Leadership Quote by Francis Maude

Maude’s line works because it refuses the moral drama that opponents of homosexuality try to stage. By pairing “disapprove” with “rain,” he shrinks a heated culture-war posture into something faintly ridiculous: you can dislike getting wet, you can grumble, you can carry an umbrella, but you can’t vote weather out of existence. The insult is quiet and surgical. Disapproval isn’t framed as hateful so much as category error - an emotional reaction misfiled as a principle.

The specific intent is rhetorical de-escalation with a point. Rather than argue sexuality through theology, tradition, or rights language, he reaches for a commonsense analogy that makes prejudice look childish: if your stance is “I disapprove,” you’re not engaging a social question; you’re complaining about reality. That’s a shrewd move for a politician, especially a Conservative in Britain, where public attitudes shifted dramatically from the late 20th century into the 2000s and 2010s. The line signals modernity without sounding radical, and it nudges fellow lawmakers toward pragmatism: policy has to deal with what people are, not what some voters wish they were.

Subtextually, “pointless” is doing heavy lifting. It implies not only that homosexuality is natural and persistent, but that political energy spent condemning it is wasted - a misallocation of outrage better reserved for problems that can actually be solved. The rain metaphor also carries a hint of empathy: you can’t control the forecast, so the decent response is adaptation, not condemnation.