An equality too far?

“Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has come to the defence of a Christian housing manager who was demoted over remarks be made on Facebook opposing same-sex marriages,” the Christian think tank Ekklesia tells us.

Ekklesia goes on to make the pertinent remark: “This is the fourth time that Tatchell has come to the defence of Christians who have become embroiled in controversy over their stance on LGBT issues.”

He spoke last year in defence of a street preacher who held antigay views. His stance was that of free speech. I for one – but I can’t speak for others on the list of potential contributors to this blog – agree with him. Once we start mucking about with free speech, even if that speech is railing against our own interests, we deliver a blow to that very principle, and will soon fall into the hands of those who would like it curbed altogether.

What’s more, by showing to those who would deny us free speech, free expression and freedom to be ourselves when it comes to our sexuality that we believe they have the right to make their banal statements, we take the moral high ground. And we can demand a reciprocal arrangement, and our opponents would look bad if they refused it.

“In the latest case,” says Ekklesia, “Adrian Smith, a Christian, was found guilty of gross misconduct by his publicly funded housing association for saying that allowing gay weddings in churches was ‘an equality too far’.”

He’s entitled to his views. It’s good that the housing association concerned doesn’t like his views, and should, of course, speak loudly against those views, but he said this in a private capacity. He’d put it on his personal Facebook page. But for that he was downgraded to a lower posting and lost £14,000 a year.

Smith says on his Facebook page that gay marriage is

an equality too far [. . .] the bible is quite specific that marriage is for men and women if the state wants to offer civil marriage to same sex then that is up to the state; but they shouldn’t impose its rules on places of faith and conscience.

So the guy’s a prat for having views on human relationships in the 21st century that are clearly based on mythology and fly in the face of all that is decent. But let him have them. Argue with him using debate and, if necessary, ridicule.

Gary and the gays: a case that’s just not very appealing

So religious belief has no objective merit to it. Somebody has at last said it in a court of law.

This is Lord Justice Laws, ruling in the case of Gary McFarlane, the relationships counsellor who wouldn’t counsel gay couples. He lost his job with Relate (formerly the Marriage Council Bureau), appealed against the decision, lost, and now, in the High Court, he’s been refused permission to take it to the Appeals Court.

This is the Christian Legal Centre’s take on the issue:

Mr McFarlane, a relationships counsellor from Bristol, sacked by the Relate Relationship organisation after he refused to provide sexual counselling to homosexual couples because of his Christian beliefs, asked that his case be heard by different judges to those who ruled against [Islington registrar] Lillian Ladele in December 2009

Church leaders have been deeply concerned by the ruling by Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, on behalf of the Court of Appeal, in the case of Lillian Ladele – a registrar who refused to conduct civil partnerships ceremonies because they were against her Christian beliefs – and have argued that the Court of Appeal’s decision effectively means that the right to express a strong Christian faith must take second place to the rights of homosexuals under Labour's equality laws.

It was argued by Human Rights barrister Paul Diamond that previous decisions had failed to grapple with the fundamental clash of rights that has occurred within the law between orthodox Christian teaching on sex and marriage and the protection of homosexual rights. It was argued that the Courts were required by Parliament to undertake such an exercise and have allowed instead one set of rights to trump another.

Lord Justice Laws refused Mr McFarlane’s application, and a personal plea by Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury (1991–2002), and other senior church leaders, that the Master of the Rolls be asked to stand down from future Court of Appeal hearings involving cases of religious discrimination because of “perceived bias” against Christianity.

Senior churchmen believed that Mr McFarlane would not have received a proper consideration of the religious convictions involved if his case was heard in front of judges who, they argue, had already shown a lack of understanding of Christian beliefs in previous cases.

In his Judgment, Lord Justice Laws accepted that laws in Britain can be influenced by Christianity and said: “The Judaeo-Christian tradition, stretching over many centuries, has no doubt exerted a profound influence upon the judgment of lawmakers as to the objective merits of this or that social policy.”

And Lord Justice Laws gave examples, such as the “core provisions of the criminal law: the prohibition of violence and dishonesty”.

However, he then seemed to draw a distinction between some moral positions of Christianity, where on merit they should be adopted by others, to other positions of Christianity, where he stated that it is “deeply unprincipled” to confer “any legal protection or preference upon a particular substantive moral position on the ground only that it is espoused by the adherents of a particular faith, however long its tradition, however rich its culture”.

Nobody would disagree that laws should not reflect purely irrational and subjective views of religious believers. However, it is deeply disturbing that Lord Justice Laws appears to place Mr McFarlane’s view on sex and marriage into the “subjective” category as opposed to the “meritorious” category. Hence it was held that the religious belief in question – namely that marriage as between one man and woman for life is the only proper place for sexual expression – could not be protected, because it is a belief held only on subjective basis with no objective merit to it.

Lord Justice Laws went on to say:

“. . . in the eye of everyone save the believer religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence. It may of course be true; but the ascertainment of such a truth lies beyond the means by which laws are made in a reasonable society. Therefore it lies only in the heart of the believer, who is alone bound by it. No one else is or can be so bound, unless by his own free choice he accepts its claims [my emphasis – AA].

“The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.”

Andrea Williams, Director of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “The notion that the Bible’s teaching, of particular focus in this case on sex and marriage is ‘necessarily subjective being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence’, is highly contentious to say the least. To put the reasonably held beliefs of Christians into a such a category is alarming and in effect seeks to rule out Christian principles of morality from the public square.

“Mr McFarlane simply wanted his religious beliefs to be accommodated by his employer, which in the specific facts of the case was not unreasonable. It seems that a religious bar to office has been created, whereby a Christian who wishes to act on their Christian beliefs on marriage will no longer be able to work in a great number of environments.”

She doesn’t get it, does she? Religious belief has no objective merit to it. You can’t regulate real life based on this tosh.

McFarlane has put up a fight, just as Ladele did. Each stood by his/her principles – but not all principles are for the better good. Principles that hold religion above human equality and dignity certainly aren’t.

So some justice has been done, and has been seen to be done.

Hard-done-to Christians – again

Christians are rolling out their old argument again: the government in the UK is being beastly to them.

A bunch of Church of England bishops and other befrocked men whose real contribution to society is questionable have written a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, and cite, among others, the case of a nurse who was not allowed to wear a crucifix at work. This was probably for health-and-safety reasons, but Christians always see it otherwise.

Traditional Christian beliefs are being sidelined, say these frothing idlers, who have nothing better to do than compose letters to national newspapers. It shows what a sinecure their jobs really are. You get to swish around in robes or wear a purple dicky and look busy and important and go to meetings, many of them with government agencies and departments, with local government representatives, with MPs, with councillors. Twenty-six of these unproductive individuals sit in the House of Lords as of right.

Oh, I see, that sort of sidelining.

We have countless religious schools – they like to call them “faith” schools – and prayers are said before Parliament proceeds with its daily business. There are those 26 bishops in the Lords. Christian ceremonies are held to mark national occasions.

Yes, I see it now: that sort of sidelining.

“The church leaders said it was unacceptable in a civilised society to dismiss Christians from their jobs over matters of conscience,” says the BBC story I’ve linked to above. Isn’t it unacceptable in a civilised society to allow “conscience” born of beliefs in sky fairies to dictate life for others, when it’s your job to provide a particular service or goods? You can have all the conscience you like, but don’t expect your conscience and the job you’re paid to do to sit happily side by side, because they won’t. Leave the job.

As for the nurse, Shirley Chaplin, they have a point in one respect at least: “They accuse nurse Shirley Chaplin’s employers of treating her beliefs with disrespect, while happily allowing symbols of other religions to be worn.”

If that’s the case, of course, then it’s wrong to discriminate – and it won’t surprise PT readers that authorities in Britain have discriminated in favour of whingeing Muslims, for instance, for the sake of something called a multicultural society (and for political correctness, of course, and for votes). If you’re going to ban religious trumpery, you must ban it for all – or allow it for all. Personally, I have no huge objection to the latter (on the simple grounds that any piece of adornment is potentially going to have some significance beyond its mere appearance) unless it has downsides. And it does.

A Muslim woman can’t be allowed to wear a bin bag while working in a hospital, for instance, or when she’s having her photo taken for ID purposes.

A Sikh man can’t be allowed to carry a knife – the so-called kirpan – around the place, where it can be used to violent ends (if not by him, then by anyone who decides to steal his dagger).

A Christian nurse can’t be allowed to wear a dangly piece of jewellery if it might drop into somebody’s open intestine during an operation (or, more likely, be grabbed in desperation by a struggling patient, causing potential harm to the nurse).

If a Sikh student is to be allowed to wear a bangle in a school that has a no-jewellery policy, then all students at the school should be allowed to.

But, of course, when such objections are put forward, the first thing the religionist bleats about is discrimination.

The country’s going to the gods

Religion moves ever closer to dictating the lives of the nonreligious. There’s new code that will allow pharmacists to continue to refuse to serve people with stuff they don’t believe in.

So, if you had a bit of rumpy-pumpy last night and want the morning-after pill, and the pharmacist is a Catholic fruitcake or born-again nutcase, tough shit!

“A revised code of conduct from the new industry regulator will allow staff to opt out of providing items such as the morning-after pill and contraception,” says the BBC. “But they may in future have to give customers details of alternative shops.”

Great, if theirs is the only shop for miles around in a country area and you either have no car or are not minded to spend several pounds travelling even a few miles in these times of daylight robbery at the petrol pumps.

The BBC story continues:

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) is to take over the regulation of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and the registration of pharmacy premises from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society later this year.

Under its new code, pharmacists with strong religious principles will still be able to continue to refuse to sell or prescribe products if they feel that doing so would contradict their beliefs.

But the GPhC says pharmacists who refuse services could be obliged to tell patients where they can access them and it plans to consult more widely on the issue.

I don’t like thin-end-of-the-wedge arguments, because they’re not always valid, but let’s say this could escalate. What will the Deluded Herd be able to claim is against their “faith” in other areas, too? We’ve already seen people who refuse to do their jobs because of some idea that fairy stories come above the job an employer is paying them to do and the public is expecting them to do.

How long will it be before other members of the Deluded Herd latch onto this and start wanting special dispensations? I can’t sell you this sausage, because it has pork in it. I can’t handle this emergency because I have to go to the prayer room and stick my arse in the air for ten minutes.

The country’s going to the gods (anagram intended).

God, it would seem, favours equality of treatment

So Lillian Ladele has lost her fight to take her employment case to the Supreme Court. You can’t say she didn’t put up a spirited fight, but it’s only right that she should have been challenged when she decided she didn’t want to splice gay couples in her role as a registrar because it went against her Christian “ethos”.

The Supreme Court, the highest court in the UK, has said her case does not raise legal points of “general public importance”. Her lawyers have argued that she was the subject of a witch hunt. She may go to the European Court of Human Rights, she says.

We’ve dealt with her case in several posts before. The obvious moral of the story is that it’s OK to have a religious belief, but it shouldn’t get in the way of others’ freedoms. And, if your job is such that your belief does get in the way of others’ freedoms, you shouldn’t be in the job.

And, when I say “others’ freedoms”, all I’m talking about is the freedoms that are enjoyed as a matter of course by most people, but denied to a few because, in this case, of their sexuality.

So, hard luck, Lillian. But God saw it our way in the end. Perhaps you should revise your own opinions now if the Big Man has decided you can’t take your case to the legal bigwigs.
__________
Relevant links:
Christian bigot wins employment case
The religious control of marriage
Glass houses, stones and Lillian Ladele
Christian homophobe loses appeal
Lillian’s pantomime ping-pong of prejudice
Lillian’s lost cause

How religion trumps employment rights

If you still doubt the hold religion has on life in the UK, read this report from the think tank Ekklesia.

It shows how teachers in “faith” schools have fewer rights than teachers in other schools, and even than those who work in religious charities.

There are moves afoot to try to redress this, but why is it there in the first place? Because lunatic governments have tolerated religious discrimination, and are not really that interested in removing it, because to upset the Deluded Herd might just equate with losing votes, and politicians are mostly grubby disreputable people (with notable exceptions, no doubt) who cannot be trusted.

“Whereas almost all other employers have to show that discrimination is an ‘occupational requirement’ of a particular post,” says Ekklesia, “faith schools can impose a blanket requirement that all teachers be co-religionists, or that believers are ‘preferred’.”
__________
See also “Religious tossers afraid of fairness for schoolkids”

Our friends in Christendom

I’m glad to report that we have some Christian allies when it comes to homophobia.

Symon Hill, of the Ekklesia think tank, has been writing in the Guardian about the case of the bigoted homophobe Lillian Ladele, the London registrar who thought that her belief system should somehow trump her employers’ insistence that she do the job they’re paying her to do.

Ladele lost her case against Islington Council after she’d refused to tie the knot for same-sex couples in perfectly legal ceremonies that registrars are expected to carry out as part of their job description.

Symon Hill admits that he was once homophobic himself, but is clearly now someone who hates to see people using their Christianity as an excuse for homophobia.

I understand how many Christians have come to the appallingly mistaken conclusion that homosexuality is wrong. To my shame, I admit that when I became a Christian in my late teens, I was persuaded to adopt such a view myself.

But why, if Ladele could not officiate at ceremonies that went against her conscience, did this affect only one aspect of her faith? Why has she not refused to marry straight couples who are not truly in love with each other? Would she marry a man and a woman if they were planning an open marriage? Or if she discovered that one of them was secretly committing adultery? Her position is absurd.

Well, perhaps she hasn’t yet been faced with knowingly having to marry such couples, but the point is taken. What would happen if such a situation arose in the future? She has to be able to say to her employers that she is willing to perform the ceremony for anyone who legally seeks an official splicing.

Hill makes reference to the rabidly homophobic Christian Institute:

Ladele’s case has been backed all the way by the Christian Institute, a socially conservative pressure group. A senior figure at a major evangelical organisation recently told me that he thought that success for Ladele’s appeal was the most important issue currently facing British Christians.

Some would choose more colourful words instead of “socially conservative” for the Christian Institute, but Hill is obviously a polite man.

We’d say wankers.

Relationship counsellor loses appeal

The Relate counsellor who didn’t fancy counselling same-sex couples has lost his case against unfair dismissal.

Relate is the former UK Marriage Guidance Council, and Gary McFarlane was sacked for saying he didn’t want to encourage sin.

He said the publicly funded service failed to recognise his faith – seeming to think that it should recognise someone’s eccentricities when paying them to do a job.

Christian bigots may not get their way after all

So Christians who can’t get sex – i.e. other people’s sex – off their minds maybe won’t be getting their way on the question of freedom to discriminate against gays, if this story in Pink News is anything to go by.

The European Commission is now putting pressure on the UK government to drop planned exemptions from equality legislation.

As I’ve said ad nauseam, I’m iffy about denying freedom of speech (I leave that sort of thing to others who call themselves humanists), but, as we said recently, if these damnable people didn’t kick up such a stink about what others do with their private bits and pieces, there would be no need even to discuss discrimination and exemptions and the like.

The exemptions in this case would have allowed churchy types to refuse employment to gay people in order to avoid conflict with their deeply held religious beliefs. This is just bollocks! Why are religious beliefs always said to be deeply held while other beliefs are just beliefs?

Don’t gay people have deeply held beliefs that they should be employed by anyone, provided they can do the job?

Religion isn’t working

Islam is trouble. There’s no getting away from it. Just ask employers in France.

According to Europe News:

A third of French companies say they are concerned by demands from their employees regarding wearing the headscarf, holidays and prayers. “Managing Eid [a Muslim religious festival] is a real headache,” says the manager of a transport company. “Half of the bus-drivers are Muslim. When they all ask to be absent on that day, how do you assure 100% service?”

Quite. All the more reason why religion should be given the same status as stamp collecting or trainspotting. The fact that some people really get off on it is neither here nor there. They’re being a bloody nuisance to the rest of us by insisting on special arrangements for their ridiculous superstitions.

Whether it’s an insistence on wearing clothing that’s inappropriate because of hygiene or safety concerns, demanding days off or refusing to handle certain goods or perform certain services, religionists in general, and Muslims in particular, are letting other people down, and it’s only out of political correctness that employers let them get away with it, and a combination of political correctness and grubbily grabbing votes that prevents politicians from legislating against this nonsense.

Head case

If you can’t do your job because you’re wearing some unnecessary head gear, you expect to have to take it off, right?

Wrong!

A 31-year-old, turban-wearing Sikh cop, Gurmeal Singh, is now “in line for a payout from Greater Manchester Police”, says the Daily Mail.

There are some complexities in this story, and one suspects that both sides have perhaps not acted as well as they might, but this blog is, among other things, about religious privilege, and that’s what is happening here.

If someone else wanted to wear a huge jokey bandage around his head, just because he fancied it, he’d be told to take it off if it got in the way of his job. This turban did.

It’s bad enough that Sikhs get away with not having to wear crash helmets on motorbikes; now they can win compensation from their employers.

The solution is simple: if you feel you can’t do a job for religious reasons, don’t do the job. Do another job.

More baying for blood in Bonnie Scotland

They still want not only the blood but the entrails of the chap appointed a priest in Scotland, it seems, just because he doesn’t fit with some people’s ideas of what a guy should and shouldn’t do in private between consenting adults.

The Christian Institute – a rabidly homophobic bunch of nutcases in the UK, who seem to have sex on the brain – report that more and more churches are ganging up on Scott Rennie.

We reported back in May how the followers of gentle Jesus, meek and mild, would like to see the guy hounded out of a job.

The Christian Institute says:

[A] group of like-minded congregations set up to oppose the move says it has received more than 100 requests for application packs from churches wanting to join.

The Fellowship of Confessing Churches say 46 churches are already members.

One might ask why Rennie wanted to get involved with the priesthood in the first place, and—

Oh, but of course, he’s gay, and the priesthood would probably fall apart were it not for its gay members.

Welcome to Nutcase FM, on 298 millitwats on the Raving Lunatic band

If you’re gay you’re “living in a state of active sin”, and that’s why a volunteer with a Christian radio station has been fired.

Pink News has the story.

This guy knew there would be issues at Refresh Radio in Manchester when he decided to come out, he says, but he wanted to be honest.

The Christians concerned are evangelicals. Many of this brand of Christian are, of course, total nutcases and seem to spend half their religious lives obsessing about what other people do between the sheets.

Apparently, Pink News has repeatedly emailed and phoned for a response from these lunatics, but, predictably, they have not responded.

More cross words

A Christian nurse from Exeter, UK, who’s been facing disciplinary action for insisting on wearing a necklace with a cross on it, has, under duress, accepted an offer of redeployment and has instructed lawyers to file an action at the Employment Tribunal for discrimination.

We covered the story yesterday, concluding that ornamental jewellery is OK provided it doesn’t get in the way of health and safety.

I went as far as to say that’s OK even if it’s religious, since only the coldest-hearted of us find no comfort in any object, for whatever reason.

But health-and-safety rules are there for all, and they were behind the ruling of the health trust that employs Shirley Chaplin in Exeter.

And that should go for the Muslim staff members who, according to Chaplin, are allowed to wear scarves because they perceive this garment as part of their religion.

Fast, food and folly

Another example – as if it were needed – of how touchy-feely do-gooders want to bow to the strange beliefs (and at taxpayers’ expense) of deluded people comes to us in Britain’s Telegraph.

It describes how Home Office staff were told not to eat in front of Muslims during Ramadan, which ends this week. During this so-called “holy” month, Muslims believe, for whatever reason, that they are forbidden to eat or drink between sunrise and sunset.

The Home Office has spent our money on a five-page document that “tells civil servants that eating lunch near a colleague who is fasting can make them feel hungry”.

In a story that, willy-nilly and with no logic or even a nod to the rules of punctuation, mixes single and double quotation marks (my hobbyhorse – don’t argue!), the Telegraph says the document was produced by something called the Home Office Islamic Network, which also is paid for out of taxpayers’ money.

But the odd thing is that the Muslim Public Affairs Committee says this is a load of cobblers. “It is designed to create more hatred in the hearts of non-Muslims,” it says. “We don’t care how much non-Muslims eat in front of us.

“It’s never been an issue and never will be and we have never asked for any special treatment or sensitivity from non-Muslims whilst fasting.”

There you have it, straight from the horse’s unfed mouth.

How do these woolly minded do-gooders think Muslims cope when they’re walking the streets and passing the many food shops – especially those that cook food on the premises? Do they have to hold their breath so as not to sniff the aromas?

The point of fasting is to make a sacrifice, isn’t it? One assumes Muslims don’t want it to be easy. What would be the point?

Cross words over religious gewgaws

A Christian nurse who wears her religion not on her sleeve but around her neck has been meeting bosses today to discover whether she’ll be forced out of her job for doing so.

It’s another of those cases that see people wanting to wear some gewgaw but it’s against the dress code of where they work or go to school.

Now let me put my cards on the table. I have nothing against bits of jewellery, and, if they represent something that means something to the wearer, so be it. I don’t like organised religion, but I’m not going to kick up a stink if someone wishes to wear a piece of jewellery that just happens to reflect that belief.

When it gets in the way of, say, health and safety (perhaps a hospital patient might, in a moment of panic, grab the neck chain and injure the nurse wearing it, for instance) it’s a different matter.

But Christians and others who are told to take off whatever is likely to cause a problem always reach for the freedom-of-religion argument. You can’t tell me to do that: you’re discriminating against me on religious grounds.

Bollocks! We live in such a politically correct country here in the UK that it’s doubtful a boss would tell someone to take something off just because it’s religious.

However, in the case of Shirley Chaplin, the woman whose story we’re featuring here (the Telegraph link, again, is here), she claims other members of staff have been allowed to wear necklaces.

If that is true, and they’re doing the same job as she is, then it’s wrong. If they’re doing a different job, then maybe different rules apply.

As with so many of these stories, we learn only through selective journalism, and the truth of the matter will come out only in a court or hearing, where witnesses can be examined by experienced questioners. But, again, we’re at the mercy of journos when these tribunals are reported.

There’s one telling quote in the Telegraph story that ought to be exercising secularists, though: a spokesman for the health trust concerned “said Mrs Chaplin herself had also admitted [that] wearing a cross was not a requirement of her faith”.

This suggests that the trust would allow the wearing of just about anything if it were “a requirement of her faith”. Does that mean that, if the cross were such a requirement, that would trump health and safety?

In stories such as this, we’re often told, “Oh, but they let Muslims wear scarves.” Unfortunately, that often seems to be the case, because we’re just so damned scared of offending Muzzies’ sensibilities and risking being called racist, when, of course, Islam is not a race.

The rules should be simple: you dress according to the code appropriate to your working environment, with no exceptions; and, if your “faith” dictates you should cover your hair or your arms for hygiene reasons, you cover up or clear out.

As for a dress code that doesn’t affect health and safety, such as the post linked to above (the link, again, is here), which concerned a Sikh girl who wanted to wear a bangle at school, well that’s something for another argument. You may or may not agree with school uniforms, or petty restrictions on what jewellery kids should wear.

But, if there is a dress code, then it should be for all pupils, with no exceptions for those of a deluded frame of mind.

Religion versus reality – yet again

The case of the Relate counsellor who didn’t fancy doing his paid job for same-sex couples but only for opposite-sex couples – because of some Christian ideas he has – is being heard at appeal today.

You can read all about it at the Christian Legal Centre’s website. I was alerted to this by an email I’m signed up to and it came under the heading “Urgent Prayer Request”.

Gary McFarlane worked for the former Marriage Guidance Council, now called Relate. See some background in our last post here. Briefly, he didn’t want to do sex therapy for same-sex couples, discussed it with his superiors and asked if an accommodation could be reached in the event of his having to do this and the whole thing led to his being fired. He is now appealing against an employment tribunal hearing that went against him.

The Christian Legal Centre dresses it up in the language of an imposition on religious freedom, of course, conveniently forgetting that, if everyone found a religious objection to some aspect of the job they do and employers meekly bowed to it, the world as we know it would collapse.

Gays not good enough to adopt, it seems

A paediatrician has been allowed to resume work on an adoption panel after getting the push for refusing to recommend same-sex couples as adoptive parents for children.

“Dr Sheila Matthews had been removed from Northamptonshire [UK] County Council’s adoption panel because she was not willing to recommend gay couples as suitable candidates to become adoptive parents,” says the Sunday Telegraph.

However, the council has now decided that “she can continue with the central part of her role – conducting medical examinations of would-be adoptive parents and children waiting to be adopted. She will not be allowed to take part in the adoption panel’s votes on whether candidates would make suitable parents.”

A small victory for common sense, then. But get this: “There is research which supports my position that a same-sex partnership is not the best family setting to bring up children. As a Christian and a paediatrician I believe that children do best with a mother and father in a committed, long-term relationship. Therefore, I cannot recommend a same-sex household to be in the best interest of a child, despite what politicians may have legislated for.”

“As a Christian and a paediatrician” she has come to these conclusions. However, she’s paid to be a paediatrician, not a Christian. If the county council were paying her to be a Christian, too, it could deliberate on how well she’s doing in that role (very well, I would imagine, most Christians of that particular stripe being nutters).

But she’s paid as a paediatrician, and should do her job with that hat on and no other. As far as we know, the only drawback in placing kids with two mums or two dads is that they could get the piss taken out of them by peers. And why is that? It’s because there are Christians like this one who put it about that gays aren’t suitable for bringing up kids.

Failing to bring home the bacon

Another instance of how religion gets in the way of people’s work and the service they owe to others comes to us from the UK’s Mail.

Muslim care home owner “bans pensioners from eating bacon sandwiches”, says the headline.

The story tells us:

A Muslim care home owner has been branded “a disgrace” after banning his pensioner residents from eating bacon.

The 40 pensioners – none of them Muslim – were shocked when all pork products were cut off the menu by owner Dr Zulfikar Ali Khan.

He stopped deliveries from the butcher who supplied the home for years and instead ordered halal-meat only from another firm.

Bacon sarnies are a favourite at the home, and this chap, according to the Mail, didn’t even consult the residents.

Now he may have an objection to having dead pig on his plate, and no one’s asking him to eat it. But, if his job involves handling it and he wishes not to, he’s in the wrong job. However, he says the residents are now able to have whatever meat they want.

If he did refuse to serve them the meat they wanted, then he is a disgrace.

One unnamed member of staff said it was quite wrong for him to impose his cultural and religious beliefs on others. Not only is it a question of not allowing pork, it seems, but insisting that other meats be halal only – in other words, killed cruelly to satisfy religious whims, and allowed to be so by our supine government, which makes exceptions for Muslims in its rules on animal slaughter.

If this chap has changed his ways, then fine. But it’s time this sort of behaviour was stamped on.
__________
Related links:
In favour of animal suffering
Animals suffer to appease Muslim prisoners
Whingeing Muslim loses employment case

If you act gay, get another job

It’s not hard to find at least one subject Islam and Christianity agree on: it’s called being gay.

We see an example of it in Holland at the moment, where, in a row over whether superstition-based schools should be able to sack teachers just for being gay, a representative of Islamic Schools, Yusuf Altuntas, has said “Judaism, Christianity and Islam disapprove of acting gay [. . .] If that is what you are, apply at a different school”.

“The Council of State – the highest advisory body in the Netherlands – was consulted by the ruling coalition on whether religious schools should be allowed to exclude gay teachers,” writes Robert Pigott, the BBC’s religious affairs correspondent, in the story linked to above.

“Now its advice has been leaked, and has raised questions about how far the rights of religious schools should be extended.”

Article One of the Dutch constitution says that “all persons in the Netherlands shall be treated equally in equal circumstances. Discrimination on the grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race or sex or on any other grounds whatsoever shall not be permitted.”

On “any other grounds whatsoever”? Sounds a bit all-embracing. They wouldn’t discriminate against an axe murderer?

Anyway, Dutch law, it seems, currently says that even schools that treat the Bible as their foundation are not allowed to discriminate against a teacher for the “single fact” of her sexual orientation.

“But the Council of State suggests that the single-fact provision should be scrapped,” says Pigott, “and says religious schools may exclude homosexual teachers whose behaviour violates the school’s values, even if it takes place in their private life.”

Whether religious or not, schools are employers, and employers should all have to work under the same equality laws. Anything else is just pandering to bigoted, discriminatory, not to say Dark Ages, attitudes.