A vote for superstition

Opus Dei’s Ruth Kelly will have no need to do her sidestep when it comes to voting on embryology and stuff in the House of Commons today. In fact, far from simply trying to dodge the vote, she’ll be voting against.

She can do that, because she’s no longer a Cabinet minister and, at the next general election, she’s standing down as an MP, anyway, in order to spend more time with her superstition. So, although she's voting against her government, there's not much that can be done to discipline her.

Kelly was once Secretary of State for Education and Skills. She was not happy with having been allowed a free vote, along with other superstitionists, on individual aspects of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, on the understanding that, when it came to a vote on the Bill itself, Labour MPs will vote with the government. Those individual votes went against her, but she was not sporting enough to say, “OK, we were defeated, now let’s support the Bill because it’s a government Bill.”

So she’ll be voting against her government.

This piece in Pink News speaks of her poor voting record on gay issues. But, then, she’s a staunch Catholic, believing all the fairy stories such faith entails.

We can do with fewer of her kind wielding influence over our lives, thank you very much. Good riddance to her.

As you would expect, the nuttier kinds of Christian groups (Kelly's lot apart) are against it. One calls itself Christian Concern for Our Nation and it has this to say:

This Bill is one of the most destructive pieces of legislation that we will see in our lifetime. It is anti-life, anti-family and anti-God. It will liberalise abortion law, create animal–human hybrids and create fatherless families unless we pray and act to stop it. Will you do so? Each person’s contribution counts.

And in a last-minute bulletin to supporters, which came into email inboxes yesterday lunchtime, this group say:

Please pray that God will have mercy on this nation and allow amendments limiting the loss of human life to be passed. Please continue to pray that [the] abortion law will not be liberalised and that the Abortion Act will not be extended to Northern Ireland. Pray that amendments that have been tabled to restrict research on embryos will be passed and that safeguards will be put in place. Pray that the tide will be turned and the Bill brought down.

If human life can be preserved by the discovery of a new therapy – discovery brought about by experiments on stem cells – is that not a good thing? Better than preserving a bunch of cells with no sentience?

Don't you get the impression that these people are on the planet Zog?