Christian bigots
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor (well, he'd be hard pushed to be a Calvinist minister with a name like that, really, wouldn't he?), head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales is demanding that legislation which makes it illegal to discriminate against gays is not applied to church organisations, a law which makes it a crime for people like the narrow minded B&B owner who refused to give a double room to a gay couple to do so again, just as it is illegal for businesses, organisations or public services to discriminate against people on grounds of colour, ethnicity or religion. In fact new laws are going alongside this to ensure equality protection for Catholics, ironically, while the head Catholic demands the right for the church organisations to be exempted and practise bigotry. Specifically he is threatening to close down the successful Catholic-run adoption service if the law goes through without an exemption because they will not want to give a child to a gay couple to adopt.
There are two huge things wrong with this request. First of all, the minute we start making exemptions for one law like this for one religious cult (and all organised religions are by definition cults, be they tiny fringe groups or huge ones like the RC church) then we open the floodgates for a slew of religious groups and others to demand they are allowed to pick and choose what they want to follow, which is useless. This is one of the reasons we base law on reason today and not on religious dogma, as most civilised countries do. The second is simple and plain bigotry - I don't care how much the Cardinal and his chums say it isn't, it bloody well is, they are bigoted bastards and that's it. If an ultra protestant or Muslim adoption agency refused to let Catholic couples adopt the Cardinal would (rightly) kick up a stink. And the fact he is prepared to shut down the agencies rather than comply with the law, in other words to put his prejudices ahead of the kids needing new homes shows that his argument that they are principally interested in the welfare of the children is utter hypocrisy. Imagine a man in charge of an organisation run entirely by men who dress in what looks like dresses and have a reputation for interfering with choir boys being worried about placing kids with gay couples, what a nerve...
Yay! Well said, Joe. I completely agree with you.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit, it's crap like this makes me wonder if I should quit the Church, but you tend to find the majority of Catholics quietly disagree with Cardinal O'Connor. I certainly do!
ReplyDeleteIf the church genuinely followed Jesus example they would embrace any and everyone, shame they don't.
I was reading Polly Toynbee in the gruniad a few days back on this exact same subject, here's a linky for you
You say that we can't have religions claiming exemptions - but we already do! Muslims and Jews are exempt from the no-cruelty-in-abattoirs legislation; Sikhs are exempt from wearing crash helmets on motor bikes and a number of religions (but, of course, not Christians!) can demand special diets in prisons, hospitals, schools and armed forces. So why not an exemption for our own religion, rather than foreigners'?
ReplyDeleteI think you could easily argue Roman Catholocism is a 'foreign' religion to Britain too, actually, controlled from an independent city state within Italy and with a lot of rituals conducted in another language. Now if it was Druids I might cut them some slack :-)
ReplyDeleteI've criticised the abbatoir rules before actually - being a veggie I am not overly happy with abbatoirs in general, but being allowed to kill the animals in a slower, more cruel fashion in the name of religion is sickening. Crash helmets for Sikhs I can't say I mind, since it doesn't really put all other bikers at a disadvantage, does it? And special diet doesn't come into much since mainstream Christian religions don't set special eating rules for the most part, otherwise they probably would also be able to do the same.
The point I was making though is that I don't care what religion it is (and the idea of it being 'foreign' is neither here nor there in relation to this), being allowed to discriminate against another group on grounds of religion is ridiculous and there can't be any excuse for it.