Cross post - Benedict XVI: Antichrist, or just a bit confused?

Cross post from Dave:

THE DESIGNATION Whore of Babylon does not refer to some mythical top notch super-dirty-in- bed Iraqi chick, but to a serious theological debate over the identity to the scarlet-clad woman described in chapter 17 of the Book of Revelation.

In the faith community in which I was raised, my poor old mum was always considered a hopeless cringing moderate because she did not automatically identify this figure with the Roman Catholic church, being alive to the exegetical possibility that the term could better be applied to the European Union instead.

I am put in mind of my upbringing after reading the remarks delivered by Benedict XVI before 125,000 admirers in Edinburgh yesterday, during which he launched into a tirade against the intolerance of something called ‘aggressive secularism’. Hello, your Holiness?

In the first place, it is a bit rich hearing homilies about the need for liberalism from a bloke who accuses gay people of possessing a ‘more or less strong tendency ordered towards an inherent moral evil’ and welcomes Holocaust deniers into the bosom of the mother Church. But let that pass.

I’m not even quite sure what ‘aggressive secularism’ is when it is at home, anyway. Does it differ from, say, passive-aggressive secularism, being one notch up on mere stridently assertive secularism but not quite such a bad thing as violent secularism? But let that pass, too. The whole line of reasoning at work here is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

The overwhelming majority of us secularists are actually laid back, live and let live-type dudes. We actively believe in, and argue for, freedom to propagate all religions and none. So if anybody freely chooses to go to mass on a Sunday morning, that’s fine with us. We’ll just stay in bed and nurse the hangover. Now sod off and leave us to suffer.

So it was that I found myself sticking up for a Christian guy handing out ‘turn or burn’ leaflets at the Brighton gay pride march, which could quite easily have seen him severely beaten had the assembled Muscle Marys taken umbrage at their content.

Precisely because I am a secularist, I am in favour of his right to tell people what they do not want to hear. Equally, I am in favour of the right of the Protest the Pope brigade to hit the streets on Saturday, even though I can’t be arsed to go along myself.

The very obvious historical truth is that the people most likely to be at the throats of members of any given religious group are members of other religious groups. They are, to paraphrase his Holiness, aggressive religionists.

In the playgrounds of western Scotland, competing gangs of kids slug it out under the banner of Papes and Prods. Well, they do in the unlikely event that they go to an integrated school in the first place, anyway

I presume that atheist and agnostic children consider themselves far above that sort of thing, and sensibly slope off behind the bikesheds for a quiet lunchtime fag instead.

And there’s more. In the afternoon, His Holiness was off to Glasgow, where a crowd of 65,000 were told: ‘Religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect, leading us to look upon every person as a brother or a sister.’

No it isn’t, and no it doesn’t. This stupid assertion is so readily refuted that I shall refrain from rehearsing the long, long list of repressive theocracies ideologically legitimated by Catholicism and sundry other creeds, both in history and in the present day.

In sum, Benedict XIV’s strange belief that religious viewpoints are in Britain systematically excluded from consideration in the market place for ideas is scarcely tenable. Indeed, they get a head start in the form of the compulsory ‘God slots’ on many broadcast outlets and a guaranteed place on the curriculum, when they should be slugging it out on the same terms as everybody else.

But if those viewpoints are to be taken seriously, it would help to come up with some arguments that are not quite so ludicrous as those the Pope has advanced so far on this trip.

Dylan Moran on religion

Harrow next Sunday: Counter-protest against anti-Muslim mobilisation

Message from Barnet TUC below.

I'm no fan of any religion, but as a secularist, I firmly believe that people should not be attacked and persecuted for adhering to a particular religion. So when a bunch of right-wingers turn up to demonstrate against a mosque (not, note, against a political Islamist event, but against a mosque), then I reckon that socialists, anti-fascists and secularists should turn out to defend it.

I expect David Duff will not be attending, as he thinks that Muslims are only ever the perpetrators of attacks, not the victims of them ...

Mobilise against the far-right!

Harrow, Sunday 13th December
Counter-demonstration to Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) rally

In September the anti-Muslim group SIOE planned to demonstrate outside Harrow mosque on the pretext of commemorating the 9/11 events. In the event, they were not able to hold their demonstration as there were too many counter-protestors. However, in the past few months SIOE fellow-travellers the English Defence League (EDL) have organised several demonstrations in English towns, and the far-right have taken heart from this. Now SIOE plan to come back to Harrow on Sunday 13th December for a static demonstration, again outside Harrow mosque. They are likely to be more numerous this time than last.
Unite Against Fascism and other groups are again organising a counter-demonstration. The SIOE is due to hold their protest from 2-4pm. The counter-demonstration will be from 12 noon until after the SIOE protest is due to end.
Trade unionists and anti-fascists should support the counter-demonstration – and visibly! We oppose the politics of the far-right, and also the deterioration in social conditions that creates the ground in which far-right sentiment breeds.
Please join the counter-demonstration and, most important, for visibility, please bring union banners.
If you would like to go to the counter-demonstration with fellow trade unionists, we are suggesting that people meet at Harrow and Wealdstone train station at 12 noon.
Vicki Morris
Publicity officer, Barnet trades union council (Barnet TUC)
info@barnettuc.org.uk / www.barnettuc.org.uk

Catholic Church on the defensive about abuse

The Catholic Church has come out fighting over the issue of abuse by their Priests and Nuns . I would expect most people would feel a smidgen of guilt, especially Catholics , rather than try to downplay the issue or play the look over there game, but no:

The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its paedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was "busy cleaning its own house" and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger.

In a defiant and provocative statement, issued following a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva, the Holy See said the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts were not paedophiles but homosexuals attracted to sex with adolescent males.

The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that "available research" showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

He also quoted statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.

He added that sexual abuse was far more likely to be committed by family members, babysitters, friends, relatives or neighbours, and male children were quite often guilty of sexual molestation of other children.

The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

Where to start with this?? Well yes, abuse happens in lots of places but that does not detract from the issue of it in the Catholic Church. Glad to see though they note abuse in families, yep even good old heterosexual married ones.

Quibbling about percentage points, well any abuse and especially hypocritical by people who profess to care and preach morals to others is too much, whether that is 1.5% or 5%.

There is the nit picking about terminology, that its not really paedophilia if the child is over 11, its something some gay men do .Glad to see they don't miss the chance to make a link with those sinful homosexuals.
Well , lets cut to the chase, its abuse whatever other label is attached. Its abuse as the children were children, whether that is 5 or 15.
It wasn't just sexual, it was physical by Nuns as well as priests. It was cruelty by people professing to be moral.

Its abuse by people in a position of power , trust and authority . They took advantage and were often protected , something the Church did not always accord the victims . And lets not forget its the children who are the victims, not the Church now bleating that they are being picked on, trying to deflect attention elsewhere. Its those now grown up who have had to fight to be heard, to have what happened acknowledged , they are the victims who have been further traumatised by the excuses of the Church, who have often fought rather than say sorry and compensate.

The Catholic Church is not being picked on and its certainly bigger and more powerful than the children it silenced . It is privileged and now is not happy to be called on its hypocrisy .

This is not an individual incident, google abuse and priests to see the extent. This is an organisation that preaches to others, who tells others in consensual relationships they are sinful, yet still seems to want to minimise the abuse in their own ranks.

As the article goes on to point out :

The Ryan Report, published last May, revealed that beatings and humiliation by nuns and priests were common at institutions that held up to 30,000 children. A nine-year investigation found that Catholic priests and nuns for decades terrorised thousands of boys and girls, while government inspectors failed to stop the abuse.

Yes, abuse happens and not just in the Catholic Church, but accept when it happens to be criticised and called to account .

Hat Tip Shiraz .

Meeting : Minorities and Faith Schools

Meeting hosted by Jewish Socialists' Group :

MINORITIES AND FAITH SCHOOLS

Speakers will be looking at who is demanding faith schools and why;
whether the state should be funding them; and what attitudes
educational progressives should take towards them.

They will also be looking at the controversy that erupted earlier this
year around the Jews Free School (JFS), a comprehensive which refused
to enrol a child because the school did not recognise the conversion to
Judaism of the mother. The law courts found the school guilty of
racial discrimination. This has raised discussion both about entry
criteria and the content of education at Jewish schools.

Speakers are
Julia Bard (active in the Jewish Socialists' Group and Women Against
Fundamentalism)
Simon Rocker (a regular Jewish Chronicle writer who also writes for The
Guardian on issues relating to the Jewish community)

The meeting is at 7.30pm, Sunday October 4th at the Indian YMCA, 41
Fitzroy Square, London W1 (nearest tube Warren Street)

Abuse by Catholic Church in Ireland

In light of the at-long-last publication of the damning report into institutional child abuse by the Catholic Church in Ireland, my best comment is to point you to two articles and a poem by Sean Matgamna, who has first-hand experience of the brutality of the Christian Brothers.

=====

Savage Violence in Irish Schools: Why Did They Stand For It?
9 February, 2005

The little boy, Tommy, perhaps eight years old, watched the schoolmaster, Sean Gormley, prepare to flog his brother, Mickey. Mickey was a year or two older than Tommy, but smaller.

The procedure was that the boy due to be flogged would climb up, or be lifted up, on the back of a bigger boy, who would reach over his shoulders and hold on to the smaller boy’s hands. The master would then slash again and again, as his mood dictated, at the victim’s backside.

The boy’s short trousers may have been pulled down first. I don’t know. “Flogging” was what they called it, and flogging is what it was. Tommy had seen it before, as had the whole class - had maybe himself been the victim.

As the master slashed at Mickey, Tommy picked up his slate — they used real slates, and chalk — and, moving towards Gormley, flung it at his head. He missed, and the slate clattered against the wall behind the teacher.

Mickey kicked himself free, and the two boys ran out of the schoolroom, across the narrow concreted yard, down the steps, and off towards home.

I have had to “fill in” some of the details, but in its essentials, it is a true story. I heard both Mickey and Tommy, decades later, tell the story more than once. Tommy was not above a bit of embellishment, but he was a truthful man, with a strong contempt for “liars”.

Continues here.

=====

A horror story to learn from
7 February 2008

An 81 year old retired Irish cardinal, Desmond Connell, has gone to the High Court in Dublin for a writ to stop his successor as Archbishop of Dublin from handing over church files on paedophile priests to a state-organised inquiry into clerical abuse of children.

He has called on the court to prevent the head of the Catholic Church in the Dublin diocese from handing over information about criminal priests to the government-appointed investigation. He has got an interim writ, freezing proceedings until there can be a full court hearing. He claims that some of the files contain solicitors’ advice to him, and therefore that they are privileged, exempt from scrutiny without his say-so.

This strange affair deserves the attention of socialists and secularists in Britain.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, Primate of the Catholic Church here, who plausibly claims that his is now the most numerous Christian denomination in the country, has a lot to say on social and political questions these days.

A lot of it is reactionary — its attitude to lesbians and gays, for instance.

His overriding concern is to have as large a part as he can of the affairs of society — its mores, its morality, what it allows and what it forbids to the citizen — regulated by the “laws of God”, as his church understands them. In Britain now it is an effort to have society ruled according to the teachings of a church which the big majority does not accept.

The attempt by Murphy O’Connor and his bishops to impose the prejudices of their church so that lesbians and gays could not adopt or foster children is only one recent example.

The Catholic people of Ireland are now once again, in the grotesque Cardinal Connell affair, being unpleasantly reminded of what rule by priests, bishops, and cardinals sometimes has meant for them. For many decades, Catholic priests, members of the Christian Brothers (a monk-like teaching order), and nuns, running Irish schools, orphanages, and reformatories, savagely abused children, beating and raping them.

That they subjected them to relentless and merciless violence was known to everyone. What was not widely known — scarcely known at all, except to its small victims and to maimed and troubled adults who had been small victims — and certainly never discussed in public, was that sexual abuse of children in schools, orphanages, and reformatories, was also an everyday thing.

The abuse of children is now understood to be a feature of all institutions where children are helpless at the mercy of adults. In Ireland, within a loose and light framework of state regulation to check such things as the qualifications of teachers, schools (etc.) were an archipelago of hell-holes run or supervised by priests, Christian Brothers, and nuns.

Officially, Catholic Ireland was a desert of lacerating, arid sexual puritanism — a place where for many decades the average age of marriage was 35, and many lay men and women, never marrying, lived entirely celibate lives.

The poet Patrick Kavanagh — he is also the author of the well-known song, “On Raglan Road” — borrowed the common name for the Famine of the 1840s, in which a million starved to death, the Great Hunger, for the title of a long poem about that, Ireland’s other great hunger.

In that Ireland, the priests and nuns were honoured as paragons and models, demigods more closely connected to the Big God than anyone else could be. They were the moral police for a strict and very puritanical morality.

Continues here.

=====

And finally, I'd never usually recommend Sean's poetry, but I'll make an exception in this case ...

MARY PLAYS NUNS' SCHOOL

Now, Mary places papers all along the kitchen,
On table, dresser, chairs: small girls at school;
Herself, the nun, alone with children in her den.

Mary is re-enacting school, convent school,
Where little girls are shaped, chastened, cut
By holy women strung alive to God's tight rule.

So she begins to teach: she stiffens, starts to strut
Facing the girls, like nemesis engaged,
A long thin stick in hand. Slowly she starts to “tut”.

“Tut-tut! Tut-tut! Tut-tut!” Soon anger sparks to rage,
Deep-rooted rage: a wounded eye-less Id
Seething with rancid, poisoned life inside a cage.

Now she begins to shout: she scolds her paper kids,
Upbraiding each as little fool, dunce, dim-wit:
Ne'er-do-well, bad little sinful Patsies, Neaves and Brids.

From shouting soon to action: she starts to hit
The table, the dresser, the unfeeling chairs
With the thin stick, face clenched, caught up, reliving it.

She “slaps” the table, the dresser, slashes at every chair:
Wood rings on nerveless wood, with rapid blows,
In frenzied mimic violence, 'till papers tear.

Mary slashes and beats, her eyes fierce that they glow,
Lost in fevered playing at nuns' school,
At home, in deValera's Ireland long ago;
Lost in that wounded re-enactment long ago.

1991

A scene I witnessed. Mary, who would have been about 9,
was a pupil at the girls National school, run by
the Sisters of Mercy, the only girls primary school in Ennis.
These nuns had a reputation amongst the poor of
the town for being very severe and violent with the
children, but selectively so. They were relentlessly
punitive, physically brutal and persecuting with the “Industrial girls”,
who were in their full-time custody, less severe, though still
very severe , with the children of the poor, and noticably less severe,
or not severe at all, with the children of the well-off.

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh sentenced to twenty years

In Afghanistan a student has been sentenced to 20 years for downloading and circulating articles on women's rights that also question parts of the Koran:

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy in Afghanistan, has been told he will spend the next 20 years in jail after the country's highest court ruled against him – without even hearing his defence.

The 23-year-old, brought to worldwide attention after an Independent campaign, was praying that Afghanistan's top judges would quash his conviction for lack of evidence, or because he was tried in secret and convicted without a defence lawyer.

Instead, almost 18 months after he was arrested for allegedly circulating an article about women's rights, any hope of justice and due process evaporated amid gross irregularities, allegations of corruption and coercion at the Supreme Court. Justices issued their decision in secret, without letting Mr Kambaksh's lawyer submit so much as a word in his defence.

Mr Kambaksh was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death last year for circulating an essay on women's rights which questioned verses in the Koran.

It later emerged he was convicted by three mullahs, in secret, without access to a lawyer. The sentence was commuted to 20 years on appeal. At that appeal, in October, the key prosecution witness withdrew his testimony, claiming he had been forced to lie on pain of death. The prosecution then appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence. The defence appealed to quash his conviction altogether.

Meanwhile, the student has been languishing in a Kabul jail, fearing for his life. Islamic fundamentalists have been baying for his blood while moderate groups have led marches countrywide demanding his release.

Much of the attention is on the fact that it was clearly not a fair trial,but surely the fact that someone could face potentially a death sentence for being in anyway critical of the Koran and seemingly questioning the rights of women in society is scary . Its bad enough in this country when religious groups, of all faiths, get upset at criticism and take offence, but to face death or long imprisonment? Is religious belief that fragile ?

That is why I do think a secular state is better than one founded on religion . It allows religious freedom but not privilege , of any belief and none. Though I think the 'none' to describe atheists presumes they do not have strong ethical and principled beliefs , they can have though not ones based on gods .

I have commented before that the lot of women and girls is pretty crap in Afghanistan and that they are failed by the occupiers, the new Government and that the Taliban still strikes fear and uses violence. On another post about attacks on girls some said ...but yeah the Taliban are *still* better blah blah blah. Well it seems that whether its the present Government, occupiers or the Taliban its women and men who challenge the religious fundamentalists, who question and think for themselves that suffer .

The occupiers haven't helped and the Taliban won't , however much they really really don't like the US.

Update on the Italian comedian who insulted the Pope

A few days ago I posted on the story of how an Italian comedian was facing charges for insulting the pope as he was deemed by law to be "sacred and inviolable." Thanks to New Humanist blog I can update you on this :

the Italian Justice Minister, Angelino Alfano, has decided to block the case saying he has "decided not to authorise it, knowing well the stature and capacity of the pope for forgiveness."

The Vatican has backed the Minister's decision, as a spokesperson explained to an Italian news agency:
"The justice minister's decision was wise. The Pope's authority is far too superior to be dented and, in his magnanimity, he considers the case closed."

So its all down to the Pope being magnanimous and forgiving.

Doesn't he feel a teeny bit bothered to be a beneficiary of a law which suppresses free speech and is part of a treaty agreed by Mussolini to allow the Vatican to remain a state?

Pic : Mussolini with Pope Pius XI .

Jail for insulting the Pope?

Found this via New Humanist blog. Seems its not OK to insult either the Pope or the Italian Prime Minister.

The Times reports :

An Italian comedienne who said that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons is facing a prison term of up to five years.

Addressing a Rome rally in July, Sabrina Guzzanti warmed up with a few gags about Silvio Berlusconi ...

But then she got religion, and after warning everyone that within 20 years Italian teachers would be vetted and chosen by the Vatican, she got to the punchline: "But then, within 20 years the Pope will be where he ought to be — in Hell, tormented by great big poofter devils, and very active ones, not passive ones."

...
She is facing prosecution for "offending the honour of the sacred and inviolable person" of Benedict XVI.

Giovanni Ferrara, the Rome prosecutor, is invoking the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, which stipulates that an insult to the Pope carries the same penalty as an insult to the Italian President. Prosecution requires authorisation from the Ministry of Justice, for which Mr Ferrara has applied.

....

The move to prosecute her over her anti-papal remarks was praised by some on the centre Right, including Luca Volonte, a Christian Democrat, who said that "gratuitous insults must be punished".

This law doesn't have a very good pedigree :


Perhaps unsurprisingly, this law comes from the 1929 Lateran Treaty, in which Mussolini agreed to allow the Vatican to exist as a state, and it gives the Pope "sacred and inviolable" status alongside, funnily enough, the Italian president (or PM as it would have been in Il Duce's day).

That's quite a scary law that says the Pope or the President can't be insulted, especially since Berlusconi wields such power over the media . Does anyone know if this law has been enforced in recent times?

If the Pope is so honourable why doesn't he call for a law enacted by Fascists to be repealed ?

No person or belief system should be privileged as "sacred and inviolable," beyond satire , insults or criticism .

Buffy to blame for mass exodus of women from the church

How did I miss this !

Great Daily Mail headline :

50,000 women abandoning church every year as Buffy the Vampire Slayer turns them on to witchcraft

Oh dear  from one superstition to new age crystally type nonsense , still lets look on the bright side :

Christian churches in England have lost at least 50,000 women from their congregations every year since 1989, says a sociologist.

Dr Kristin Aune, from the University of Derby, said many young women are put off going to church because they link it with traditional values.

She also said television icons such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who promote female empowerment, discourage women from attending services.


Dr Aune added: 'In short, women are abandoning the church. Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

There is a bit more in The Telegraph:

"Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the church."

Her research, published in a new book called Women and Religion in the West, cites an English Church Census which found more than a million women worshippers have left churches since 1989.

She believes many women have been put off going to church in recent years because of the influence of feminism, which challenged the traditional Christian view of women's roles and raised their aspirations.
Her report claims they feel forced out of the church because of its "silence" about sexual desire and activity, and because of its hostility to single-parent families and unmarried couples which are now a reality for many women.


Raised aspirations, empowerment, feminism or rules made by reactionary old men in frocks?

hmmm tough one that.

Pic Tara and Willow, lesbian witches from Buffy, .

Censoring Darwin

Just how sensitive are our public authorities becoming to the whinges of religious fundamentalists?

A Northampton museum covered up part of a display on evolution because one single Christian objected.

I'm sure I needn't go into one here about the importance of defending free speech and scientific progress against superstitious throwbacks - it's one of our favourite subjects here on Stroppyblog, after all. But I can't help but suspect that, say, a decade ago, this simply wouldn't have happened. Maybe the Christian would not even have complained, but if s/he had done, I feel confident that the administrators of a public service would have politely explained that a museum's role is to provide interesting, educational, factual displays, not to pander to religious sensibilities, and certainly not to allow one person's 'offence' to deny everyone else the right to view an uncensored exhibit.

Hat tip: Pat

Iris Robinson MP suggests victim of homophobic attack seeks help for being gay !!

I despair sometimes, why can't god bothers stop worrying about what others do in bed. Pink News reports :


The wife of the First Minister of Northern Ireland has caused controversy with her born-again Christian outlook on life.

Iris Robinson is MP for Strangford and chairs the Northern Ireland Assembly's health committee .

Reacting to news that a man was viciously attacked because he is gay, she suggested that he should consider therapy to "cure" him of his homosexuality.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster today she condemned the attack on Stephen Smith but added:

"I have a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my offices and his Christian background is that he tries to help homosexuals trying to turn away from what they are engaged in.

"And I have met people who have turned around to become heterosexual."

This pisses me off in so many ways. For many years lesbian and gay people were seen as suffering from a psychiatric disorder and it was only in 1973 that it was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) . Lesbian and gay people were often subjected to 'treatments' such as :

surgical treatments such as hysterectomy, ovariectomy,clitoridectomy,castration,vasectomy,pudic nerve surgery,and lobotomy. Substance-based treatment attempts have included hormone treatment,pharmacologic shock treatment, and treatment with sexual stimulants and sexual depressants. Other attempts include aversion therapy, the attempted reduction of aversion to heterosexuality,electroshock treatment,group therapy, hypnosis, and psychoanalysis.

Lesbian and gay people were made to feel guilty and lets not forget that for gay men having sex together was illegal and of course still is in many parts of the world. There were, and still are, religious , social and family pressures. Lesbian and gay people still face attacks even in gay friendly Brighton .

So this guy gets beaten up by homophobic thugs and Ms Robinson suggests he needs treatment to 'turn' !! No, the vicious bigots should be punished and attitudes that lead to such violence need to be challenged. No matter how much she condemns the attack, her words only add to an attitude that lesbian and gay people are sick and need to be cured. This breeds breed violence and discrimination.

Sadly many people are still pressurised to conform to heterosexual norms , usually through family and religious pressure. Others have residual guilt and if they do try to change only end up unhappy and living a lie, trying to please the religious intolerance of people like Ms Robinson.

What is her problem, why does it matter to her if two men have sex together. No one is asking her to indulge in a little girl on girl action, no one is telling her not to be in a heterosexual marriage and family.

Oh and something I did hear about on the pro choice demo and that Pink News refers to :

Mrs Robinson's view of gay and lesbian people is well-known. Last month she castigated MPs in the House of Commons during debate on fertility treatments.

MPs decided to remove the requirement on doctors to consider the need for a father when assessing women for fertility treatments.

"Envisage, down the road, a child going to primary school and being collected by two females or two males, and the bullying and abuse to which those children will be exposed; or going into their parents’ bedroom, as is natural for a child to do, and finding two women or two men making love?" said Mrs Robinson.

"I stand by my faith and the word of God that man was created in the image of God and that woman was created from the rib of Adam to be his helpmeet and companion. That is the natural progression of procreation.

"The word of God says that procreation is through a man and a woman.

"We are moving mountains to facilitate immorality and to bring the rights of lesbians above all others in this country.

"It is a shame, and honourable Members ought to hang their heads in shame."

Oh for goodness sake what a stupid bigoted woman , no one is saying children should walk in on their parents having sex , whether straight or gay. Is she saying that its OK for kids to see their heterosexual parents having sex ?? I would assume that any parent , whatever their sexuality, would ensure they children did not walk in. Perhaps it is a regular occurrence in Ms Robinson's home for the kids to wander in and catch her and hubby going at it, is that 'natural'?

Oh and if she believe's that being gay is a psychiatric illness it could be argued that religious beliefs are a bit delusional and could do with some treatment. I mean hearing voices, messages from a imaginary god, belief in miracles, woman made from ribs ...sounds a bit psychotic to me, must dig out my DSM and see what it says. Thing is Ms Robinson and her ilk are free to believe such superstitious nonsense and live their lives as they wish. I'm not suggesting they seek a 'cure.' Can't they just leave others to live their lives ?

Pic : last years Pride in Brighton .Another good religious chap bothered about other people's sex lives and trying to save souls :-)

Blair's Promoting Faith

Quite extraordinary. Tony Blair is launching a new charity to "enlist religion as a force for economic development and conflict resolution, rather than violence and strife". So, to reverse the role it has played for centuries then, eh?

I'm not quite sure what role god-worship has in economic development, unless Tone wants to teach the clerics to get modern and market their product in a more proft-savvy way.

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation was launched on May 30, 2008, in New York City. Blair's fantasies include ideas such as this: "If you got churches and mosques and those of the Jewish faith working together to provide the bed nets that are necessary to eliminate malaria, what a fantastic thing that would be." Look, I really don't get how the two ideas in this sentence go together. Surely bed nets are necessary to eliminate malaria, whether they are supplied by Jews, Muslims, raving atheists, or bed net suppliers to whom religion is irrelevant.

Apparently, "Mr. Blair said at the launch in New York Friday that people cannot understand the modern world unless they understand the importance of religious faith." And also, "there is nothing more important than getting people of different faiths and cultures to understand each other better and live in peace and mutual respect; and to give faith itself its proper place in the future." Nothing more important? Seriously?! The elimination of poverty, equality, fair distribution of wealth, climate change, rights and freedom ... No, no, no. Getting people to understand each other's superstitions is far more crucial.

As for Mr. Blair's heartfelt desire for peace - it would, surely, carry more credibility if he hadn't pursued those wars.

Mind you, calling his new project the 'Tony Blair Faith Foundation' may suggest the faint possibility on god-like pretensions on Mr Blair's part.

Even When You Choose A Non-Religious School, Religions Still Get A Say In It

I recently discovered that by law, local Councils which have a Scrutiny Commission responsible for education must co-opt representatives of religions onto that Scrutiny Commission with voting rights (scroll down to paragraph 52 of the link - it refers to Section 21 of the Local Government Act 2000). My own local Council, Hackney, has gone a step further and appointed three extra religious reps, presumably because if you are going to privilege religion, then why not privilege them all equally?!

My first gripe is that any post in government that has any power should be elected. Voting rights for unelected people is anathema to democracy.

But the main issue I want to take up here is the involvement of religion in education. What if you have a complaint about your school or your borough's education system that, for example, it is giving too much of a platform to religion? What if you want the Scrutiny Commission to look at improving sex education? Will you get a fair hearing? Who will speak up for secularists, even for atheists?

And what of 'choice'? Several times on this blog, I have taken issue with the very existence of religious schools. But even if you accept or defend religious schools, this law goes a step further - it gives religious organisations a say in education whether you want them to or not.

My partner and I chose to send our kids to a secular school, Brook Community Primary School. Many defenders of religious schools make their case on the basis of 'parents' choice'. I invite any of them to explain what happened to my 'choice' when unelected religious representatives still have a say in my kids' education even when I opted for a non-religious school.

Islington Registrar Demands The Right To Discriminate

A case in Islington shows how much the elevation of religion in recent years has encouraged those who want to use their faith to demand their right to prejudice. But at least in this case, the state is getting it right. So far.

Until December last year, Registrars - those nice people at the town hall who register births, partnerships, etc - worked in effect as freelancers for the Registrar General. Now, since the Statistics and Registration Act came into force, they are under the control of the Council. In other words, they have become accountable. Which is all too much to stomach if you want to discriminate against queers.

Lillian Ladele (pictured) wants to do just that. Before December, she could opt out of registering same-sex civil partnerships. Now she can't, which offends her Christian principles. (I'm not sure, by the way, whether same-sex couples can opt out of being registered by Ms Ladele.)

Ms Ladele launched her Tribunal claim at the end of last year, claiming that she was a victim of "discrimination or victimisation on grounds of religion or belief".

Her application failed. Let's think ... That'd be because she was not discriminated against at all - she was actually required to do exactly the same as everyone else who does her job. What she is a 'victim' of is an absence of discrimination. The truth is that she is demanding, not suffering, discrimination.

What if every registrar took her view? What if she, or anyone else, wanted to opt out of registering marriages of divorced people because of her religious beliefs? Or registering the births of children conceived by IVF or donor insemination? Maybe registrars could refuse to register people they just didn't like?! Of course, that would be patently absurd. But once you say your desire to discriminate is because of your religious beliefs, it seems to get a credibility that masks its actual absurdity.

Thankfully, it has not worked so far in this case, although Ms Ladele plans to appeal. It's not often I support bosses against workers in Employment Tribunals, and the Tribunal may be more interested in upholding the rights of bosses to tell workers what to do rather than the rights of lesbian and gay couples to get legally hitched. But nonetheless, in this case the boss is an elected public authority and the worker is a homophobe. Here's to the appeal failing.

Conspiracy theories and a bigoted Catholic Bishop

Seems the plan of those degenerate LGBT people to take over the world, corrupt the innnocents and destroy society as we know it has been twigged by one Bishop Devine. Darn, the Catholic Church is now on the case:



The Rt Rev Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell and president of the Catholic Education Commission, said gay rights organisations aligned themselves with minority groups, such as Holocaust survivors, to project an "image of a group of people under persecution".

He warned that the gay lobby – which he labelled "the opposition" – had mounted "a giant conspiracy" to shape public policy.

"It is ever-present at the service each year for the Holocaust memorial, as if to create for themselves the image of a group of people under persecution. We neglect the gay movement at our peril.

"I want to ask you if you are able to see the giant conspiracy that's taking place before our eyes, even if we didn't see it at the time. I take it you're beginning to see that there is a huge and well-orchestrated conspiracy taking place, which the Catholic community missed."

He went on: "In this New Year's honours list, I saw actor Ian McKellen being honoured for his work on behalf of homosexuals, when a century ago Oscar Wilde was locked up and put in jail. "It's a very small group of people, but very active and organised – and extremely indulgent. The opposition know exactly what they're doing. We don't."

Calum Irving, the director of Stonewall Scotland, said the bishop was "deluded", pointing out that the Catholic Church had much greater wealth and political influence than the gay rights lobby. He said: "So Bishop Devine has decided it's time to have a go at lesbian and gay people again.

"I would defend the bishop's right to practise his faith and yet he would deny me basic dignity and respect. Worse, he appears to hanker after an age when Oscar Wilde was put in jail for being gay. Worse still, he seems to infer that gay people have no right to be remembered as victims of the Holocaust."

After Bishop Devine's lecture, entitled Sectarianism and Secularism: Bugbears for the Catholic Church in Scotland, one audience member asked how Catholic parents should "come to terms with a child's mission to become homosexual".

The bishop replied: "This must be a nightmare moment for any parent. There are many days when I'm glad to not be a parent. I would try to handle it with a degree of compassion, but I would not tolerate (it]."

Bishop Devine also cited the battles over Clause 28, legalising civil partnerships and same-sex adoption.

He said prominence had been given to the "supreme moral values of liberty and equality" replacing "truth and goodness" as supreme moral values.

Bishop Devine continued: "It was bound to result in state-sponsored morality at war with Christian values. We must resist being corrupted by secularism."

Reading through this rant I fail to notice much kindness or to use his words 'goodness'. He comes across as quite hateful, seeming to prefer a time when gay people were imprisoned . He denies ,or at best downplays, the very real persecution faced by lesbian and gays in Nazi Germany . He proudly states he would be intolerant of a child who was lesbian or gay. Yep, lets fuck up kids (sometimes literally in the Catholic Church), make them feel guilt about who they love.

The reality is that lesbian and gay people , along with a number of other groups and alongside Jews, were victims of the holocaust.

The reality is that LGBT people still, in this country , face discrimination , attacks and are sometimes killed .

The reality is that children brought up by religious parents can be made to feel guilty, pressurised to be 'straight' and are sometimes disowned.

I do wonder why religious people get so wound up about those who do not believe and do not live to their codes of behaviour. Why are they so threatened by it if their faith is so strong ? Why can't they just let others be and what is this obsession with what other people do in the bedroom ...or anywhere else for that matter :-)

Picture : the pink triangle,which was one of the Nazi concentration camp badges, used by the Nazis to identify male prisoners in concentration camps who were sent there because of their homosexuality.

hat tip: New Humanist Blog

The Government's Love Affair With Faith Schools Goes On

A while back, I signed a petition on the 10 Downing Street website against faith schools, worded thus:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools ... Faith schools remove the rights of children to choose their own religious, philosophical and ethical beliefs. They also sanction ethnic segregation and create tension and divisiveness within society. Schools should be places where children are given a free education, not centres for indoctrination. Creationism and other religious myths should not be taught as fact regardless of the funding status of a school. Abolishing faith schools will provide children with more freedom of choice and help to promote a fully multi-cultural, peaceful society."


The government has now responded, thus:

The Government remains committed to a diverse range of schools for parents to choose from, including schools with a religious character or "faith schools" as they are commonly known.

Religious Education (RE) in all schools, including faith schools, is aimed at developing pupils' knowledge, understanding and awareness of the major religions represented in the country. It encourages respect for those holding different beliefs and helps promote pupils' moral, cultural and mental development. In partnership with national faith and belief organisations we have introduced a national framework for RE.

In February 2006, the faith communities affirmed their support for the framework in a joint statement making it clear that all children should be given the opportunity to receive inclusive religious education, and that they are committed to making sure the framework is used in the development of religious education in all their schools and colleges.

The Churches have a long history of providing education in this country and have confirmed their commitment to community cohesion. Faith schools have an excellent record in providing high-quality education and serving disadvantaged communities and are some of the most ethnically and socially diverse in the country. Many parents who are not members of a particular faith value the structured environment provided by schools with a religious character.

I scarcely know where to begin replying to this mixture of conservativism, soundbite, deference to superstition, unsubstantiated assertion, jargon-mongering, and refusal to answer the bloody points. So I refer you to my previous rants on the issue, and leave the comments box at your disposal.

A shortage of Priests

Trendy vicars are pretty toe curling,as are gimmicks to attract the gullible. I don't care how many chocolate bars are chucked about by 'Vicar of Dibley' wannabees, there is no way I'd go to a service.

The Catholic Church is not above the odd gimmick such as a 'Priests calendar'. Now I wondered if they would do a 'Calendar Girls' and strip off, but no, there are limits in this bid to encourage men to become priests:

Twelve Catholic priests have swapped their pulpits for favourite pastimes in a calendar designed to try to recruit young men to the priesthood.
The priests, from the Diocese of Leeds, are pictured in an array of activities, including reading celebrity magazines, watching baseball and DIY.

Each featured priest also reveals what inspired them to join the church.

The calendar has been created as part of a drive to encourage teenagers to take up Holy Orders.

It comes as the Catholic Church faces a national shortage of people entering the profession.

Hmmm, no mention of one of the 'hobbies', that of preying on the young and vulnerable.

I note also that in a strong Catholic country like Mexico there is also a shortage :

"This is a real crisis of vocation," said Elio Masferrer, a religion expert at Mexico's National School of Anthropology and History.

Some blame the rise of a secular Mexico, where young men have improving job opportunities and increasingly reject celibacy.

So the draw of a life of repressed sexuality , telling others what they can and can't do with their bodies and generally poking their noses into others sex lives (hmmm, not sure about that image), is starting to wane. Good.

It also means the old Priests have to keep going :

To compensate for the lack of new blood, older priests are putting off retirement. In Mexico's capital, the average age of priests is now 66, and at one downtown church, a 93-year-old cleric celebrates Mass in the morning and hears confession in the afternoon.

"Old priests have to work until they keel over," Aguilar said.

Pic is taken from a calendar of 'Hot Italian Priests'!

I Name This Bear 'Mohammed'

As I type, Liverpool school teacher Gillian Gibbons is arriving at court in Sudan to face charges of blasphemy, because she allowed schoolkids to name a teddy bear 'Mohammed'. She could end up being lashed or spending time in prison.

There is no grey area here - the state enforcing religious protocols is utterly reactionary and wrong. Religions have long proscribed taking a divinity's name in vain, perhaps based on the idea that "fear of a name just increases fear of the thing itself", as Hermione Granger says about He Who Must Not Be Named, otherwise known as Lord Voldemort.

There should be no such crime as 'blasphemy', in any country, against any religion. There is no room for excuse-mongering that Gillian Gibbons 'should have been more sensitive' or 'should have known better' or whatever. A bloke from the Sudanese Embassy said on Radio 5 this morning that he regretted this situation, regretting that Gillian Gibbons had caused it. The Unity High School in Khartoum where Gibbons worked - a private, Christian-run institution - has issued a public apology to Muslims and sacked her.

It's a gift for all manner of right-wingers - I dread to think what hay The Sun, The Daily Mail or the BNP are making with this issue. Right-winger and serious threat for London Mayor Boris Johnson uses it to come over all reasonable, whilst chucking in terms like 'bonkers', 'demented' and 'lunacy', and insisting that British Muslims somehow have responsibility over and above that of British non-Muslims to protest against the teacher's trial.

The victors in this are the religious regimes and the reactionary right - no matter how much they claim to despise each other, they feed off each other too. In the name of secularism, democracy and anti-racism, let the left stand apart from both.

Pro Choice Catholics

Something to upset the pope :


A large minority of Catholics back a woman's right to have an abortion and are critical of their bishops for paying "too much attention" to the issue, a survey has suggested

A poll of adults in the UK has shown 43% of Catholics agreed that it should be legal for a woman to have an abortion when she has an unwanted pregnancy with only 27% disagreeing.

A further 20% said they neither disagreed or agreed.

The survey also found that 42% of Catholics agreed with the view that the Catholic bishops concentrated too much of their attention on abortion when there were other issues that also required their attention.

The YouGov poll of 1,983 adults in the UK was conducted online earlier this month for the US-based group Catholics for Choice, which is to brief MPs on its findings.

The poll found the highest level of support for abortion among the general population with 63% of all respondents agreeing it should be legal for a woman to have an abortion when she has an unwanted pregnancy.

This figure fell to 58% of people who identified themselves as Protestant.

The survey findings come as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was debated in the House of Lords earlier this week. Both pro-Life and pro-choice groups are expected to attempt to use the Bill to change the law on abortion.