Trevor Philips made a number of people very cranky in the UK. He was commenting on a recent legal struggle, in which Catholic adoption agencies fought for the right to discriminate and refuse to allow gay couples to adopt children. There has been a ruling that adoption agencies aren’t exempt from equality laws, which of course pisses off religious bigots no end — they want to claim their superstitions are special and must be propped up by the law.
So Phillips made a simple and obvious comparison.
“You can’t say because we decide we’re different then we need a different set of laws,” he said, in comments reported by The Tablet, the Catholic newspaper.
“To me there’s nothing different in principle with a Catholic adoption agency, or indeed Methodist adoption agency, saying the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn’t apply to us.
Why not then say sharia can be applied to different parts of the country? It doesn’t work.”
He compared Catholics demanding special laws for them to Muslims demanding their special laws? Harumph! Ouch! That was a cruel blow.
“It’s a strange comparison,” says one CoE spokesman.
Lawyers call it “inflammatory!”
Former Archbishop says, “Ridiculous!”
“Looks like the truth hurts,” says I.
There’s a poll, so you get to have a say, too!
Should religion have a say over public law?
No, religion should ‘stop at the door of the temple’ and give way to public law 52.66%
Yes, but as a Christian country only the Christian faith should shape the law 42.33%
All religions should have a say over public law 5.01%
I made the mistake of starting to read the comments on the Telegraph article. I did not last very long, getting as far as someone calling secularism a religion.
I guess the person who wrote that thought that saying atheism is just another religion did not adequately convey just how stupid they are, so upped it to secularism so not one can be left in any doubt just how little grasp they have on reality.
Best not to read anything in the their comment section!
I bet the 5,739 are the ones who will be outraged when Charlie declares himself defender of the faiths when Liz finally moves on.
Somehow, the fact that the second option is more popular than the third chills me. Apparently, it’s not about religion or fairness, but simply about Christianity having a say. Ready to bring back the Inquisition and Catholic/Protestant wars, perhaps?
These religious institutions have been in a position of privilege for so long that they believe that the privilege is a right. Time for them to be reminded of the real situation – as often as possible.
Pharyngulated :
***
Latest figures :
I certainly don’t want Sharia law – or Catholic Church law or any other religious law foisted on me & those I care about. Full stop.
I must be really naive. When I saw the second answer, I thought it was a spoof poll. I couldn’t believe that people would really answer that. Over a third of the respondents really want a theocracy.
By the way, at the moment it is 55.92% (8,174 votes) to 39.36% (5,753 votes) to 4.72% (690 votes). Pharyngulation is proceeding.
I was hoping you would see this, PZ. I almost went insane reading some of the comments there, yesterday.
Until I read one that said, “If English was good enough for Jesus, Jesus was good enough for England”!
Sarcasm outweighs theocridiosy 10 to 1.
I suspect the “Christian faith” a lot of people have voted for is the wet and weak CofE, Alan Bennettish version that has more to do with jumble sales than dogma.
On a somewhat related (but not quite) topic, here is the editorial in today’s Irish Times newspaper which I found interesting.
Well, it’s the state which is the legal guardians of children in care, and voluntary adoption agencies provide the “brokerage” between prospective adopters and children (and parenting skills training and so on). Local authorities are placing children anyway, so some people might wonder, “What’s the problem? Just bypass them and go via local authorities themselves.”
However, there is a real shortage of potential adopters. A lot of excellent potential adoptive parents are put off by the long-drawn-out and bureaucratic approval process, and LAs seem to be chronically under-staffed. In the UK the average time a child spends in the care system is nearly three years. Yet the evidence is clear, both that children do best if they can move swiftly through the care system into adoption, and that gay and lesbian couples make just as good adoptive parents (though neither should be remotely surprising).
So what the Catholic Church is saying is, “We would rather cause children to languish in care for lack of adopters than accept evidence that runs contrary to our dogma.” Quite why such an organisation even wants to be involved in provision of adoption services is beyond me, but they certainly shouldn’t be allowed to provide them.
/rant
The bizarre thing is, there are religious adoption agencies who get it, and don’t stress over TEH GHEY!!!111!!! So what’s the RCC’s problem?
OT but amusing is a Dark Ages way. It’s now on the news that Santorum in a speech at Ave Maria U. called the mainline Protestants a “shambles” and “gone from xianity” because they were attacked by the devil, satan.
That should disqualify him right there. We don’t need a superstitious crackpot running anything much less being a president. And if the mainline Protestants ever wake up from their coma (not likely, but who knows), they should be damn angry at being called satan’s victims.
Xpost from today’s Zingularity:
What Santorum said is far worse than what Steven Darksyde has indicated. This is from a speech at Ave Maria U., a hardline Catholic bible college started by the Dominos pizza guy.
Santorum flat out says that the devil, Satan is attacking the USA. And targeted the Protestant churches. With some success apparently as they are a “shambles” and “gone from the world of xianity”.
Right there this should disqualify him from any elected office including dog catcher. We simply can’t afford some religious crackpot who thinks the devil is attacking the USA and winning.
This is BTW, not even the worst of what Santorum has said recently. The guy is a broken human with a seriously warped personality.
Wait!
Maybe we should rethink our position that atheism is not a religion. We should go ahead and build what’s-is-face’s Temple to Nobody and declare ourselves a religious body that doesn’t believe in teaching creationism in school, or in denying any two people who want to marry to do it. Having a baby you don’t want is a sin. Masturbation is required at least once a week.
The Telegraph had another poll recently after one our ministers spoke out against “militant secularism” and made the usual bogus association between secularism and totalitarianism. The poll was
Are you worried by the threat of militant secularism in Britain?
and the votes currently stand at
Marginalising religion is a form of intolerance seen in totalitarian regimes 17.78% (3,161 votes)
People should worship in private and not display religious symbols in public 14.02% (2,493 votes)
People should feel proud to worship in public and display their faith 12.63% (2,246 votes)
Secularisation is not a threat to this country 55.56% (9,878 votes)
URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9081641/Baroness-Warsi-religious-confidence-helps-Britain-attack-persecutors-abroad.html
It’s a seriously bad poll, with the answers offered not even slightly complementary, but I was glad to see that even the Telegraph (online) readership seem to be swinging behind secularism.
funny. It wouldn’t parse or print ()
the good part in all of this is that as the rise of Islamic immigration the christians now have another common religious with which they truly disagree. For the most part thanks to I think in no small part to the cold war most of the old animosity between christian sects is reduced so. Previously the different sects could advocate against their opposite lest they get “control” of power and support secularism when it suited them. Now with the rise of 3rd world immigration and truly different religions to openly fear and contend with right next door the true motivation becomes naked, the conceited grasp for power behind them all.
Secularism grew out of centuries of religious warfare and conflict as a more workable way to organize society.
The choice is becoming once again clear which way peace and order lead.
Let us hope and work for the reasonable way forward though some would choose chaos and conflict regardless it seems.
uncle frogy
You see, there is no reason to feel bad, transatlantic pharynguloids – we Brits have our share of ranting religious crackpots too…
I have been following this story for a while, and it is the classic, peverse xian victim mentality at work. They claim that the fact that the UK government won’t grant their
delusional death-cultreligion an exemption to equality laws so that they can descriminate at will amounts to the persercution of catholics – they are pratically erecting crosses to clamber onto in their pseudo-matrydom fervour.In itself, this is nothing new; no group on the planet is as easy to ‘oppress’ as xians – the mere fact that they do not live in their own little totalitarian theocracy seems to suffice most of the time – but what worries me is the sheer number of idiots who are lining up to defend the catholics’ notional right to import their bigotries into the adoption process as a matter of championing ‘freedom of religion’. That so many people conflate freedom of conscience with a positive right to treat other people whose sexuality they don’t approve of as second class citizens (so long as you wrap your discrimination up in enough religious handwaving, of course) is a great cause for concern to me.
As gvlgeologist noted @ 6, over a third of respondents to this pole are advocating for a de facto christian theocracy in the UK. They either are too moronic to realise that this is what they are endorsing, or they are fanatical enough to actually believe that religious government is a good idea, and both those scenarios lead me to wonder about the intelligence and/or sanity of a substantial chunk of the Telegraph’s readership.
Voted. “No” almost at 59% now.
Totally agree with @ 1 and others:
Comments section hideous.
Yeah, but I think the ones in the UK are easier to recognise and categorise. If they went to university they read the Telegraph, if the think universities are full of liberal poofs they read the Daily Mail. It is considered acceptable to laugh at them.
I can already predict the first schism.
@13:
IIRC that poll was Pharyngulated. Never ever assume you can draw any conclusions at all from an online poll, particularly if it involves issues Pharyngula readers might care about.
Matt Penfold @ 18;
I admit, you do have a point here. Being a religious fanatic in the UK does lead to a fair bit of pointing and laughing… at the moment. Unfortunately, there are more and more people who are trying to define any critique of religious belief, no matter how utterly bonkers that belief may be, as bigoted oppression of religion, and it now looks like the government under Cameron is beginning to edge in that direction as well.
Do you remember that bill from a few years ago under the Labour government that would have defined any statement that a reprsentative cross section of a faith group found offensive as hate speech? The one that was publicly opposed by Rowan Atkinson and other comedians among others? I wouldn’t be surprised if a similarly worded bill popped up in the Commons in the near future.
If Cameron, and his lackeys like Warsi, remain in power, I am beginning to wonder for how much longer it will even be legal to laugh at religious crackpots. Nothing so crude as out-and-out theocracy, you understand; simply the replacement of a requirement that one tolerates the unevidenced religious blather of others with a demand that you respect it, with all the dangerous prcedents that would set…
These Telegraph polls seem to come in at 10-15,000 votes. How big does a poll need to be to be unaffected by pharyngulation? Any ideas?
I agree with the commenter who said that many votes would have been of the ‘preserve tradition, church bells and tombola’ type. Not the Santorum dominionist mindset.
But it is heating up over here, what with Pickles overturning the council prayer ruling, Warsi’s nonsense and Nick bloody Clegg selling out.
“It’s a strange comparison,” says one CoE spokesman.
That kid who told the emperor that he was naked must have seemed pretty strange, too.
dianne,
officially, England is a Christian country. What with it being the state religion and the Queen being the head of the CoE and all.
The comments are almost like walking into a Fox News site, or Free Republic.
With better spelling and grammar.
Choice #2 is so disturbing I almost want Gallup or someone to poll the US public with a question like that.
They say it’s strange and ridiculous, but they don’t explain how (because they can’t).
The comments seem to be about 10 to 1 sensible. Though it’s fairly obvious that demanding special rights is demanding special rights.
redgreeninblue #10
The Catholic Church has gone out of its way to show its prerogatives have a much higher priority than the welfare of children.
Trust me, Varys, you don’t want to see a US poll on that. It would be disturbing at best.
Is this already being Pharyngulated?
Poll: How Religious Are You?
39.8% (1099 votes) – Great Faith
11.2% (308 votes) – Faith, but no regular participation
9.6% (264 votes) – Faith, but no participation
39.5% (1090 votes) – No Faith
Latest figures:
No: 10,423 (61.59%)
Yes: 5,798 (34.26%)
Other: 701 (40.14%)
Oops – last line should be 4.14%
I don’t think religions should dictate laws, but, and I might get flack for this, I think people should be allowed to say what kind of people adopt their children. Homophobia and racism are bad things, and people should be more accepting. But I would suspect a lot of people here would prefer their child not being adopted by religious people, even though in most western countries we have freedom of religion.
golkarian, it’s one thing for the birth parents to say who they do and don’t want their child to be adopted by, and another thing for the agency to make that determination.
I say that as an adoptive mother who was specifically chosen by her children’s birth mother because I was a science fiction fan and in the Society for Creative Anachronism. (Both these things were considered negatives by the agency who wound up pushing the paperwork for us.)
Given most adoptions in the UK are of children whose parents have been declared unfit, I am at a loss as to why you think they should then be given a say in who gets to adopt them.
If you look now the vote has swayed to 60ish percent secular, 30ish for Christians and a pittance for other religions. It really is striking to see the difference between the second and third options. I guess the word hypocrisy is not defined anywhere in the bible.
After reading far too many of the comments on the telegraph website I have come to the conclusion that readers of the daily telegraph are just racists and social conservatives who are better equipped to hide their bigotry than readers of the daily mail. This article and most of its comments support my hypothesis.
OT, but as an adoptee you’re pretty much right there. My natural parents didn’t/couldn’t want me. Them’s the breaks (was adopted through a children’s charity, not govt).
Back on topic, folks!
So, if other religions force unfair rules on people it’s bad, but if they do it it’s good?
Well, I suppose it’s as good an illustration as any that if Christians were possessed of self-awareness and intellectual honesty they wouldn’t be Christians.
why is being a science fiction fan considered a negative? Hasn’t SF become pretty mainstream over the years now?
A little closer to home, here’s an apt quote from the Atheist Oasis (emphasis is the original writer’s):
by Ray Garton — Nicki Minaj, Satan and the Phenomenon of Christian Butthurt — February 13, 2012
pelamun @ 41;
That is the funny thing about the SF, sci-fi, sci-fantasy, cyberpunk, steampunk and traditional fantasy genres – they exist in this curious state of being simultaneously viewed as ‘weird’ and ‘fringe’ (and not in a quirky, endearing way but with a disturbed, socially dysfunctional connotation) while at the same time being hugely influential on modern mass consumption media and pop culture.
I have also found that, odd as it may seem, the more highbrow and intellectual a piece of science fiction entertainment is (especially ‘hard’ SF) the less accepted it tends to be by the mainstream, particularly if it punctures the complancency of the reader/viewer/player by engaging in a little social critique or by positing a negative future scenario that may be a little too credible for comfort. And of course, should it commit the unforgiveable Hollywood sin of subverting established tropes (like say failing to have a main protagonist who scores sufficiently highly on the ‘All American Hero’ metric), then a great many people (influential opinion-formers amongst them) will simply reject it out of hand. Part of the reason why modern day Hollywood is so comparitively devoid of creativity and instead churns out an interminable series of remakes and sequals is because studios don’t want to take a risk on anything that might rock the boat too much in this regard.
And of course, there is also the annoying stereotype held in some quarters that SF fans ‘retreat’ into a ‘ridiculous’ fictional world due to a supposed inability to deal with reality. I can see such an attitude among the less intelligent and well read employees of adoption agencies leading to the mentality that a liking for SF should be classed as a negative trait in a potential adoptive parent.
It is the same old, same old – some people always assume that something they don’t understand simply must be bad, whether it is another culture, a differing sexual orientation to their own, or a form of entertainment that goes over their heads. Of course, part of the advantage to such people of self righteously despising SF fans is that no one will call you a bigot for doing it…
I was looking for the “fuck no” option.
Voted.
Nothing makes it more evident that religion rots the brain than that so many can’t understand how straightforward and sensible this guy’s statement is. I’d love to be living in a world where “Guys, these identical things are identical” is met with “Yes, I do enjoy tautologies” instead of jegusite whining.
-Of course, part of the advantage to such people of self righteously despising SF fans is that no one will call you a bigot for doing it…-
@43 And that’s the same reason for why atheism can have stories like this run about it in a major national newspaper – it’s acceptable bigotry. One which crosses the left-right divide. Atheism can be presented as just something for rich, white men and then it’s fine for ‘liberals’ like Will Hutton to have a pop. Watching him completely unable to deal with the fact that Richard Dawkins had commissioned a poll to find out what British Christians actually think was hilarious, in a rubber-necking sort of way.
avh1 @ 46;
Absolutely correct. I remember listening to Pope Palpatine directly claiming during his UK visit that ‘secularism’ (code for atheism in this instance) was the motivating force behind nazism, and implying that the weakening of religion in European governmental affairs and the rise of ‘out’ atheists in the populous at large would lead to the resurgeance of that kind of fascism – he did nothing less than paint atheists are nazis-in-waiting by the simple fact of not believing in an imaginary sky fairy.
Imagine the furore if he had said this about pretty much any other group in society, and yet when he went after atheists the public outcry was notable by its absence. The only people who seemed to care at all that the old monster had just thrown every non-believer on the planet under the figurative bus were the atheists themselves. What little coverage this portion of his statement received in the mainstream media actually took the proposition seriously – as if it were completely reasonable to accuse a diverse group of predominantly progressive, centre left people of all being fascists by default – with a lot of serious sounding people trotting out the old theist cannards about the impossibility of being good without god as if they were profound insights into the human condition, while at the same time mangling history and conveniently omitting inconvenient facts such as Hitler remaining a catholic and never being excommunicated.
And of course, when people like Dawkins took a firm public stance against Ratzinger’s lies, there was much whining about how awfully shrill those horrible godless baby-eaters were beong…
Like you say, it is the modern face of acceptable bigotry. Atheists are the preferred punching bags of those who want to look down on what they consider to be ‘lesser’ people to prop up their own fragile egos, but don’t want to be called out on their bigotry. Afterall, bigots like nothing more than to be given a big thumbs up for their hatred, a pat on the head from society at large for treating the right groups as less than human.
At the time of writing, nearly 30% of people are going with the middle option.
Do they even realise how bigoted they are??
wanstronian @ 48;
Probably not. Self awareness is not a trait strongly correlated with xianity. They probably think that they are championing what they ignorantly consider the ‘true christian culture’ of the UK. It doesn’t help when that fool Cameron publicly states that the UK is a ‘christian nation’ – that simply serves to reinforce the delusions of such peope with the stamp of government approval.
It probably helps that Atheism can be (erroneously) defined in the UK as something that’s only for rich, white, old men. That’s why stories about religion and atheism always have to mention Richard Dawkins. Honestly the reporting of atheism in the UK is starting to resemble how people talked about Communists during the 50’s – tiny in number, completely wrong in their arguments but with seeming superhuman powers to endanger ‘our way of life’. I almost want to ask these journalists; which is it? Am I as an atheist a member of an oppressively powerful majority, or a tiny minority who should therefore be ignored?
At 14.15 UK time figures are
No = 68.22%
Yes = 28.29%
Other = 3.49%
avh1 @ 50;
And the answer, through the awesome power of cognitive dissonence, is both; atheists are simultaneously oppressive, power-mad baby-eating tyrants and sad and irrelevant fringe figures with no connection to ‘real’ life – which ever version best serves those who seek to demonise us. Much the same way as feminists are simultaneously castration-obsessed man-hating feminazis and weak-willed, delicate flowers that have been monstrously led astray. Or the way that homosexuals are depicted as both radical ‘gay evangelists’ hell bent on ‘corrupting’ and ‘converting’ the young by any means possible and as sadly troubled, self-loathing souls in desperate need of (and secretly desiring) a ‘cure’.
Once one abandons reason and intellectual honestly altogether then it is possible to to believe any number of mutually exclusive things and call yourself righteous.
@ ciphernine #31
Well spotted, I’ve added my tuppence worth. The faithless seem to leading.
“No” is now a hair shy of 69%.
QFT. Well said, Gregory Greenwood.
Even if that’s true, the dominionists are the ones who would get power.
So, if most of those votes were from milquetoast xians, this makes a good example of how moderate theism supports and enables extremists.
You’re thinking too small! We need something that we have to force people to respect so we can have a court case
Masturbation is required at least three times a day and employers must accommodate religiously motivated O-breaks.
MUCH better!
Gregory
Very nicely put.
What bemuses me is the idea that Richard Dawkins is some sort of ultra-harsh atheist. The harshest writings by an atheist I’ve come across were by S.T Joshi in his book God’s Defenders. He was talking about Jehovah’s Witnesses and their refusal to accept blood transfusions and he said;
‘I personally am perfectly happy to see the gradual departure of Jehovah’s Witnesses from this vale of tears as a result of their refusal to accept transfusions, but the state has evidently decided that it has an interest in preserving the lives of its citizens, even if they are buffoons’ (Joshi, 2003, p166-167)
He also seems almost Platonic in his dismissal of the vast majority of people as complete idiots. Seriously, plaster some of Joshi’s writings up on billboards and buses and Richard Dawkins will look as loveable as Chris Mooney to journalists.
Gregory @43, Thanks.
opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les pouces @ 55;
I am glad you liked it. Sometimes I can almost come within shouting distance of writing something halfway coherant, if I try really hard…
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avh1 @ 58;
While it is true that Dawkins doesn’t mince his words overmuch when stating how harmful to society he finds many expressions of religion, he usually refrains from personal attacks and overall comes across as pretty genteel and reasonable – he mostly seems rather baffled by all the unevidenced nonsense fundies keep spouting. It is a testament to the sheer extent of the media hatchet-job done on Professor Dawkins himself (and atheists in general) that the idea that he is some kind of fire-breathing militant has gained so much popular traction.
Still, it is just like theists to fail to tackle the content of their opponent’s arguments, and instead seek to go after their ‘tone’ – even if they have to invent the supposedly objectionable tone in question.
Lying for jeebus is one of the fundie sacraments, afterall.
I shall have to make a special point of reading that. Thanks for the pointer.
I like this chap already.
Sadly, there are all too many days when I might agree with him. One need look no further than the chronically messed up state of society to see the sheer, moronic social inertia that any attempt at progressive politics inevitably faces. I mean, millions of people in the US are prepared to vote Republican, even after the disaster of the Bush/Cheney administration and the horror show of bigoted stupidity that is the current Republican line up. When Huntsman left the race, he took what little sanity remained in the GOP with him.
And the UK is scarcely any better – despite repeated experience of just how catastrophic Conservative governments have been for this country, people still voted them back in (with a little help from that risible sell-out artist, Clegg), and we wound up with Cameron in power. Every day he seems to be sliding further into the god-botherer camp while simultaneously eviscerating our public services, with the NHS next on his target list. And yet I bet plenty of people will vote Conservative again come the next election, even though it is clearly not in their own best interests to do so.
On my good days, I think it is a few vocal idiots who drown out the voices of reason and intelligence, paired with the perennial popular malaise of apathy. On my bad days, I am probably in much the same camp as Joshi.
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pelamun @ 59;
Your welcome. It is just my two cents on the subject, but I think that SF is one of those things that simply makes an easy target for those who neither understand it nor want to understand it, but still wish to feel superior in their wilfull ignorance.
I know that democracy can produce some very unfortunate results, especially if people are misinformed. But I still think it’s better than any of the alternatives, as at least you can remove an unpopular leader without violence. It also helps by giving you a strong argument that one person or group’s particular prejudices and delusions *shouldn’t* be the be all and end all of policy.
You’re welcome about the book, I wasn’t even really recommending him (although it is a worthwhile read).
avh1 @ 61;
Agreed, democracy is the best system available – it is just unfortunate that so many voters are so easily gulled. All a politician has to do is appeal to the lowest common denominator of crass xenophobia (so long as they don’t go too far and frighten off even the rightwigers, like the BNP has) and the votes are guarenteed to come rolling in.
Sadly, the problem isn’t the system itself – it is the people who use it. As you say, though, all the alternatives are far worse, and at least in a democracy the transition of power is usually peaceable.
I think Colbert hits the nail on the head: when government money enters the church, it trans-substantiates into Bishop Bucks which can only be used for the mission of the Church.
If an organization solicits money from the government, it must use it according to the government’s rules. Don’t like that? Tough, find someone else to fund your program! And perhaps taxes are in order for “non-profit” organizations that want to further discrimination & segregation–disagreement with gay marriage and woman’s rights at the pulpit certainly sounds like “political activity” to me.
can we update the percentages on the main post please?
the up to date figures are much less embarrassing:
No, religion should ‘stop at the door of the temple’ and give way to public law 70.67% (16,495 votes)
Yes, but as a Christian country only the Christian faith should shape the law 26.09% (6,089 votes)
All religions should have a say over public law 3.25% (758 votes)
Total Votes: 23,342