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Just how much are fundamentalist and bigoted religious views driving Sarah Palin’s bid for the VP slot?
And given that Palin has now been found, by an enquiry, to have acted unethically, can she be trusted in such a powerful position?
A poll suggests that an increasing number of religious people in the US think politics shouldn’t be preached from the pulpit. Well, it’s about time…
According to the poll by the Pew Forum, some 50 per cent of conservative church-goers believe that “houses of worship should not express views on day-to-day political matters”. That’s up from around 30 per cent in 2004. Democrat believers have always been less keen on campaigning from the pulpit.
That’s a small step to getting politics out of religion. Now if we could just get religion out of politics…
The ACLU in the US is celebrating a decision in Fredericksburg that it says is a victory for freedom of religion. Well maybe. But it’s a defeat for freedom from religion.
The issue, as reported on the ACLU website, revolved around the saying of prayers to open Fredericksburg City Council meetings. The decision of a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was that an existing policy - that the prayers be non-sectarian - should be upheld.
The ACLU statement says:
“This is a victory for religious freedom,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. “The Supreme Court has long held that government officials are allowed to open legislative gatherings with a prayer, but that such prayers must in no way indicate a preference for one religion over others.”
“Individuals are free to express their own religious preferences, but religious equality cannot exist when the government is allowed to use its considerable power to promote one particular faith,” added Willis. “Today’s ruling reaffirms that fundamental principle.”
But Willis makes no mention of any right to be free of such religious mumbo-jumbo altogether. While the prayers may not be offered to the peculiar gods of Christianity or Islam or Judaism (or any one of thousands of other gods available to the credulous), presumably they will assume the existence of some kind of supernatural deity. Quite how this obeisance to some non-specific spirit is connected with council business is not clear.
It seems that the ‘fundamental principle’ referred to by Willis does not extend to atheism. Nor does it embrace the separation of church and state, about which Americans make so much noise and so little effort.
The four votes on aspects of the Embryology Bill in the UK presented an opportunity for the religiously blinkered to put narrow-minded dogma before compassion and scientific progress. They were soundly and properly trounced.
It’s always good to see reason prevail. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill represents the most important development in fertility law in the past 20 years.
The UK, being largely free of the religiously inspired shackles that hamper scientific progress in other countries (including the US) is already a world leader in areas like stem cell research. This is important science: advances in embryology offer the possibility of cures for crippling and fatal diseases.
But not everyone is happy about this. The Roman Catholic church, for example, did its best to cripple this bill. It lobbied hard, placing enough pressure on the Government to force a free vote, so that Catholic members of Parliament could do their best to impose that church’s prejudices on the whole population of the UK.
There were four key issues:
Each of these issues attracted an amendment attempting to ban the process or (in the case of abortions) lower the limit. All four amendments were defeated by very healthy margins.
In most cases, those opposed to the processes or treatments presented their case based on junk science or dubious statistics. It was painfully clear, however, that the motivation for the amendments was not built on evidence or reason but on religious prejudice.
In the case of hybrid embryos there was much gibberish talked about ‘Frankenstein’ babies and the creation of freaks. Yet these embryos would never be viable and are, in any case, destroyed after two weeks.
People argued that the creation of ’saviour siblings’ is wrong. They talked about bringing a child into the world purely to provide ’spare parts’ for an existing child. This argument is just as cretinous. It suggests that arms or livers might be harvested, which is pure nonsense. The saviour sibling provides bone marrow and other cells. And any idea that the saviour sibling might not be loved equally by his or her parents is clearly wrong: if anything, they are likely to love it even more for its role in saving the life of the older child.
The opposition to the changes in the IVF law centred around the idea that it would somehow marginalise men. I noticed that this argument was mostly put forward by men. It ties in with that tired old idea that a family is not complete without a father. That would be more convincing if all fathers were perfect. The truth is that, regardless of whether IVF is involved, many children are raised very successfully without one parent or the other. So this amendment was inspired by notions of the family that belong in the Victorian age, not in the 21st Century. And I think there was an unhealthy dose of faith-based homophobia in there too.
Abortion is a more emotive subject and one where the desire of a religious minority to impose its views on the whole of society was most clearly evident. The 24 week limit was set in 1990, based on the best scientific evidence about the viability of the fetus up to that point. Nothing has changed. No new evidence has come to light. Yet there were two attempts to push the limit back - first to 20 weeks and, when that failed, to 22 weeks. That failed too.
Some MPs wanted the limit reduced to 12 weeks, which is where it stands in some (mostly Catholic) countries, such as Spain. Many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at 12 weeks.
The statistics make for interesting reading, though. In the UK, some 55% of abortions are carried out at under 9 weeks. This type of abortion usually involves nothing more than an injection. The fetus is reabsorbed by the body. (So much for its being a fully fledged human life. Could you have a clearer illustration of the fact that it is nothing more than a bunch of cells?) A very high percentage of pregnancies also spontaneously abort within this period, too - often without the woman ever knowing she was pregnant. That, too, doesn’t sit very well with the religious viewpoint and is a fact largely avoided by the anti-choice faithful.
A further third of abortions are carried out in the 9-12 week range. That means that 89% of abortions happen at 12 weeks or less anyway. In fact, only 1.5% of abortions happen in the 20-24 week band. And the vast majority of these are carried out for reasons of health complications or problems with the fetus.
So the ‘moral’ objection that so many proclaim is nothing of the sort. It is simply an attempt by a self-righteous few to impose their irrational, superstitious and medieval ideas on the whole of society. That’s arrogant and, given that they wrapped their arguments in pseudo-science and bad statistics, deeply dishonest.
Fortunately, rationality prevailed. So did compassion for those whose suffering may be relieved and whose lives may be saved by the science that will result from this bill.
A UK professional photographers’ group has hit back at the Metropolitan Police’s fear-mongering campaign against photographers. But at least the ‘togs have a sense of humour.
In classic Orwellian fashion, the Met’s ad campaign (which I wrote about in Pump up the paranoia) incites the general public to watch itself. It promotes suspicion and fear. Its headline, “Thousands of people take photographs every day. What if one of them seems odd?” seems calculated to appeal to that fraction of society that likes to appoint itself the guardian and judge of the rest.
It continues: “Terrorists use surveillance to help plan attacks, taking photographs and making notes about security measures like the location of CCTV cameras. If you see someone doing that, we need to know. Let experienced officers decide what action to take.” And it ends: “Terrorism. If you suspect it, report it.” The likely result of the paranoia this kind of campaign generates is the suppression of the press. News photographers already have a hard time doing their job without every gullible nerk thinking there’s an RPG inside that long lens.
But photographers and terrorists are not the only groups capable of dubious behaviour.
The Editorial Photographers UK (EPUK) group maintains a website with information and news for photographers as well as a private mailing list. It’s an invaluable resource for documentary and reportage shooters, providing advice, guidance and support, often in a more timely and effective way than any formal industry body.
Now. in association with the National Union of Journalists and the British Press Photographers Association, it has responded to the Met’s shameful behaviour. Its own poster design (available on t-shirts and mugs here) mimics the Police’s posters, but with rather more wit.
“Thousands of coppers stop photographers every day,” it says, with forgiveable hyperbole, “What if one of them seems odd?”
Then, with a reference to the Police’s frequent abuse of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, it says: “Police twist the laws to help prevent protest, stopping people and threatening arrest under vague all encompassing terrorism laws. If you see a copper behaving oppressively we need to know. Let experienced journalists decide what action to take.”
STATE CONTROL. IF YOU SUSPECT IT, REPORT IT.
It seems that Turkey doesn’t quite grasp the concept of free speech. It has again blocked access to YouTube for content it deems insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the country’s founder.
An anti-terrorism campaign by London’s police forces is exploiting the public’s paranoia in the hope of catching would-be terrorists in the act. It will also have the effect of making life even harder for press photographers. But maybe the erosion of press freedom might be seen as a bonus by the Metropolitan Police.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has once again proven how distant he is from reality by suggesting that UK law might incorporate some elements of Sharia. His statements have been widely condemned, but they are not entirely surprising. It is another example of how those infected with religion consider that faith always takes precedence over society in general.
Mike Huckabee’s failed bid for the Republican nomination might seem to consign him to the list of also-rans. Yet the fact that he was ever in the running has profound and dark implications for America’s future.
At the time of writing, Mike Huckabee’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination looks all but over. Many will breathe a sigh of relief, but that may be premature. The significance of Huckabee’s run for the most powerful job in the world is not that he lost, but that he was taken seriously. That should be a matter of deep concern to anyone who truly values freedom.
If you are British, and think that government delegating its job to faith-based organisations is a problem limited to our American cousins, think again. The UK Government is increasingly using faith-based outfits to do jobs that should be entirely secular in nature. Now the god botherers are targeting prisons.
