Behind closed doors

So now we know (well, we probably knew, anyway) just where the British National Party stand on being gay. It's OK behind closed doors. They have nothing against it, you understand.

In an interview with the BBC in the lead-up to the London mayoral elections, the BNP's candidate, Richard Barnbrook, speaks of immigration, racism and sexuality. On immigration, he emphasises that the the party is not against immigrants themselves, but against the establishment. He says that "our own governing powers" fear they'll be called racist if they stand up to immigration. In today's climate, that may well be true.

And so to racism. "We're not racist at all," he maintains. "We do not perceive one person's religion, identity, culture or way of life as being better or worse than our own, we are simply different." (My emphasis.)

But now we move to sexuality, and find some inconsistency in Barnbrook's views, regurgitated in Pink News. If "way of life" is included in the above, why does he then say, "You can be gay behind closed doors, you can be heterosexual behind closed doors, but you don't bring it onto the streets, demanding more rights for it"?

By "it" one can only conclude that he means homosexuality only, and not heterosexuality, too, since one assumes he and male friends are to be seen coming "onto the streets" with their female companions, publicising mixed-sex marriages by having banns read in church, putting notices in papers, marrying in public. And Mr Barnbrook would not mind too much if I kissed a woman in the street, but would object if I kissed a man. (And I don't mean a lip-locking, face-sucking, squelchy spectacular here, since that could be seen as offensive irrespective of who's doing it. No, just a show of affection.)

So can we assume, then, that "it" refers to homosexuality, not heterosexuality? The Pink News story doesn't tell us.

Find out more about the BNP's attitude towards homosexuality at this page of its website (scroll down to Question ii). It may not be as bad as many believe, but it's pretty shocking stuff. There's a huge gay vote in London. I can't see that Mr Barnbrook will get many pink crosses, somehow.

(Candidates contesting the Mayor of London election are: Ken Livingstone (Labour), Boris Johnson (Conservative), Brian Paddick (Lib Dem), Sian Berry (Green), Alan Craig (Christian People's Alliance), Matt O'Connor (English Democrats), Richard Barnbrook (BNP), Lindsey German (Left List), Gerard Batten (UKIP), Winston McKenzie (Independent).)

No sex-offender therapy, please – we're Muslims

Seems that Muslims – for entirely religious reasons – are going to escape the sex-offender therapy that all non-Muslims will have to undergo, if this story in the London Times is to be believed.

"Ahtsham Ali, the prison service’s Muslim adviser, said that there was a 'legitimate Islamic position' that criminals should not discuss their crimes with others," the story says.

For starters, who is paying for a "Muslim adviser" for our prison service? We, the taxpayers? Do all groups who subscribe to whatever batty belief systems get special advisers to plead their cases?

For seconds, what is a "legitimate Islamic position". Legitimised by whom? By what law? It's an Islamic position, yes, but a legitimate Islamic position? Define your terms, please, Mr Ali.

And why are the followers of one particular belief system saying they should be excepted from therapy? Because "open discussion of their crimes is against their religion", says The Times.

But they've committed crimes, for goodness' sake, haven't they? Perhaps we could claim that being locked up in the first place is against our religion. That any punishment for crime is against our religion. That facing trial is against our religion, or even being arrested is against our religion. Yeah, let's invent a religion and do that.

Ali now plans to hold discussions with officials in the Ministry of Justice. He told Inside Time, the prisoners’ newspaper (quoted here in the Times story), "I will be taking it forward as a matter of some urgency with colleagues, including those with policy responsibility for the sex offender treatment programme, who are very willing to discuss these issues."

I bet they're "very willing" to discuss them. Those in authority in Britain can't leap high enough, it seems, when the Muslim says jump. It would be a shame if, by insisting on equality for all, they were accused of racism (even though a religion is not a race). Oh, dear, that wouldn't do.

A spokeswoman for the prison service tells The Times, "We are seeking to ensure that the policy for the sex offender treatment programme is sensitive to the diversity of religions within the prison context."

Why? What about being sensitive to the victims and potential victims of sex crimes? What about being sensitive to those who undergo the therapy but see their mate from C wing avoiding it?

It could, of course, backfire on the Muslims. Mark Leech, editor of The Prisons Handbook, says in The Times that a change could lead to Muslims spending longer in prison because their risk of reoffending could not be assessed.

The carnality of religion; the purpose of art

"Pictures depicting Jesus being fondled and the Apostles groping each other have caused outrage after they were displayed in a museum attached to Vienna's Roman Catholic Cathedral."

That intro from Britain's Daily Telegraph almost says it all.

The most controversial picture in this exhibition entitled Religion, Flesh and Power (a title that is itself pretty expressive), has been taken down after the said outrage. The exhibition is by the sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka, who celebrates his eightieth birthday this year and is fêted all over his native Austria.

Some Catholics have branded some of the pics "blasphemous". But they would say that, wouldn't they?

"Vienna's archbishop, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, has now ordered the 'homosexual orgy' picture, entitled Leonardo's Last Supper, to be taken down," says the Telegraph.

Now, this here cardinal says it's nothing to do with censorship, but the picture was removed with "reverence for the sacred". But isn't all censorship done for a reason, sensible or otherwise? Who is to say what is sacred? What is sacred to Schoenborn is clearly not going to be sacred to many others.

Once again, believers in sky fairies want censorship when artists take an unusual look at historical and/or mythological personages, if those personages happen to figure in their own preferred mythology, the one they choose to believe is true.

But this is what art is about. It's about looking at things in a way that isn't literal, so the viewer can see things in a different way. If art stuck literally to facts it wouldn’t be art. It’s meant to go beyond, and present concepts in ways that challenge us and make us think about things in fresh and unusual ways.

The notes accompanying the exhibition say that Hrdlicka's work focuses on the carnality of religion, and on the search for "God as a human experience".

This film has gone away

"This film won't go away," we said in an earlier post today. Well, it has gone away in Indonesia, at least, where we reported last week that the country would block access if the film was not removed from YouTube. It hasn't been removed from YouTube, therefore it has been blocked.

That's it, then. If you can't argue with something, ban it. Simple, really.

Hat tip to MediaWatchWatch.

This film won't go away

Defenders of free expression will be delighted that a court has refused to ban Fitna, the Internet-based film criticising the Koran.

"A group representing Dutch Muslims had sought an injunction banning right-wing politician Geert Wilders' film Fitna," says this PA story, "which links terror attacks by Muslim extremists with texts from the Koran.

"In a written judgment a civil judge at The Hague District Court said Mr Wilders' right to free speech allows him to criticise radical Islam and passages from the Muslim holy book.

"Mr Wilders put the film on the internet the day before lawyers representing the Netherlands Islamic Federation argued it should be outlawed because it was insulting to Muslims."

See our previous stories on Fitna here, here and here. And you can view it by clicking the central arrow in the embedded link below.

When do personal rights have to be sacrificed?

You're a woman about to give birth. You are told you need a big blood transfusion, or you may die. However, your religion says you can't have a blood transfusion. You die. Your twin babies are delivered. They're fine. They're healthy. But they'll never have had a mother.

It's not a thought experiment in ethics, but a real situation. Twenty-two-year-old Emma Gough was a Jehovah's Witness, but died after giving birth to her twins at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in the UK.

There's just been an inquest into her death, but the coroner hasn't yet recorded a verdict. Did she in effect take her own life? Will it be a misadventure verdict? We should know later this week.

It will all be academic to the twins. OK, they will not miss their mother, because they'll never know what it's like to have one – not a biological one, anyway. She won't even be a memory. But they'll grow up in a world of kids who have mothers, and, while not all kids still have their mothers, this pair could have had theirs.

Coroner John Ellery said the inquest was an exploration of the circumstances of her death, not of her faith. And that is the way with inquests. They deal in facts, evidence. However, it was her choice of religion that motivated her to give up her life rather than accept blood, and that is a fact.

Contrary to what shrieking atheist bashers would have you believe, there are atheists – perhaps many atheists, perhaps most atheists – who believe people should be free to live according to religious beliefs if that's what they wish and if it's their choice, freely made. Religion may have brought good into some people's lives. For others it may have provided a model that's helped them work through problems.

But does that right extend to imposing its unwanted consequences on others? Discuss.

Melanie talks Balls

If you read last Thursday's story about how religious schools (I refuse to use the fluffy term "faith schools" without the distancing effect of quotation marks, thank you very much) are said to be flouting admissions policy, you'll be interested in this setting-the-record-straight piece from Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail, who has a good go at the UK's Schools Minister Ed Balls.

You might expect her to defend religious schools, because they're, well, religious and Mel's a bit weird that way. But she also has a lot to say about dumbed-down British education, much of which I'm inclined to agree with.

She makes the point – she makes a lot of points, but this is interesting – that Balls's department doesn't even have the word education in it: it's called the Department for Children, Schools and Families (she says "Department of", but let's not get too picky).

"It now turns out," Phillips writes, "that most of these breaches [of admissions policy] were technicalities that [Balls] blew up out of all proportion. The most damning charge was of 'cash for places' – but when that was looked at more closely, it fell apart altogether. [. . .] [T]here is not a shred of evidence that these schools have demanded cash as a condition of awarding a place, like some kind of classroom protection racket. It is a grotesque smear."

Without something approaching a forensic examination of it all, it's impossible to say who's telling the truth and who's telling the porkies, but what is telling is that, according to Philips, Balls admits that his charge was based on "unverified desk research", which is, says Mel, "a fancy way of saying he had plucked it out of the air".

Well, you can't expect rigour from products of a dumbed-down education system, I suppose (though I suspect some of Mr Balls's researchers are quite clever in some things, if only in telling us how good our dumbed-down education system is).

It's dumbed down in two respects, you might say: as hinted at above and in the fact that taxpayers' money is allowed to subsidise (and, in the case of state institutions, pay for) "faith schools" in the first place.

The magistrate, the singer and the solidophiles

A justice of the peace in Wales has agreed not to sit while an inquiry gets under way into comments in a TV documentary, in which he said gays were paedophiles.

Byron Butler's comments came in a Week In, Week Out episode called "The Only Gay in the Village" on BBC1 Wales, in which he was interviewed by the former Steps singer H, or Ian Watkins, himself gay. Watkins had gone back to his home town of Cwmparc, where he grew up. The programme went out last month. Watkins has since called for the magistrate to be stripped of his JP's role.

Butler, a 67-year-old retired butcher, said of gays, "We haven't got much time for them." Bizarrely, he continued, "Well, I think probably it's a suspicion of the mainstream that they perhaps will interfere with young people and so on and that's historically been the case. That is the danger. Paedophiles, solidophiles [sic], not necessarily, but they do, don't they? That's the reality." (The "[sic]" is the BBC's, by the way.)

A complaint about his comments was made to the Office of Judicial Complaints after the programme was screened.

An outraged H says, "I was dumbfounded by his comments – and I was even more shocked when I found out he is a magistrate sitting in judgement on people. There's no way I believe he can be fair and impartial with people when he makes comments about gay people being paedophiles. It's just so outrageous.

"There's absolutely no evidence to back up what he says and it's very offensive. The world's changed and Wales has changed so much."

You can see more about the programme and Watkins's experience of growing up gay here.

Oh, by the way, have fun trying to track down the word solidophile.

A torch for Tibet

When it comes to the issue of Tibet and the 2008 Chinese Olympic Games, politicians and athletes alike argue that politics shouldn't be brought into it. But the inescapable fact is that politics are a part of it. The irony is that a successful Olympic Games in China will be useful politically for the Chinese authorities, and they are well aware of this.

I do have sympathy with athletes who say they've been training for these games for many years and this could be the only chance they get, and I agree with the point made by Steve Redgrave in the Telegraph recently that boycotts should be fair and even-handed, which they often are not.

Sporting events are an easy and relatively painless way for hypocritical governments to pretend that they care about the plights of others. In 1980, for example, the US government led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics because of the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan, but continued to sell grain to the Soviets.

Why is it that Western leaders, who when it suits can't wait to denounce foreign regimes or wage illegal wars on sovereign states, are being so lacklustre in their treatment of the Chinese authorities?

Despite French President Nicolas Sarkozy's determination to try to hold the Chinese government to account, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown justifies his own determination to attend the opening ceremony in Beijing because "the Dalai Lama himself has said that he does not want to see a boycott of the Olympics". Well, if I remember correctly, the Dalai Lama also wants to see his people free of Chinese oppression, so what is Brown's answer to that? Perhaps he should listen to Joanna Lumley and support her call to the International Olympic Committee (IOC):

The Olympic Charter defines the Olympic ideals as: "respect for universal ethical fundamental principles". Despite being the host for the 2008 Games, the Chinese government has shown clear contempt for such values in its recent brutal crackdown in Tibet. The IOC must therefore break its silence on China's human rights record and defend its own Charter's values. The best place to start would be by insisting that the Olympic Torch is not allowed into Tibet. China's parading the torch triumphantly in front of a cowed and repressed Tibetan population would be an abhorrent sight for anyone concerned with true Olympic values.

I support the Dalai Lama’s call for a Tibet free from Chinese oppression, but have to ask whether he would have the same enthusiasm for the liberation of the Tibetan people from the age-old tyranny of the Buddhist establishment he heads.

You can read more about the Free Tibet Campaign here.

Matthew's passion for argument

Matthew Parris has a go at Blair. It's good to see the silly twit royally torn apart with a schoolmasterly analysis of what he said in London the other night. Parris doesn't give him many marks out of ten.

Parris ends his piece with this:

Plainly Tony Blair does believe in God. A political career showered with good fortune has proved that God believes in Mr Blair, so perhaps Tony judges it only polite to return the compliment. But there, for all our sakes, the exchange of pleasantries should end.

But what leads up to it is a joy to read. So read. Enjoy.

Iranian exile in UK soon?

Mehdi Kazemi, the nineteen-year-old Iranian gay man who fears for his life if he's returned to Iran, could be in the UK very soon, according to the Dutch.

Kazemi fled after his boyfriend was executed in Tehran for being gay, after, it is thought, naming Mehdi as a gay man. He came to the UK, where he was studying, and applied for asylum, but was refused. So he fled to Holland. Holland is now about to send him back, as is custom, to the country from which he fled, and says it has confidence in the British asylum system.

One Dutch MP, Boris van der Ham, fears the British will deport Kazemi, yet the Dutch justice minister has said she will not be seeking reassurances from the Home Office here.

See the full story here.

The Independent ran a campaign to save Kazemi from being sent back to Iran: see here, here, here and here.

Blair thinks religion will solve the world's problems

Newbie Catholic Tony Blair wants religion to be put centre-stage in solving the world's problems.

In the first of a lecture series organised by the head of Catholics in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Blair said last night that religious faith should be rescued from extremism, and be made to "awaken the world's conscience".

His address was on faith and globalisation, and was given to about 1,600 people at Westminster Cathedral, outside which protesters from the Stop the War Coalition tried to create a wall of sound to drown out his message, which they say is hypocritical given his decision to take us into a war in Iraq. There was also a silent demonstration by a Catholic group. Pax Christi UK.

In his talk, Blair warned against the "extremist and exclusionary tendency in religion today", conveniently forgetting that religion through the ages has played its part in national and international affairs, often with devastating results, and not always from the "extremes". You've only to think of the Inquisitions* in the accepted church of the day, the Catholic Church, and that church's current twisting of facts and attempts to strong-arm governments and followers to its way of thinking. You might think it's time to let religions take a back seat and hand over the world into entirely secular hands.

Blair's own church has tried to silence child abuse, has lied about the efficacy of condoms and has put undue pressure on politicians, who are elected by the people, not by those of any particular religion and certainly not by the Catholic Church, and who are not answerable to Rome, but to Parliament and the people. Is this the less extreme end of religion that he sees saving the world?

And is this the obscenely wealthy church that has added to the Seven Deadly Sins one about being obscenely wealthy? The church that has covered up kiddy-fiddling and added paedophilia to the list? Can we put faith in a man who, as a fifty-plus-year-old adult, has freely chosen to become a member of that church and who talks about how religion should be at the forefront of solving the world's problems?

Blair also gave details about his Faith Foundation, which is to be launched later this year.
__________
*The philospher A C Grayling has a few choice words about the Catholic Church's history of being thoroughly nasty to people in this article in the Guardian's "Comment is Free" slot.

Unholy row over "faith" schools

An unholy row has developed between the UK government and religious schools and their supporters over allegations that some schools are flouting admissions policy.

At the centre is the Schools Secretary Ed Balls, who is accused of an outrageous attack on 87 Jewish, Anglican and Catholic schools and undermining their religious ethos.

"The schools were reprimanded for using banned admissions policies to weed out children from poor homes, including charging parents up-front fees for ostensibly free state education," according to a story in the Daily Telegraph, which continues:

One Anglican and five Jewish schools were identified as asking for "voluntary" contributions as a condition of entry. One Jewish primary wanted almost £2,700 a year for extra security and Jewish studies classes, which are not funded by the taxpayer.

Balls is accused of trying to divert attention from the fact that 100,000 parents failed to get their their kids into the schools of their choice.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said in a statement, "All parties accept that financial contributions must be voluntary. It is important to remember that these are primarily fees for security or religious instruction, neither of which is paid for by the Government."

Nor should "religious instruction" be paid for by the government. But security? What do they mean? Do they need extra security over and above other buildings? If so, what is the threat? If there's an identifiable, constant threat, where are the police? But we digress.

Kevin Hoare, head of Finchley Catholic High School, spoke on behalf of other heads in the borough, describing the list as a "smokescreen" and accusing the government of attacking religious schools.

"There is an anti-faith-schools agenda at the moment and this may be part of it," he said.

Given the British government's willingness to kowtow to people of questionable beliefs of all stripes and hues, is this a credible accusation? Has there been such a sea change since disturbingly religious Tony Blair left office?

For his part, Balls insists that there's no war on religion-based education, insisting that the Catholic Education Service, Church of England and Board of Deputies of British Jews back the new admissions code. The schools' "credibility" depends on their operating fair admissions, he says, and has ordered town halls to crack down on schools flouting admissions rules.

Anti-homophobia books removed after religious protest

Books aimed at discouraging kids from homophobic bullying have been removed from two Bristol (UK) primary schools after protests from mainly Muslim parents.

The parents complained that the story books had been introduced without consultation (all other books are, presumably, introduced only after all parents have approved).

Bristol Council says it's temporarily withdrawn the books from Easton Primary School and Bannerman Road Community School and Children's Centre so it could "meet [its] legal responsibilities and operate safely". Operate safely? That's ominous.

Farooq Siddique, community development officer for Bristol Muslim Cultural Society, says, "In Islam homosexual relationships are not acceptable, as they are not in Christianity and many other religions, but the main issue is that they didn't bother to consult with parents. There was no option to withdraw the child.

"One of the library books was a fairytale about a king who couldn't find a woman to love and eventually married a prince. This was for children aged five to read."

One assumes a child of five would be OK reading about a king who married a princess, Mr Siddique. In children's stories in Western culture, young people are exposed to man–woman relationships all the time, whether it's a prince kissing a beautiful sleeping princess or Cinderella marrying Prince Charming. Let's pose some questions to Mr Siddique.

• Would you wish to be consulted before "The Sleeping Beauty" was read to children or appeared in a school book?
• Are children not exposed to the idea of woman–man relationships as soon as they become aware of Mummy and Daddy and of Auntie Flo and Uncle Bert?
• Are same-sex relationships not legal in this country?
• Are civil partnerships not legal in this country?
• Are young children not going to be aware of same-sex relationships in real life (and we’re not talking about sex here, just visible relationships, in the home, in the street, on the telly)?
• So where is the harm in introducing them to this concept in stories?

Just asking.

Big Ben: comedian stands up to Beeb over Islam

The UK comedian and writer Ben Elton has told the BBC it's stifling jokes about Islam. The corporation was too "scared", he said.

According to the Press Association and other outlets, he's told a Christian magazine called Third Way, "I think it all starts with people nodding whenever anyone says, 'As a person of faith . . .' And I believe that part of it is due to the genuine fear that the authorities and the community have about provoking the radical elements of Islam.

"There's no doubt about it, the BBC will let vicar gags pass but they would not let imam gags pass. They might pretend that it's, you know, something to do with their moral sensibilities, but it isn't. It's because they're scared."

He says he wanted to use the phrase "Mohammed came to the mountain" but people told him, "Oh, don't! Just don't go there!" Yet he was not even referring directly to Islam so much as to an old proverb: "If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain."

The 48-year-old comedian tells the magazine, "I'm quite certain that the average Muslim does not want everybody going around thinking, 'We can't mention you. We've just got to pretend you don't exist because we're scared that somebody who claims to represent you will threaten to kill us.' "

Predictably, the BBC denies Elton's claims. No subject is off limits for BBC comedy, a spokesman says, adding, "The treatment should not cause harm or offence as defined by the BBC's editorial guidelines or breach other BBC guidelines. There is no evidence that the BBC is afraid to tackle difficult subjects."

But how is "offence" defined? As we've seen so often with the Motoons affair, the drawing of a cartoon has "offended" Muslims the world over, when the passive voice is more appropriate: Muslims have been offended by. Or, more accurately, chosen to take offence at.

If you fancy a bit of satire about this story, try this one in The Spoof!.

Take film down or else! says Indonesia

Indonesia says YouTube should remove Geert Wilders's anti-Islam film Fitna from its website.

The Indonesian Information Minister, Mohammad Nuh, has written to the video host, saying that, if it doesn't do as he says, his government and ISPs will block access to the site.

To its eternal credit, YouTube says the site allows people "to express themselves and to communicate with a global audience". It continues:

The diversity of the world in which we live – spanning the vast dimensions of ethnicity, religion, nationality, language, political opinion, gender, and sexual orientation, to name a few – means that some of the beliefs and views of some individuals may offend others.

You can read more on this over at MediaWatchWatch and at Crosswalk.com. And you can see the video by going to our earlier story and clicking on the picture.

Stonewall will ask about religion

We've had an update from the gay lobby group Stonewall after we asked yesterday why religion wasn't mentioned in a survey they commissioned from YouGov (see original story below or here). Yes, Stonewall will tackle religious homophobia, we're glad to report.

I emailed Stonewall for a comment after our story and have now received this from their communications director, Vicky Powell:

We’re actually working on a survey around religion and gay people’s experiences of discrimination at the moment. This will be released later in the year.

We're obviously glad to hear it, and will look out for the report.

Now you see it, now you don't – now you do again

Geert Wilders's unsubtle and predictable, but some would say necessary, film Fitna is back on LiveLeak. It was taken down (as you may remember from this story) after representatives of the "religion of peace" threatened to do violence to LiveLeak staff.

But now they've reinstated it, and you can see it here.

Depending on where you read the news and which link you click on, you could find a message on the LiveLeak website saying, "This media item has been removed by the uploader! [. . .] will upload edited version shortly . . ."

It's not clear without a frame-by-frame comparison whether the new link above is the edited version or not.

Anyway, in the event of difficulties, you can still see the vid on YouTube or by going to our earlier story, where you can watch it without leaving this blog.

Hat tip Lawhawk, MediaWatchWatch

Homophobia – Stonewall report says it's still out there, but with no mention of religion

The gay-rights lobby group Stonewall says gay people still fear widespread discrimination. Yet there's no mention in its latest report of religion.

The report, carried out for the organisation by YouGov, says that 90 per cent of gay people expect barriers to becoming a foster parent, a quarter expect to be treated worse by police if they're victims of hate crimes and nearly a fifth are still bullied at work.

Despite recent legislative changes such as the age of consent and the right to form civil partnerships,

a majority still believe they will be discriminated against when accessing public services. Almost a third expect to be treated worse than a heterosexual when enrolling their child in primary or secondary school. Nine in ten think they would face barriers from becoming a foster parent. Three in five still think they'd face barriers if they wanted to be a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party, a figure that rises to 90 per cent for the Conservatives.

The full report can be downloaded as a PDF. You'll need Adobe Reader to be able to read it, but you can download it free here.

Conspicuous by its absence is mention of how badly gay people are treated by religious bodies, especially the evangelical Christian right, Catholicism and Islam.

Among the report findings are that:

• One in five expects worse treatment when applying for social housing.
• Sixty per cent expect to face barriers to becoming a magistrate.
• A fifth expect to be treated worse than a heterosexual when reporting any crime to the police, and a third think they would be treated worse by police if suspected of committing a crime, a figure that rises to 41 per cent in London.
• Nearly a quarter think they would be treated worse if they appeared before a judge for committing a criminal offence.

The report is called Serves You Right, and also makes a range of recommendations offering simple ways of improving public service delivery for lesbian and gay people. But of course there are no recommendations about how to improve one's lot if one is discriminated against by the church, the mosque or the synagogue, whether as a believer wanting to be part of that religious "family" or as someone who, as so often happens, is harshly criticised by these organisations merely for being of a particular sexual orientation.

Were Stonewall afraid to ask these questions?

When one religion wants it all its own way

Is the UN’s Human Rights Council favouring one particular religion over other religions and those of no religion at all? According to some activists, it wants to restrict free speech in order to do just that.

And they’re not too happy about it.

“The 47-nation Council passed resolutions on Friday,” says this Reuters story, “imposing new instructions for its investigator on freedom of expression which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said bowed too far to concerns about defamation of Islam, which have flared again with a Dutch lawmaker’s [Geert Wilders’s] film on the Islamic holy book the Koran.”

The French group Reporters Without Borders is quoted as saying, “All of the Council’s decisions are nowadays determined by the interests of Muslim countries or powerful states such as China or Russia that know how to surround themselves with allies.”

And the International Unionist and Ethical Union (IHEU) says the Council “stands exposed as no longer capable of fulfilling its central role: the promotion and protection of human rights” in a report that includes this disturbing paragraph:

With the support of their allies including China, Russia and Cuba (none well-known for their defence of human rights) the Islamic States succeeded in forcing through an amendment to a resolution on Freedom of Expression that has turned the entire concept on its head. The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression will now be required to report on the “abuse” of this most cherished freedom by anyone who, for example, dares speak out against Sharia laws that require women to be stoned to death for adultery or young men to be hanged for being gay, or against the marriage of girls as young as nine, as in Iran.

The Reuters story continues:

Some Western and Latin American Council members who first helped draft the freedom of expression resolution, including main sponsor Canada, withdrew support when it came to a vote, saying it had been radically changed by amendments.

One of these, from Pakistan for the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), decreed the investigator must “report on instances in which the abuse of the right of freedom of expression constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination”.

See Ophelia Benson’s excellent take on this over at Butterflies and Wheels.