Well, we knew it wasn’t just the Abrahamic religions, and here’s a case in point. Aboriginal leaders in Australia have called for a book to be scrapped because it teaches girls to play a musical instrument.

Depressingly Harper Collins have appologised, when what they should have said was “um… it’s the 21st centuary; you don’t get to be both respected and a sexist any more.”

I know people tend to think “they’re an ancient culture, we have no right to judge their values,” but I call bullshit. In this case their values are sexist and they’re wrong, and we shouldn’t be afraid to say as much. Sexism isn’t suddenly OK once a culture has been doing it for a certain length of time, and their own inability to move on shouldn’t give them a free pass to try to impose their backwards ideas on others.

Thankfully it looks like Harper Collins have no intention of pulling the book, and the bigots are going to have to learn to live with it.

This made me chuckle.

I particularly liked the line

Critics have dismissed the gathering as a propaganda gimmick by the Saudis who, they say, are not best placed to host a meeting on religious tolerance.

Which might just be the understatement of the week.

Wow. Just… wow.

I don’t know where to begin.

A few days ago, a student at the University of Central Florida attended mass at his Church. During communion, when the wafer was placed into his mouth, instead of eating it, he took it and walked out. Catholics went nuts; even after he gave it back, the Catholic League (more on them in a moment,) said

We don’t know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was. However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.

We just expect the University to take this seriously. To send a message to not just Mr. Cook but the whole community that this kind of really complete sacrilege will not be tolerated.

Overreacting much? Actually, that kind of sacrilege will be tolerated, especially in America, where freedom of religion (and from religious persecution) is guaranteed by the constitution. Of course, the fanatics don’t quite see it that way, and the poor kid has been getting death threats. Because that’s what turning the other cheek means in America.

Oh, and just so we’re clear: stealing a cracker is a hate crime, but sending death threats? Oh, that’s perfectly acceptable, rational behaviour. If you don’t like the person. And if he’s stolen your magic lunch.

Enter PZ Myers, who, as usual, wrote about it the way it is, in a piece entitled It’s a Frackin’ Cracker. As usual, he pulled no punches in describing the mob as what they are: well… a mob. He also offered to desecrate a communion wafer, if anyone would send him one. Cue a rapid switch of target on the part of the Catholic League; they’re now engaged in a full-on offensive on PZ. Not for anything he’s done, but for something he said he’d do. To a cracker. Apparently conspiracy to wound a biscuit is a cardinal sin if you’re an insane Catholic – and Bill Donohue, the leader of the Catholic League, certainly counts.

So – to get to the point – the Catholic League are trying to stir up a good ol’ fashioned witch hunt, and are inundating PZ with hate mail and death threats, and his employer with demands that he be fired. This is, to be frank, unacceptable. All PZ has done is exercise his right to freedom of expression, and he’s being targeted by a hate campaign. So what to do? Start up a support campaign, that’s what.

PZ is asking that people write a short note of support to President Robert Bruininks of his University – the University of Minnesota, Morris – and I second his request. PZ is one of the more outspoken voices of reason on the internet, and it would be a shame if he were made to suffer unduly for something as simple as expressing his opinion. If you’re a rational person, even if you’re religious, and don’t agree with PZ, please consider writing a note in support of his right to express himself without fear of being victimised.

I already have. Here’s what I wrote:

Dear Sir,

I’d like to take this chance to add a note to the probably hundreds you’ve already
received in support of PZ. He’s a great writer, a great educator, and a credit to your
 institution.

It’s true that he’s outspoken, and that he pulls no punches in expressing his opinions.
That is not a crime, and if Bill Donohue and his supporters restrained themselves to
responding in kind then there would be no problem. The fact that they have not, that they
have resorted to a campaign of mass harassment, of death threats, and trying to cost PZ
his job - in short, a campaign of terrorism - merely underlines why it is so important
that we have people like PZ who are unafraid to call these people out on their hypocrisy,
and to criticise their unacceptable behaviour in public.

I hope that the incoherent screaming of the mob will not prejudice you against PZ in any
way, and that he will be allowed to continue to bring credit to your institution amongst
free-thinkers and rationalists across the globe.

Sincerely,

Will Goring,
Reading,
United Kingdom.

Apparently, in Sweden, people are granted the human right to be invited to any birthday party they want. Bureaucracy ftw!

Joking asside, this is a symptom of something we’re seeing more and more; this pervasive idea that people have the right not to be offended. Yes, it’s pretty harsh not to be invited to a party that everyone else is going to, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to go. You have the right to call the kid a jerk for not inviting you, and you have the right to reciprocally not invite him to your party, but that’s it. It’s his party and it’s his right to decide who’s invited. It’s a pretty stupid, trivial example, but it’s just a symptom of the same sort of thinking that leads people to think they have a right not to have their beliefs challenged or their stupidity ridiculed. It’s a dangerous trend, because often one person’s “right” not to be offended is indirect opposition to someone else’s actual rights. In this case it’s the right of a child to not invite people he doesn’t like into his house, which is important enough, but in more extereme case, it might be someone’s freedom of speech or of expression that’s being suppressed to keep people from being put out, and I don’t care how you dress it; freedom of speech is more important than anyone’s sensibilities.

So, it went through the Commons, after some wheeler-dealing, and now has to get through the Lords.

At the risk of sounding like someone writing to The Times, I am appalled and disgusted that it’s got this far. There is no justification for holding members of the public for so long. A week sounds about right to me, any more than that is simply wrong. Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?

Right now, I’m ashamed that I ever voted Labour, and I never will do again.

This speaks for itself really. How can anyone who claims to stand for freedom, democracy and human rights, veto a democratically passed law that would have prevented innocent people from being tortured? I think we all know the answer.

The guy makes my skin crawl.

I gather this isn’t exactly news, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it.

The Lords have just approved the change, by a significant majority. I couldn’t be happier; blasphemy is a ridiculous, archaic offence that has no place being enshrined in the law of a civilised nation. In fact I’ll call it the first good news about the British legal system I’ve heard in a long time.

Turns out that the Sadui authorities aren’t above persecuting young men for behaving like young men any more than they are above oppressing women for being women.

Of course, there is still a difference; I doubt these men are going to be publicly beaten for their actions.

I’ll bet Dr Williams is taken aback at the response his comments has generated, and I have to say, I think a lot of people are overreacting. Obviously, I make no secret of the fact that I disagree with him and I’ll argue my point, but heckling the poor man outside his Church? Calling for his resignation? Not even remotely called for, and nothing more than an attempt to limit his right to hold an opinion and express his views.

At this stage it’s probably worth pointing out that there are — at least — two separate groups who’re being critical of his position, and it’s not the secularists and the liberals who’re calling for his resignation. Those voices are raised from within his own Church, and they’re not objecting on general grounds to religious accommodation in the law, they’re objecting very specifically to accommodation of religions that aren’t theirs. Needless to say, I disagree with those people at least strongly as I do Dr Williams.

In fact, on a re-reading his lecture, I realise just how badly misrepresented by the media Dr Williams was. I’m not saying I agree with him; far from it, but I don’t think he was calling for wholesale modification of British law, either. He makes some subtle points, and his words are, at times, ambiguous (one might say disingenuous,) but there is certainly a way to interpret what he said as nothing more controversial than “just because the law gives someone a right, doesn’t mean we should necessarily force them to exercise that right at all times.” That much is obviously true.

So, surely true enough is fair enough? Well, yes, but the assumption that someone might not want to exercise their rights is a dangerous one to establish legally, and an even more dangerous one to nationally consolidate through the establishment of local courts around the country, which (will inevitably) presume the complicity of the entire local population. Williams talks about these supplementary-jurisdictions as being purely voluntary, but offers no suggestions as to how to ensure duress of any kind does not play a role. Matthew Parris puts it excellently, in his piece in The Times:

Faiths capture people. I do not mean this disparagingly. So of course do patriotisms, ideologies, families. But a religion, properly understood, makes profound claims on an individual and community, quite unlike the demands of a golf club. It involves the use of public places and public services, the subordination of the individual’s will; and may demand that he subordinate his spouse’s and children’s wills too. Hence our unease about duress, and the completeness of “consent”.

Dr Williams, in a welter of words, makes no serious attempt to resolve this. Those who read his speech properly will see that his entire argument turns upon the freedom of the group member to “opt out” of the “supplementary jurisdiction” and choose British law instead. But repressive faith groups make it culturally difficult - sometimes well-nigh impossible - for a member to opt out. This gives them the very togetherness and focus that Dr Williams wants to foster.

A religion is more than a collection of rules and habits: it is a complete moral and philosophical system with deep claims upon the inner and outer life of the adherent, from cradle, through schooling, and beyond. The rules it lays down - the private laws - are of a more commanding kind than the rules of Scrabble or the High Peak Hunt because they are morally joined-up: joined with a loyalty beyond the State; joined within an overarching faith and its explanations of the Universe.

How can we expect someone who’d been raised, educated and governed according to certain cultural and religious prescriptions to realise, when it matters, that they are able to “opt-out” of all that? Everyone they know believes and acts a certain way; they have been raised to do the same. They might not even know there is a wider law guaranteeing them greater liberty. Paris, charitably, talks about religions as providing “togetherness” and “focus,” and I dare-say he’s right, but the other side of that coin is obedience, conformity and acquiescence; not traits that I believe will lead to people looking outside the system for redress.

Put simply, religion and governance are a bad mix at any level. Religions are, by their very nature, strongly ideological, and strongly ideological governments, religious or otherwise, fall all too easily – some might say, inevitably – into oppression of dissenting views.

Additionally, and as I’ve said before, there are real risks with introducing even small-scale supplemental jurisdictions in the context of the current British population. By granting legal status to aspects of cultural codes, we run the risk of granting a veneer of legitimacy to the entirety of those codes, including elements that the majority find abhorrent, and by granting already insular communities even greater autonomy, we don’t increase social cohesion on a wide scale, so much as splinter into a series of small, independent communities with little in the way of commonality to bind them into a cohesive whole.

The recent ordeal (which I’ve blogged about here and here,) of a young woman who was sentenced to state-sponsored brutality after being gang-raped is just one example of the shocking barbarity of the Saudi regime. It is unacceptable that the UK counts any nation with such a poor human-rights record as an ally, so please take a couple of minutes to sign this petition urging our government to sever friendly ties with Saudi Arabia until such a time as they join us in the 21st Century.

The actual text you’ll be putting your name to is:

The government have rolled out the Red carpet to the Saudi Royal Family yet the government of Saudi Arabia is an autocratic regime with an appalling human rights record. Executions, flogging and amputations are imposed and carried out with disregard for the most basic international fair trial standards. ‘Offences’ include being gay or being a woman unaccompanied by a man or driving a car. Yet with utter hypocrisy the UK government condemns similar regimes such as Burma and has very minimal ties with countries like Libya. The UK has turned a blind eye to this for its own selfish economic interests to the extent that we will break international law on corruption to avoid upsetting the Saudi Royal Family. As a consequence of this relationship we are perceived as supporters and backers of this repressive regime. We have seen the consequences of these injustices on the security of our country. It is now the opportunity to restore Britain’s dignity and end this stain on our country’s reputation.