Scotland Yard has launched an investigation after three police officers allegedly joined a protest in London last weekend against Brunei’s new anti-gay laws. The officers were filmed smiling and holding LGBT flags, seemingly contrary to the Met’s policy to police demonstrations without “favour and to remain impartial at all times”.

Meanwhile, the BBC has emailed all news staff warning they could face internal sanctions if they express strong political views on Twitter. This comes after several staff members, including BBC Breakfast presenter Ben Thompson, publicly complained when Question Time recently debated whether it was “morally right” that children learn about LGBT issues in school.

“We all have personal views, but it is part of our role with the BBC to keep those views private,” the director of news and current affairs, Fran Unsworth, said in the email. “Our editorial guidelines say BBC staff must not advocate any particular position on a matter of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or any other ‘controversial subject’.”

There are good reasons for certain organisations to have a degree of impartiality – the BBC is constrained by the rules of being a public broadcaster, while it is an integral tenet of democracy to have police forces that do not give preference to one political cause or group. But these latest LGBT rows show there are real flaws in organisations blindly sticking to the mantra of neutrality.

In an era of fake news and an increasingly contrarian and tribal politics, the BBC’s aim for balance in political items can result in the impression that opposing positions always carry equal weight. Suddenly climate change deniers are given a platform to “debate” with scientists, while fringe politicians or lobby groups are elevated by this framing to the position of reputable sources.

This “neutrality” is surely even less suited to the matter of human rights, not least because it pretends that these discussions exist in a society where both sides have an equal footing. In a climate where minority groups still face vast prejudice, to remain neutral is to reinforce the status quo. To put it another way: when homophobia is still common, and LGBT people are unrepresented in positions of power, an organisation that labels gay equality as a “political issue” rather than an inalienable truth only lends further weight to the idea that LGBT people’s existence is up for debate. It is the great paradox of desperately avoiding an opinion; by saying that LGBT rights are a “controversial subject” that BBC employees cannot touch, Unsworth is inadvertently siding with homophobic tropes and, with it, taking a stance in the very way she is trying to avoid.

This refusal to speak out becomes even more loaded when dealing with institutions such as the media or the police, which have long been accused of being racist, sexist and homophobic themselves. Whether it is waving a small flag in solidarity with those who are opposing gay people being stoned, or tweeting that children won’t be harmed by being taught that LGBT relationships exist, there has to be a commonsense approach to rules of neutrality. Finding this middle ground feels more pressing at a time when anti-minority rhetoric appears to be growing and when the pressure of a 24-hour news cycle is pushing much of the media to peddle controversy in the name of “debate”. That the Economist recently tweeted “Should transgender people be sterilised before they are recognised?”, in relation to a policy in Japan, shows how “neutrality” and sanctioning prejudice soon go hand in hand.

None of this is abstract. When the studio lights go off or the protest ends, there are real people sitting at home whose lives are shaped by knowing key organisations are in their corner. LGBT rights are human rights, not a political stance. Some topics are beyond debate. To stay neutral in the face of prejudice is to be complicit in normalising it. If any of that is still controversial, we should be saying it louder.