Bumbling Boris backs the bigots

Good old Boris Johnson is in hot water again. This time it’s for attending a service at a church that does so-called gay exorcisms.

The floppy-haired posh-git Mayor of London – gosh! – was there last night at Jesus House Church in Barnet. This church is led by Pastor Agu Irukwu and is part of some nonsense called the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

Peter Tatchell, the gay human-rights campaigner, says Johnson has made a big mistake.

No, Peter. He’s a politician. We suppose he knows what he’s doing. Politicians usually blow with the wind. If they were honest all the time they wouldn’t get votes from important sections of their constituencies.

Johnson wouldn’t want to upset the black Christian vote, now would he?

His press office have said that barmy Boris was attending the bigots’ mumbo-jumbo “to kick off a host of festive celebrations across the capital” and that he will later attend services in Southwark Cathedral and Trafalgar Square.

Er, does that excuse it?

People’s comfort? Nah! Prayer is more important!

A call to prayer cannot be under any “circumstance or instances be equated to a sound or noise that is undesirable or nuisance”.

Oh, really?

Well, that’s the opinion of Muslims – but of course – in Kenya, where they’re being urged to ignore the Noise and Excessive Vibration Pollution (Control) Regulations, 2009.

According to this story, the regulations are meant to ensure the comfort of people in residential areas, a town’s central business district and quiet zones.

But the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, Alhaj Adan Wachu, says the Islamic call to prayer is usually transmitted through a loud speaker that is “controllable and unharmful to human health and environment”.

Who’s talking about harm? We’re talking about the freedom from having to hear amplified wailing in the streets five times a day.

Rowan the betrayer

It’s hardly surprising that a close friend – and a gay friend, to boot – of the Archwizard of Cant, Dr Rowan Williams, has branded his former mentor a betrayer over his silence on the evils that could be visited on gays in Uganda.

According to a a story in The Times, 64-year-old Rev. Colin Coward – who lives with a gay man and preaches often at his church in Salisbury – was tutored by Williams in theological college, who knew Coward was gay and seemed quite relaxed about that.

“He said that about a quarter of the 50-plus students at his Cambridge theological college were gay,” says the paper, “and this was accepted by the Church of that era. Dr Williams was a tutor at Westcott House, a liberal college, from 1977 to 1980.”

In spite of not speaking out about the Uganda situation, Williams saw fit to comment on – although he didn’t condemn outright – the election of Mary Glasspool as a suffragan bishop in Los Angeles within the Episcopal Church.

Coward tells The Times, “What he is saying about the bishop in the US and what he is not saying about Uganda is disastrous. It just affirms the image of the Church of England as a place of prejudice and homophobia. I don’t think this is the end for the Church, but the future is difficult to predict.

“I am sure he is still the man I knew as being inclusive. I think he must be torn about inside.”

Coward was in parish ministry for 15 years before he left to set up a group called Changing Attitude, which lobbies for acceptance of gay men and women in the Anglican Communion.

“Archbishop Rowan is wrong as a Christian, he is wrong for the Church of England and he is wrong for the Anglican Communion,” he’s quoted as saying.

Coward said the bishop who ordained him, the late Mervyn Stockwood of Southwark, also knew he was actively gay.

Christmas paedomouse

Following on from the Ann Summers story that we reported on earlier today, something else Christmas-y has caught our eye.

A “Made in China” novelty toy mouse dressed in a Santa hat has been withdrawn from sale in the UK by the company that distributes it, following claims that the filthy rodent sings the words “paedophile, paedophile”.

The Sun claims in its Mouse toy in “paedo” song ban story that one mother said, “When I squeezed its tummy I couldn’t believe my ears. I recognised the tune, but the words were certainly not traditional. Luckily my children are too young to understand.”

Apparently, the £2.99 toy is meant to sing “Jingle Bells” but, as reported in the Sun, according to a spokesman for the distributors, Humatt, of Ferndown, Dorset, the man providing the voice had been unable to pronounce certain sounds and the recording had become garbled after it was speeded up to make it high-pitched. He said, “We’ve slowed the song down and it definitely says ‘Jingle Bells’. But we have recalled them now just in case anybody might take offence.”

However, a number of the toy mice have been put up for sale as “Rude Singing Christmas Mouse” on the online auction site eBay, by the seller jewishcowboy2.0, who describes the toy as:

Genuine “Not so squeaky clean Mouse” as seen in the Sun Newspaper

This is your chance to be one of the few to own a genuine “paedophi**, paedophi**” singing christmas mouse. This 4inch plush soft toy warbles out the Chrismas classic “Jingle Bells” when squeezed.

However as reported in the Sun newspaper 07/12/09 the cheeky like mite sounds like it is singing something completely different indeed!

The “Not so squeaky clean Mouse” is fast becoming a cult classic toy for Christmas this year and is a perfect and hilarious stocking filler.

This product was recalled by the maker after complaints of a “distasteful nature” were made. I purchased the Mice direct in bulk and can therefore guarantee that I am the only seller of this Item on Ebay.

Thanks to the Guardian, you can decide for yourselves by clicking here to hear!

What’s wrong with a horny Christmas?

Planning to have a horny Christmas this year? At least one person doesn’t like the idea – well, he doesn’t like the idea that such a concept is being incorporated into a display that, horror of horrors, Christians might see and be offended by.

He’s a priest, of course.

He’s Chris Dalliston, Dean of Newcastle, who’s objecting to an Ann Summers window in the city’s Grainger Street.

The City Council received a complaint about the display. But officials there say that, although they have deemed it “inappropriate”, they have no powers to force the shop to take it down.

And why on earth should anyone force the shop to take it down? And on what grounds does the City Council deem it “inappropriate”? Because it’s at Christmas, and mentions Christmas?

So we’re back to claiming midwinter festivities for just one section of the community, are we?

Ah, but, this dog-collared chappie might say, it’s the use of the word “Christmas”. Well it was your lot who foisted that word on the rest of us when Christians imposed their own festival on existing midwinter festivities. You can’t have it both ways. We now call it Christmas. Be happy with that.

If Ann Summers had a shop window saying have a horny midwinter festival, you can bet your bottom the Christians would be bleating about how they’re taking the Christ out of Christmas and calling it something else.

No, for better or worse, and by historical convention, it’s called Christmas. We’re used to it. Most of us – atheists included – are happy with that name. And, as a season, it belongs to us all, not just Christians, so Mr Dalliston has no claim on it other than within the context of his church.

If he wants to object to any perceived misuse of it among his flock, he can take it up with them.

Uganda evil? Silence! Election of a gay bishop? Archbishop of Cant has words to say!

While the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have refused to speak out against the evils that could be visited on gays in Uganda with MP David Bahati’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, the former, Dr Rowan Williams, has seen fit to comment on the election of an openly gay bishop in the USA.

Mary Glasspool has been elected in Los Angeles; her position has yet to be ratified by Episcopal Church authorities. If it is, she’ll be the second openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion, after Gene Robinson of New Hampshire was elected and consecrated in 2003.

Williams hasn’t attacked the election of Glasspool, but has said that it raises “very serious questions” for the Anglican Communion.

He said that “the bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold”.

This is an agreement that there should be a moratorium on the appointment of gay bishops, but US Anglicans decided to overturn it in July this year.

As for the Uganda situation, you can sign a petition calling on Christian leaders to condemn the proposed Bill.

Heavyweight support

We heartily welcomed a newcomer to the blogosphere on this blog in early November and wished it well, but now a real heavyweight has come out and given Young Freethought his considerable blessing.

Young Freethought is a new blog restricted – with exceptions – mainly to the 16–21 age range, and promises to be a lively and challenging journal of articles and comments from young freethinkers.

One of its founders is Michael Campbell, who made Professor Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and several other seminal works, aware of Young Freethought, and Dawkins has responded with some kind words.

It is all too easy for debates about the role of religion to become inward-looking and academic [writes Dawkins to Campbell], but it really does matter. Every day, all across the world, millions of our fellow humans are diminished by religion: religion that may force them to mutilate their children, cover their hair or faces, stay silent when they have so much more to say than those who suppress them, surrender control over their reproduction, donate money they cannot afford, obey and submit to their inferiors, deny reality, forgo education, close their minds, reject proper medical care, suffer needlessly, be burdened by pointless guilt, and live with the spectre of eternal torment. Every day, religion works to recruit more victims, among the young, the sick, the poor and dispossessed, the old: anyone who is weak and vulnerable is a legitimate target in religion’s eyes.

Of course, in any civilised society people must be free to believe whatever they want, but this doesn’t mean those beliefs should be automatically shielded from challenge just because they are religious, and it certainly doesn’t mean they should be enshrined in law or promulgated by the state. It doesn’t mean that the state should abet churches and mosques and temples in trying to convert young minds in schools. It doesn’t mean that young people should be divided from one another throughout their all-important school lives purely because their parents happen to follow different creeds. It doesn’t mean we should allow our state broadcaster to perpetuate the myth that you need religion to be good. It doesn’t mean that the minority of people who are actively religious should have privileged access to our lawmakers, their opinions sought out by policy makers, their bishops sit, as of right, in the House of Lords, their representatives automatically packing government committees or Royal Commissions with an ethical brief. It doesn’t mean that our hard-pressed NHS should squander money paying chaplains out of its already over-stretched budgets. It doesn’t mean that schools should be obliged to force pupils into daily acts of worship.

Every major battle for the advancement of human rights has been won in the teeth of fierce religious opposition: whether it’s the abolition of slavery, equality for women or gays, freedom of speech, the abolition of the blasphemy law, the right of a woman to control her own fertility, or the right of the terminally ill to choose to end their suffering with dignity and medical assistance.

So, this really matters – in the real world and not just in internet chatrooms. Of course we must leave people in peace to practise religion if they so choose. But the rest of us must be left in peace to live our lives without it. The religious want more and more influence over government policy and, if they succeed, our society will be the poorer: less tolerant, less equal, less just, less educated, less rational. These issues should matter to all of us, but young people are the ones who should care most of all. You will inherit the societies that current governments leave behind. This is your future we are talking about, and the kind of society you want to live in.

If you want – and what decent person wouldn’t? – to live with the best Enlightenment values, live free and tolerant and committed to knowledge and education and reason, then you must speak up and let your voices be heard.

This is why I welcome this blog so wholeheartedly. You will shape our society’s future, and it is exhilarating to see you preparing to do so.

So well done, YF.

Another Gene Robinson

The USA has another Gene Robinson. He, you may recall, was the first and until now only openly gay bishop in the entire Anglican Church.

But now they Episcopal Church has done it again. Await ructions, as Christian is set against Christian, as swords are unsheathed, as battle commences with much wailing, rending of garments and gnashing of teeth.

Mary Glasspool, who hails from Baltimore, has been elected an assistant bishop in the Los Angeles diocese, although she needs a majority of national Episcopal Church heads to back her actual consecration.

It’s a simple argument, according to the BBC report linked to above: “Conservatives insist the Bible unequivocally outlaws homosexuality, whereas liberals believe the Bible should be reinterpreted in the light of contemporary wisdom.”

The story continues:

BBC religious affairs correspondent Chris Landau says that for an Anglican Communion already fracturing over the issue of homosexuality, this election is yet more evidence of the church’s divisions.
He says that for many in the US, electing openly homosexual bishops is simply a reflection of the diversity long affirmed by that Church.

[The] Episcopal Church leader, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, has said she will consecrate any bishop whose election follows the rules.

Mary Glasspool is 55 and has been a canon in the Diocese of Maryland for eight years, Associated Press news agency reports.

We’re sure this won’t go away in a hurry. And, if only two out of the entire Anglican Communion are out gays, how many are closeted gays? We suspect thousands. We can only hope that Glasspool will encourage others and the bigots will just have to accept that lots and lots of people are gay – get used to it!

_ _ _ _ _ _ mas

Oh, dear! Poor Christians – well, some bishop geezers, anyway – are worried that the Christ is being taken out of Christmas again.

They conveniently forget, of course, that Christ wasn’t there in the first place. Oh, it wasn’t called Christmas back then, of course, but the midwinter festivities, as we all know (and as Christians know only too well, also), were pushed to one side by the cuckoo in the nest that was Christianity.

It made sense. Get people to drop their traditions in favour of a new set of celebrations? No way! But infiltrate and you’re in. If you can do it fairly seamlessly, well, hey presto, you replace the old with the new.

According to the Daily Telegraph link we’ve provided above, the Bishop of Croydon, Nick Baines, has written somewhere that the language used in some traditional carols risks turning the nativity into “just one more story alongside the panto and fairy stories”.

The story doesn’t make it clear (and it ought), but I assume he’s referring to “inclusive” or “acceptable” words that have been substituted for the old in some traditional carols.

But, whatever, the irony obviously escapes him: “panto and fairy stories”? Er, yes, Bishop, you’ve hit the nail right on the head.

Ugandan Bill divides Christians in UK

Antigay Christians in the UK “have shown themselves to be confused, divided and plainly out of touch with Christian, as well as public, opinion” over the evil Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda.

So says Symon Hill, associate director of the religious think tank Ekklesia, in an article that first appeared in The Samosa.

“Those British Christians who regard all homosexual activity as unethical have long insisted that they are not prejudiced. They say they are criticising a behaviour, not a group of people, and that they do not want gay people to be persecuted,” says Hill.

“This assertion is central to the way in which they present themselves. The sincerity of their position is now being put to the test. And different groups and individuals are responding to that test very differently.”

He points out that, in Britain, the proposed legislation has been condemned by many gay-friendly Christian organisations, such as Ekklesia, Inclusive Church and Accepting Evangelicals.

But silence from other quarters worries Hill, who says that most denominations in the UK “have yet to make any formal statement on the issue”, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

Hill doesn’t think Williams is in favour of the legislation, just that he’s wary of upsetting the “traditional” wing of the Anglican Church (as far as I’m concerned, for “traditional wing”, read “bigoted dinosaur wing who might better serve what they claim to be the Christian way by obsessing less about what people do with their naughty bits and more about injustice and inequality).

Hill points out that a glance at the websites of many other “traditionalist” Christian organisations will yield not a mention of the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill. He singles out the Christian Institute and Christian Concern for Our Nation, both rabidly bigoted when it comes to matters of people’s natural sexuality – so much so that one doubts their members’ own sexuality (I’m saying that, not Hill).

One does wonder why people who are comfortable in their own bodies and own identities tend not to obsess too much about what others do with theirs. Not a scientific claim on my part, but one gained from observation.

Oi! Pipe down a bit!

You’re having a quiet nap or a drink with friends on the patio and suddenly there comes a great noise of guitars, drums, singing and shouting from a house across the street, disturbing your peace. You reason that a bit of noise is acceptable when people have to live together in towns and cities, but this is just too much.

Naturally, you ask the partygoers to turn down the noise a bit and, if it persists, you may decide to complain to the local authorities.

You’re having a quiet nap or a drink with friends on the patio and suddenly there comes a great noise of wailing, clapping of hands and shouts of “Hallelujah!” from a building across the road. It’s a church.

Somehow, the partygoers – er, worshippers – feel they ought to be let off the hook. It’s religion, you see.

This has happened in a district of Kenya (I’m sure it happens in other places, too, including in city areas here in good old Blighty).

But these wailing idiots are taking a case to court to challenge new rules on noise pollution.

“You cannot force worshippers who want to sing and shout in praise because even the Bible tells us to make a joyful noise to the Lord [. . .] We will sing and make noise in God’s praise even if they jail us or take us to court,” said Bishop Mark Kariuki of the Deliverance Church of Kenya.

Perhaps the best sort of deliverance for these nutcases would be deliverance to a remote part of the desert, where they could shout and wail to their hearts’ content.

No respect for no belief

I’ve been forced to ponder why a noted atheist who has written and spoken out against religious ideas should have been remembered at a religious event.

You may remember that Ludovic Kennedy, who died in October this year, was a lifelong atheist. He published An End to Belief? in 1984 and All in the Mind: A Farewell to God in 1999, in which he discussed his philosophical objections to religion, and the ills he felt had come from Christianity. He was a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association (BHA), an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society (NSS) and a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS).

In July 2001, he was one of the signatories to a letter published in the Independent, which urged the British government to reconsider its support for the expansion of state-funded “faith schools”, and, in 2003, was a signatory of the BHA petition calling for a public holiday on the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth.

Imagine my amazement, therefore, when I read in the UK’s Daily Telegraph that a memorial service had been held for him in Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford, at which the dean, the Very Rev. Christopher Lewis, gave “a Gaelic blessing” and the Very Rev. John Jury, chaplain Christ Church College, led prayers.

Would Kennedy be turning in his grave, if he had one, I wonder? I also wonder who would have been responsible for arranging such a highly inappropriate ceremony. And, in any case, don’t these God-botherers have any respect at all for a person’s nonbelief?

Uganda evil: the pressure builds

Just received the following news release from the European Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBT rights, which may be of interest to Pink Triangle readers. For some background on the vicious antigay Bill in Uganda, see here, here and here.

Africa Caribbean Pacific-EU Assembly: the European Union speaks up against the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill
The infamous Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 was vehemently discussed yesterday [Monday] in Luanda, Angola, during the 18th session of the ACP (African-Caribbean-Pacific)/EU (European Union) Joint Parliamentary Assembly.

In his opening speech to the plenary, Louis Michel, former Development Commissioner and Co-President of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly, denounced the draft law as attacking human rights, and called for the separation of religion from politics and mutual respect. During the discussion with the European Commission, and despite some ACP delegates insisting that they could do “what they wanted” in their own countries, Development Commissioner Karel De Gucht recalled that they had obligations under the Cotonou Agreement, as well as under International Conventions.

Following a negative response from a Ugandan delegate, this was echoed by other Members present, including Michael Cashman MEP [the gay former actor], Co-president of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBT Rights and Member of the European Parliament Development Committee.

“It is quite clear that this issue of state-sponsored homophobia has been building up for years, and now it is finally out of the bag. We should have faced this down years ago, but now we can ensure that such homophobia is never endorsed by our silence,” said Michael Cashman.

“Things are changing, it will take some more time, but this clock is never going to be turned back. We are all equal in this world and it is high time LGBT people are granted their full human rights, wherever they live,” he continued.

The proposed legislation includes provisions to punish those alleged to be lesbian, gay or bisexual with life imprisonment and, in some cases, the death penalty; any parent or teacher failing to report their LGBT children or pupils to the authorities with a fine equivalent to $2,650 or three years’ imprisonment; and landowners providing shelter to LGBT people with seven years’ imprisonment. The legislation would apply to Ugandan citizens both inside and outside of the country.

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.

Let’s pretend it didn’t happen

Shades of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth here – this guy wants to rewrite history.

Britain’s Telegraph tells us that “a leading US Roman Catholic asked for a meeting with [Cherie Blair] to be struck from the record because he discovered her ‘opposition’ to some Church teachings”.

The Rev Jack Sullivan, 71, is said to have been healed of a debilitating spinal condition after praying to [possibly gay – tee-hee] Cardinal John Henry Newman in 2001 and was visiting the UK ahead of Newman’s beatification for the miracle by the Pope next September.

He initially said in a statement that he was “most impressed” by barrister Mrs Blair after visiting her last month.

But when he discovered her pro-choice views and endorsement of birth control, he tried to erase any reference to the meeting at Mrs Blair’s £5.75m home near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, contacting several newspapers to ask them to amend their stories.

What a berk!

The hex factor

Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to action after nearly two months of injury woes could be short lived.

This is according to a Malaga sorcerer, known only as Pepe, who said he was introduced into the occult by a Mexican sorcerer over thirty years ago. He says he’s been paid €30,000 by a “famous” former girlfriend of Ronaldo to put an injury curse on the player.

“The best is yet to come,” the 57-year-old is quoted as having told the news agency AFP at his office in the Mediterranean port, which displays burning candles, incense and statues of the Devil.

“I have given myself four months to end his career and I have said everywhere that once Cristiano started playing again he would play just one to three matches before being injured again.”

Where are the spineless archbishops?

The United Reformed Church (URC) has become the first major Christian denomination in the UK to issue a statement condemning Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, under which gays could be hanged for having sex in certain circumstances.

But where are the other churches in the UK? In a press release a couple of days ago, the URC said that its commitment to justice and equality meant it was “appalled” at the “draconian measures” proposed by Bill.

The URC passed an anti-homophobia resolution as early as 1999 at its general assembly.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has joined the Prime Minister of Canada in condemning the Bill.

So far there’s been nothing from either the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, or the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, who grew up in Uganda. Nothing from the Catholic Church, either, as far as I can see, but that’s only to be expected.

An online petition launched by the Christian Think tank Ekklesia urges one of these snivelling bastards, Williams, to speak out against the Bill, and it’s brought signatories from priests, ministers and other church leaders around the world and “those who, despite differing beliefs over homosexuality, have come together to expose the religious rhetoric used by the Bill’s supporters”, Ekklesia says.

The Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill prescribes life imprisonment for any sexual activity between adults of the same sex, with the death penalty for anyone whose same-sex partner is disabled or is under 18.

The petition calling on the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Christian leaders to speak out against the Bill in public can be found here

The Christians who are happy to allow long, lingering deaths

A bunch of nutty Christians want everyone to respond to a consultation by the UK’s Director of Public Prosecutions on assisted suicide.

“Following the case brought by Debbie Purdy,” Christian Concern for Our Nation write in an email alert, “the Law Lords instructed the Director of Public Prosecutions to draw up guidelines stating his policy on the situations in which he would or would not bring a prosecution against someone assisting in the suicide of another person in England and Wales, both within these countries and overseas.”

As you would expect, the extreme Christians would want everyone prosecuted. “If we consider life sacred and wish to see all life protected we must take this opportunity to raise the voice of concern. It would be good if we could create thousands of responses.”

So all life must be preserved even if life is intolerable. That, folks, is the nature of their “Christian concern”.

The group have submitted their own legal response. Click here to see it, but be warned that it’s a PDF.

Well, if they want us to respond, perhaps we’d better respond (PDF). We have until 16 December. Let’s say how we feel that life isn’t as innocently simple as this bunch of naïve loons would want us to believe, and that sometimes a person’s death is going to be far more welcome to that person than life is, and it behoves friends and other loved ones to help in any way they can.

You can print off and send a questionnaire if you prefer (PDF again).

It goes without saying that safeguards would have to be in place, but it’s not beyond human wit to come up with something that would be as watertight as possible. Nothing is ever perfect.

Sins of the fathers

There’s little point in going over the whole child-abuse thing that the Catholic Church has allowed its priests to continue to get away with in Ireland. It’s all over the press and other media. You can’t miss it.

I thought it might be helpful, though – because this stuff can’t be exposed too often (although it will be soon forgotten, except by the victims and their families) – to give a search link for your convenience.

Happy reading (I think not!).

No doubt we’ll see some hand wringing on the part of the Catholic bloody Church, and blaming the poofs and blaming everyone else and feeling sorry that the Catholic Church itself has had to suffer this ignominy, blah-di-blah, bullshit, balderdash, folderol, piffle, poppycock, rot, shite.

Ho hum.

Voicing concerns about education

Our friends in nutty Christian Voice, whom we don’t seem to have heard from for a while, are getting twitchy about recommendations that home-schooled kids in the UK probably deserve a better deal.

The Badman Report “will oppress-home schoolers”, say Christian Voice in an emailed alert to an online petition.

The email links to an article on a Guardian blog called Mortarboard, which says:

The government’s announcement of the review came wrapped in sinister language about the need to investigate “claims that home education could be used as a ‘cover’ for child abuse such as neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude”.

As the same blogger, Adharanand Finn, said in January:

From the government’s perspective, the world of home education is full of unknowns. It doesn’t know how many children are educated at home. It doesn’t know how well the ones that are can read and write and meet other educational targets. And it doesn’t know if anything more sinister is going on under the cover of home education.

Now, whether you agree with compulsory education is another matter. Given that it’s the law that children be educated till the age of 16, you might argue that it’s up to the government to make sure the right sort of education is being administered. What you consider “right” education is, again, a matter for debate in another arena, but perhaps we can agree that, if children are being educated at home, we ought to be able to be satisfied that certain standards are being met and that kids are getting taught.

But, in the online petition Christian Voice want you to sign, they clearly don’t want any tightening up of inspection and supervision.

One wonders what they’re afraid of. Perhaps our more secular inspectors might decide that Mrs Godworthy is giving her kids too much Bible; or that Mr al-Bakri is shoving the Koran down his kids’ throats at the expense of English and maths.

I suspect Christian Voice won’t much care what happens to kids whose parents follow other religions, but they’d certainly be against removing any God-bothering nonsense from lessons.

However, where I might agree with them is that this seems on the surface to be more interference in people’s lives by a government that seeks to control everything we do.

If abuse occurs in kids’ homes – as the Badman Report seems to fear – social-services departments should be there to investigate, with police help if necessary. Forced marriages are an abomination, as are sexual abuse and forced labour. We need mechanisms to root out these evils. Perhaps the home-schooling thing is a way for the government to do it by the back door, rather than confront the fact that much of the abuse being talked of is likely to be among families whose culture is not indigenous – especially forced marriage and child labour. It would be very non-PC to suggest that, wouldn’t it?

All the government really needs to ensure is that kids are learning what they’re supposed to learn, and that there are examinations and other procedures to ascertain that.

I’d feel put out as a parent if a jumped-up tosser from some bureaucracy or other demanded to interview my kid without my presence, as seems to be one recommendation, and he or she would probably get some mouth from me and little by way of cooperation – in fact, hindrance stopping just short of illegal.

But if that official merely wanted to inspect the home-class work that my kid had produced in order to ensure that educational standards were being met, that would be another matter. And I’d expect him or her to frown hard on parents who stuffed their kids’ minds with gentle Jesus at the expense of subjects that will prepare them for life (life, note, not just the world of work and consumerism).

It’s an area fraught with problems, I suspect. How much “right” does a parent have over a kid’s education? How much “right” does the government have to impose a curriculum that merely grooms a kid to accept the status quo that sees powers beyond our understanding running our lives, never to question, never to challenge, never to rebel?

Education breeds good little consumers, just the way our politicians’ friends want them to be. Excesses of prescription and proscription can only turn kids into automata rather than freethinking individuals (yes, some of whom may grow up to embrace religion, but that’s life).

But automata are what politicians want us all to be, and – while I can see some possibly skewed reasoning in Christian Voice’s concerns, and know the organisation to be a big bag of nuts – I don’t believe we should be too hasty to try to turn home schooling into something that takes away its very purpose.

Must leave you with this, though: the Christian Voice email, from Stephen “Birdshit” Green, can’t restrict itself to talking about education and reports and petitions: it has to have as a valedictory, alienating many who might otherwise take the alert seriously, that reads, “Yours in our gracious Lord’s mighty name”.

Creepy!
__________
Hat tip to Stuart Hartill over at Clinging to a Rock.