I really shouldn't have to make this clear, but in society today guilt by association has become a very dangerous thing and the level of discussion in society has devolved so much that I think it's necessary for me to make it clear that I do not agree with Israel Folau's opinions on homosexuality. I also fundamentally disagree with Folau on whether or not homosexuals go to heaven or not. To give you an idea I fundamentally disagree that god, heaven, and hell exist at all let alone who is or isn't going to hell or why they may or may not be going there.
I also want to make it clear that I don't really have an opinion on whether or not he has broken the ARU's code of conduct, if he has or hasn't is totally beside the point I'm attempting to make.
Now that I've got all that out of the way, I think that the way that the ARU and NRL has reacted to Izzy's opinions is indicative of a very dangerous path that society as a whole is being lead down, which is extremely quickly leading to our society destroying hard fought fundamental principals such as freedom of speech and freedom of expression and is (rather ironically) ostracising people from society in the name of inclusiveness.
At the bare bones of the issue Izzy hasn't actually harassed anybody or actively discriminated against anybody, just simply expressed an opinion that isn't held by the majority and many find offensive, and the public response to that has been to ostracise him from greater society as much as possible and to attempt to ruin his career, in my opinion that is just another example of an extremely concerning pattern of behaviour in society of total intolerance of minority opinions that is tacitly working to establish a collection of protected ideologies and opinions in society while forcibly working to weed out those that it disagrees with.
That is an extremely scary thing and a terrible precedent to set because it fundamentally undermines why freedom of speech and expression exists at all: to protect people with offensive opinions from retaliation from the majority for the opinions that they hold!
Also where does this stop, as a society we know for a fact that basically every person that follows the sects of Christianity that are popular amongst the Pacific Islander communities holds the same opinions as Izzy, they may not express them like Izzy has (they're probably to scared to express them now), but we know that the vast majority of them hold them, so are we going to start ostracising them as well?
For all intents and purposes they've all committed the same thought crime that Izzy has! And if we're going to ostracise them for that offensive opinion are we going to start ostracising other people for other offensive opinions that they hold?
Then the question becomes how long before people are being ostracised for opinions that you hold?!
Again I want to make it clear that I don't agree with what I assume are Izzy's attitudes towards homosexual people, but even though I disagree with those opinions I find the way he is being treated for his opinions just as abhorrent as the way that many people were treated for their positive attitudes to homosexual people not that long ago when Izzy's opinions where the majority and the (for want of a better word) pro homosexual peoples opinions where the offensive minority opinion, and think that it's bloody lucky that by and large people that held those opinions weren't treated as Izzy has been treated because the social consequences of doing so would have meant that the acceptance of homosexual people in society would have taken a lot longer.
