This is where you further trip yourself up.

Who's to judge what offends? it's a subjective thing.

The example you gave works the other way round for me. I would be far more insulted if someone declared my toddler to be ugly over any insult someone could throw at me.

But, you say that from a position of privilege. As someone not a victim subjected to that form of discrimination and abuse.

You arent discriminated against for having an ugly child, people dont get beaten up or murdered for having ugly children. Ugly children's parents can get married, they can adopt, they can foster without discrimination. You dont have religious types telling you your ugly child is an affront to God and you will rot in hell because of it. You dont suffer the same injustices for having that ugly child.

They can say anything to each other other than to discriminate and abuse on the basis of race, ethnic or national origin, colour, gender or sexual preference. Its hardly a really long list and its not really a burden is it.

Those analogies are extreme are no-one would argue with them. As that is abuse in its purest form.

But back on topic in rugby terms, i dont see that occurring.

You missed my point. Worlds Apart was talking about outlawing slurs in general, on any topic. good luck policing that.

And yet we dont have any openly gay players. None at all. Or coaches.

The last time we did, he was abused by fans.

Maybe there are people who would like to be involved or more involved in our game but are put off because of the casual attitude to things like this.

Maybe the abuse and discrimination we see is a little more insidious, doesnt mean its not there.

id agree, you can't police that. Im not really sure its necessary. A personal insult is different.

Maybe you would be offended if someone insulted your wife or kids or something like that. But no rules or laws will stop some people being not very nice

Well i always thought 1/10 sounded a bit high

The underlying assumptions on here are also worryingly homophobic.

'It's a rough and tough game, so you can't be so sensitive as to worry about homophobia'

Seems to indicate an assumption that non-straight people (men especially) are (for some reason) particularly sensitive.

I'll say it again, if anyone came on here and said 'it's a rough and tough game so obviously it's ok for players to scream racist terms at each other' they'd get banned.

Just to be clear on this, and I say this only to test for consistency using similar situations, if cameras had picked up a player shouting "F**king n****r" at Monaghan, it would be fine because Monaghan isn't black and wouldn't be offended?

Its a pretty poor example though isn't it, because it would never happen. Let's be honest. So not something that can be regarded.

A nearer example is calling someone a big girl, when they are male. Would you find offence to that?

You wouldnt class someone talking as speech?

No, i havent said i do. But there is a difference between something being offensive and me personally being offended. Only in the same way that a rapist can't understand what it's like to be a victim of it, therefore a woman (largely) can't understand the actions/thinking of a rapist.

and nobody has accused him of that, so im not sure its relevance.

Quote: Gotcha "Its a pretty poor example though isn't it, because it would never happen. Let's be honest. So not something that can be regarded. A nearer example is calling someone a big girl, when they are male. Would you find offence to that?'" And yet it has happened. Your streak of wrongness continues. news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 934543.stm the fact you can't tell the difference between 'big girl' and 'f'cking faggot' is ridiculous.

Quote: Gotcha "Its a pretty poor example though isn't it, because it would never happen. Let's be honest. So not something that can be regarded. A nearer example is calling someone a big girl, when they are male. Would you find offence to that?'" And yet it has happened. Your streak of wrongness continues. news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 934543.stm the fact you can't tell the difference between 'big girl' and 'f'cking faggot' is ridiculous.

I think this is largely true. If he had done that, then clearly 5 matches would be woefully inadequate.

Personally, I understand the ban for Hardaker, I see what they're trying to do in terms of sending out a strong message, but I think it's trying to sweep a bigger problem under the carpet. Hardaker has unwittingly become an emblem of a pretty pervasive, and largely unconscious homophobia. So in that regard, I don't personally believe that throwing the book at him was the answer.

In short, I don't believe his crime was so very great. It was a symptom of a wider issue, which is (and I'm honestly not trying to get into the finger pointing here) also revealed in the number of people who think this is not an issue because everyone does it and they don't really mean anything by it. Rather than criticize people who hold those views, I think there needs to be a lot of collective thinking done about the more subtle connotations of that and whether it leaves us in a position that we're really happy with.