Bigot's Tourettes

A relaxed conversation around the dinner table suddenly changed gear when one of the guests, an amiable older man, reacted to someone's casual mention of the gay marriage controversy in the Church of England.

It was as though someone had flipped a switch. From sitting back chatting idly about this and that, he went into what sounded like a pre-recorded speech about the morality of gay relationships.

A bit startled, I tried to answer his bullet points but he wouldn't engage, merely repeating his previous phrases in the same order.

His son stood up and interrupted. 'You have to understand,' he said, speaking to me, 'that Dad, who is normally an easy-going, generous kind of soul, occasionally goes into these rants. It's not his fault. He suffers from Bigot's Tourettes.'

His father halted in mid-tirade. 'What?'

'Yes,' the son continued. 'He'll be talking in his usual rational way - then suddenly something triggers him and he's off: "Down with blacks! Aagh! What have I said? What just came over me?"'

He walked round the table, patted his father on the shoulder and said, 'Here, Dad, have a grape. You'll feel better in a minute. See?' he concluded, as everyone dissolved into laughter, including his father, 'He's back to normal now.'

I'm wondering whether we all, to some extent, suffer from Bigot's Tourettes - whether there is one subject, or several, that triggers a person to vomit a pre-formed opinion that travels directly from subconscious to speech without control from the conscious brain.

The outburst is not premeditated or rational, and may be totally incompatible with the person's system of belief.

In the past months, I've heard Bigot's Tourette-type rants from the following:

•  people who describe themselves as pro-life yet argue in favour of the death penalty; 
• Jews who deplore anti-Semitism yet publish scurrilous insults about Muslims; 
• Christians who talk about loving the poor then harshly castigate debtors, and from 
• atheists who outlaw expressions of Christian faith then reverently quote poetic cliches dispensed by a range of self-appointed secular humanist gurus.

Do you have a Bigot's Tourettes flashpoint?

If so, maybe it's time to switch the thinking brain back on and reconsider your views on that point.

Alternatively, you could start writing a blog ......