BNP Ballerina

'BNP Ballerina' returns to stage
Clink on the link above to read more about the English National Ballet dancer, Simone Clarke, who has admitted to being a member of the BNP. There have been protests outside the London Coliseum demanding that she should be sacked, since the ENB is a publically-funded organisation which receives £6million from the Arts Council each year, which requires recipients to be "aware of how their work contributes to race equality and promoting good race relations".

I first heard of this situation duing a conversation about free speech, and the difference between absolutism and relativism in the UK today. The person who mentioned this news was explaining that he thought that absolute views were out of date nowadays, and that he felt that relative morality was therefore a better position to take. In relation to this story, he believed that since the BNP is a legal political party, that in a democracy one should be able to state your political views freely, without feeling that people were going to campaign for your dismissal from a job.

However, the second person in the discussion said that he felt that any position being expressed in public by someone receiving money from the Arts Council, should express a position that was "for" life, not against it, which he feels the BNP is. My own position (I had not read the article so was not at that time in full possession of the facts) was that perhaps Joseph Fletcher's stance, in his Situation Ethics, that "love" was to be the marker by which one makes their decisions, was a positive one that could be embraced in this situation.

What do you think? Freedom of speech? Public money? Absolute views for/against the BNP? Relative morality ... are all positions equally valid, or are some invalid?