptations would obviously be great – the same must apply to other societies. In other words, gay men are to be as free as their straight equivalents in the society concerned to live their lives in the way that is natural to them as gay men, without the fear of persecution.

This, my non-English friends, is what we call progress. I put it down to the fact that we have a Supreme Court now as well.

Less trivially, you can read about the judgment, which is important, here.