Then they came for freedom of speech

Do gays really need the degree of “protection” being offered by overzealous local authorities in the UK?

I think not. And so does the gay Andrew Pierce, the Daily Telegraph’s royalty correspondent, writing in the paper yesterday (Tuesday).

He cites a 67-year-old woman who wrote to Norwich Council to object to a gay pride march. Then she got a visit from the police.

In her letter, she had said that gays were “sodomites” whose “perverted sexual practices” were responsible for spreading sexually transmitted diseases.

He then goes on to repudiate that, saying that other things are more culpable in that department.

But, and quite rightly, he upholds this bigoted woman’s right to say what she said. We can’t legislate against bigotry. We can educate, yes, and we can ensure equality for all – or try to. But there will always be bigots like Mrs Pauline Howe of Norwich.

We’re into the debate over freedom of speech again, and the inevitable consequence of threats to free speech are that free speech will continue to be eroded. Eventually, that erosion of free speech will affect the people who wanted to curb free speech by others in the first place.

But they won’t have seen it coming, because initially it wasn't their freedom of speech that was being trodden on.

“First they came for . . .” wrote Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). You know the rest of the poem, or the gist of it.

The Christian ethics of investment

The Church of England have been found culpable again. For all their claims that Christianity is full of love and concern, they have some pretty dodgy investments, as we’ve seen here and here.

The think tank Ekklesia now – again – has pointed out that:

A company in which the Church of England has a £29m shareholding will face allegations of human rights abuses and widespread environmental destruction as campaigners publish an “alternative report” into its activities today.

The Church is seeking to profit from a portfolio of mining companies including BHP Billiton, which campaigners say are having a massive detrimental impact on poor communities around the world.

The company will present its own report on its activities at its London AGM this Thursday, 29 October. It will claim to work to the highest corporate responsibility and environmental standards in the industry.

But today, critics of the company will present an alternative report outlining the negative impacts of many of the company’s operations – in Australia, West Papua, PNG, the Philippines, South Africa, Canada, Colombia and Chile.

The report is the work of organisations from many countries working with directly impacted communities, including church groups.

The report catalogues abuses of human rights, particularly of affected communities, issues of worker health and safety, livelihood and food security, and environmental problems. It also raises issues around climate change and BHP Billiton’s commitment to increased extraction and promotion of both coal and uranium for power production.

Ekklesia’s story tells us that recent publicity over four other London-based mining companies – Vedanta, Rio Tinto, Monterrico and GCM Resources, some of which the Church of England also invests in – has “drawn attention to London’s key role in financing destructive mining activities around the world”.

Primitive and malicious

You wouldn’t think anyone could hate gays more than some malevolent spawn of the Devil in Uganda – a politician who wants to send gay people to jail for a long time.

This vicious MP, David Bahati, has tabled a new bill that could mean the death penalty for gay and transgender people convicted of what he calls “aggravated homosexuality”.

This, it seems, means having sex with anyone under 18 or anyone who is disabled (whether with that person’s consent or not), and in any way promotes or disseminates materials that affirm homosexuality.

If someone knows of the very existence of a gay person and doesn’t report it to the authorities within 24 hours of being told, he or she could face a jail term.

The Care 2 blog tells us:

Perhaps the full, awful scope of this bill does not become clear until one reads that the proposed law would punish a citizen with life in prison for “touch[ing] another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality”. How they will measure or define such an intention remains unclear. In fact, lack of clarity seems to be the entire basis of the bill, so as to give the authorities greater powers to victimize and, indeed, terrorize Ugandan LGBTs.

It’s just frightening that politicians can think in this primitive and malicious, not to say cruel, manner.

While Britain’s Section 28 (of the Local Government Act) was not quite as bad, this does rather remind one of it. That legislation was introduced by the Tories in the late eighties. They’ve changed their tune now – for as long as it suits them – but, at the time, local authorities couldn’t do anything that would “promote” (whatever that means in this context) homosexuality. They couldn’t do anything that would put being gay in a good light.

It led to a lot of self-censorship until it was eventually repealed by NuLabour (belatedly so), even though no prosecutions were brought under the law itself.

Let’s not forget that there are still Tories around who supported that piece of spiteful, malicious, shameful legislation. We may not, for a few years yet, find things here in the UK as bad as our Ugandan friend would like, but we can’t sit on our laurels just because Tory leader David Cameron seems gay-friendly and we have civil partnerships. Politicians will change their attitude just as soon as it benefits them to do so.

Let’s not forget, too, that one of the world’s most notorious homophobes – the particularly malevolent Joseph Ratzinger, a pope – will be fêted by arse-licking politicians of all stripes when he sets his malicious foot on British soil next year.

(Hat tip to Helen Braithwaite for alerting us to this.)

Not such intelligent design . . .

Do more than half of British parents really think so-called intelligent design and creationism should be taught in school science lessons?

A survey that the Guardian is citing seems to say so.

If it’s true, then evolution isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, because 54 per cent of the British parents polled don’t seem to have evolved much in the brains department.

However, the statement these parents agreed with, as the Guardian has it, is this: “Evolutionary theories should be taught in science lessons in schools together with other possible perspectives, such as intelligent design and creationism.”

That’s not the same as saying creationism and intelligent design should be taught alongside evolutionary theories. The statement seems to be saying that intelligent design and creationism are going to be taught anyway, and do you think it would be a good idea to have evolution taught at the same time?

One assumes that the Ipsos Mori survey – which questioned 11,768 adults from 10 countries – was a bit more comprehensive in its questioning, but the Guardian story doesn’t make it very clear.

Was there a statement, for instance, that asked you to agree or disagree along the lines of “There should be no place for creationism or intelligent design in the school curriculum”?

Or, better still, “Those who believe in creationism are lunatics. Are you one of them?”

On second thoughts, that might not be an entirely fair question.

Same-sex marriage – a debate

Is marriage a patriarchal, heterosexist institution? And are civil partnerships a second-class legal status?

Let battle commence, because these questions are being asked tonight at a debate in London. More questions on the agenda are:

Does the demand for same-sex marriage embody a conformist, assimilationist agenda?

Should both civil marriage and civil partnerships be open equally to gay and straight couples?

How would you feel if the government banned black people from marriage and offered them civil partnerships instead?

Are civil partnerships a form of sexual apartheid?

It’s being sponsored by the Greater London Association of Trade Union Councils and is being held at 7 p.m. at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square (the nearest Tube station of Holborn), and it’s free to get in.

The gay human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will be on the stage debating Maire Dailey. Sorry, but I’m not sure who Maire Daley is. No doubt someone will put me right.

While it’s only fair that, given that there’s official marriage for heterosexuals, there should be the same for gays if they really want to submit themselves to it, it’s open to debate as to whether gays really ought to wish to ape the hetties and thereby merge into a society that makes us all convenient pawns for governments and big business to tag and move around the global chessboard.

I, for one, would not opt for either a CP or marriage, but you may disagree.

’Tis the season to be honest

Bishop Jonathan Gledhill of Lichfield is at it again: urging that Christianity should trump the true meaning of what we call Christmas.

There was a tale on the BBC Radio 4 eight o’clock news this morning, but, at the time of writing this, I can’t find it on the Beeb’s website. No doubt it’ll find its way there. You can, however, see it here on the Lichfield diocese website.

His message is that Christians ought to wear crosses and other symbols this Christmas in order to let the world know what Christmas really is.

Well, Bishop Gledhill knows as well as all of us that Christmas was a latecomer to the winter festivities on these isles. He blithely forgets that Christians hijacked the period in order to make the nasty, horrible pagans accept the story of Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild.

Christianity was a sort of spiritual cuckoo. “Get out of the nest, you heathen savages – it’s mine! Cheep, cheep!”

However, what the BBC story didn’t tell us was that this bishop had made this same plea – or a similar one – just three years ago. It’s hardly news, or indeed surprising, that a bishop wants his version of the winter festivities to be recognised above all others.

I do agree with him that it’s daft to refuse to decorate public areas or the workplace for fear of upsetting people of other religions, though. The decorations don’t have to be tacky religious ones – just tacky non-religious ones. Better still, those things that signify the continuation of life from one year to the next, such as evergreens, which is why holly and ivy were favourites.

It’s perfectly possible for those of “faith” and those of none to enjoy the winter festivities, which I’m happy to call Christmas, and not annoy the hell out of each other.

And I doubt that many Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Jedi and worshippers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are going to kick up a fuss because the host culture wants to put up a few deccies.

But what about cribs and straw and angels and donkeys? Well, if an organisation that happens to be a Christian one has a space in a public area and wishes to decorate it, how can I object? As long as that organisation doesn’t crib about the pagan one next door.

And, while I write for a blog that is decidedly nontheist and much against organised religion, I do reject the idea that we should shun the word Christmas. We’ve got used to it. It’s part of our history, and talk of Winterval and saying “Compliments of the season” instead of “Merry Christmas” seems a bit contrived.

I made the case for continuing to call it Christmas in a seasonal article in Gay & Lesbian Humanist last December. It’s got nice pictures, too.

More on the church and the BNP

Talking of the odious Nick Griffin, as we were here and here, the excellent Ekklesia reckons that, whatever their views about the rights and wrongs of his appearance on Question Time last night, “church leaders will now have to think long and hard about some of the arguments they employ”.

“Last night,” writes Ekklesia co-director Jonathan Bartley, “the leader of BNP used the words ‘Christian country’ three times in setting out what he believed about what it means to be British – which many in the churches should find a little close for comfort.”

Many Christians don’t, of course, do themselves any favours when they espouse the Right. Your mainstream Christians – the likes of Jonathan Bartley – don’t, of course, but that leaves a lot who do. Their treatment of women and homosexuals marks them out as having some fascistic tendencies – and the redneck, brain-dead fundamentalists in the USA and to some extent over here just wouldn’t dare, I assume, to criticise the BNP for fear of being accused of having similar prejudices.

The Anglican Church is such a broad church that you can’t blame the BNP for trying to climb into bed with it. There’s plenty of room.

A law for Matthew

Good news comes to us via Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, where Black Tsunami writes:

The Senate passed groundbreaking legislation Thursday that would make it a federal crime to assault an individual because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity.

President Obama has said the country must make significant changes to ensure equal rights.

The expanded federal hate crimes law now goes to President Obama’s desk. Obama has pledged to sign the measure, which was added to a $680 billion defense authorization bill.

President George W. Bush had threatened to veto a similar measure.

The bill is named for Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming teenager who died after being kidnapped and severely beaten in October 1998.

Thursday’s Senate vote approving the measure was 68–29.

Naturally, Black Tsunami is cock-a-hoop, although says more work needs to be done in other areas – and he also has a go at the more barmy and dangerous members of the Deluded Herd, when he says:

The religious right’s main lying claim about lgbt-inclusive hate crimes legislation is that it will lead to attacks on the free speech of those who think that homosexuality is a sin.

They say that pastors will be arrested in the pulpits for simply saying that homosexuality is a sin.

Well as soon as President Obama signs the Matthew Shepard Act, I will be creating an online clock that will count up how long it should take from Obama signing this bill to the arrest of a pastor for simply saying that homosexuality is a sin.

Of course no pastor will be arrested for simply calling homosexuality a sin. And that is the point of the online clock.

The religious right likes to spin a fear story. I say we hold them to it.

We get that sort of thing among Christian lunatics over here in the UK. They think it will be impossible to discuss homosexuality for fear of falling foul of the law. No, it won’t.

We, too, believe in free speech. If any preacherman is arrested for merely criticising homosexuality, I’ll be among the first to criticise that. If he incites violence or libels or slanders someone, that’s a different matter.

This is why I believe that Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, should have got what he did get: a chair at the table on BBC1’s Question Time last night.

I detest him and the racism and homophobia that he stands for. But let him have his moment in the debate, because, once we start denying odious, loathsome individuals like him the right to free speech, how long will it be before you and I are allowed the right to free speech?

And, as we’ve said before, those who have better arguments will soon shoot the likes of Griffin down in flames. Those (such as Peter Hain, MP and Welsh Secretary) who would deny him a seat at that table are obviously not sure of their own arguments, or whether they’ll be able to muster them effectively.
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Related link: Ten years on, but more to be done, says Matthew’s mom

The church and the BNP

“If churches are to be effective in challenging the BNP [British National Party] they need to drop their rhetoric which fuels the party’s ideology,” says the Christian think tank, Ekklesia, in a news release.

It goes on to say that its advice “comes after a number of churches and church leaders issued statements distancing themselves from the BNP prior to [its leader] Nick Griffin’s appearance on BBC1’s Question Time [tonight].”

The statements expressed concern that the BNP was portraying itself as a “Christian” party.

But the religion and society think tank Ekklesia, which has been studying the relationship between the BNP and the churches for the last five years, says that references to “Christian Britain”, often employed by church leaders, are encouraging the association of national identity with religion, and playing into the racist party’s hands.

Jonathan Bartley, Ekklesia’s co-director said: “Whilst the major church denominations have rightly been outspoken in their challenge to the BNP, their messages have consistently been undermined by continual references to ‘Christian Britain’.

“With their work in deprived communities and care for immigrants and asylum seekers, churches are ideally placed to challenge racism. But they also need to dissect and reject the conflation of faith, race and nation, not endorse it. If they do not, they will continue to play into the BNP’s hands.”

As long ago as 2004 Ekklesia highlighted how the BNP was seeking to identify itself as a “Christian” party, and recruit members by using a mythology of “white Christian Britain”. Ekklesia also brought to public attention how the racist party facilitated the establishment of a front organisation “The Christian Council of Britain”. Ekklesia’s analysis of the BNP’s membership list revealed a number of party members self-identifying as Christians and as active members of churches.

Of course, the arguments have continued over whether Nick Griffin should be allowed to appear on tonight’s programme. We get seasoned politicians such as Peter Hain wanting the Beeb to bar Griffin from the programme. Hain should know better.

Yes, he is, I believe sincere in his hatred of racism, but the only way you debate is by debating. If Hain is so sure of his own stance, he’ll be confident that Griffin will be well and truly crushed by the argument that will be marshalled against him. If Griffin and his party are plain wrong in all they say, this will be shown up in argument. If you’re afraid of going on a stage with such people, it has to be asked just what you’re afraid of – that your own argument will be found wanting?

One thing’s for sure: the Beeb will be assured of good viewing figures tonight.

How the church makes money unethically

We’ve already seen how our concerned Christians invest in slave labour.

Now they get help – albeit indirectly – from a British judge to continue with dodgy investment.

We learn from Ekklesia (which also provided us with the information linked to above):

A High Court judge has today (20 October) blocked an attempt to launch a legal challenge over the government's use of taxpayers’ money in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) investments which harm the environment and undermine human rights.

The three NGOs who brought the case condemned the decision and declared that they would appeal.

The news will please the Church of England, which is a major shareholder in RBS, having a stake in the company of £8.4 million.

One wonders why an organisation that claims that the ideology that it follows is full of sweetness and light and humility and caring and compassion would not pull out of any investment as soon as it smells anything that’s unethical.

And who would possibly trust a bank, of all things, to invest ethically?

Complaints rise after journo’s Gately slur

The complaints are at 21,000 and counting, it seems, after that obnoxious Daily Mail journo Jan Moir (pictured) wrote about the death of the gay Boyzone star Stephen Gately.

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not one of those never-speak-ill-of-the-dead people who believe that no criticism should be laid against those who have recently snuffed it. If they deserve it, they deserve it.

I remember causing some hilarity in an Internet radio rant I did a couple of years or whatever ago when the right-wing, religion-soaked homophobe Jerry Falwell shuffled off this mortal coil. “My mum used to tell me you should only speak good of the dead,” I said. “Well Falwell’s dead. Good!” (All that’s just to prove my creds, OK?).

But this Moir woman just seems to want to find dirt either where there isn’t any, or where it’s just not relevant, and not in the public interest. It’s not as though Gately went about boasting of impeccable behaviour and then committed an immoral act, thereby showing blatant hypocrisy.

So what is she playing at?

Anyway, the story is in the Pink News link we’ve provided up top. If you feel moved to complain, complain.

British Humanist Association boss moves on

Hanne Stinson is leaving the British Humanist Association (BHA) next month, after eight years as chief executive.

A BHA press release says:

Hanne describes those eight years as challenging, exciting and incredibly busy, and she praised the BHA’s highly committed staff team, which she said had achieved an enormous amount over that time. “Leaving the BHA is going to be a huge wrench” said Hanne, “but I think I am leaving it in pretty good shape. When I took on the BHA in 2001, I felt it was an organisation with a lot of potential.

“That is just as true now as it was then, and I feel sure that a new Chief Executive will be able to build on what we have achieved in the last few years to create an even more influential organisation. I am sure that he or she will have the support of the Board, of a committed, professional and highly effective staff team and – equally important – our growing and increasingly active membership.”

Robert Ashby, Chair of the BHA, said, “The BHA Board of Trustees, on behalf of all British Humanists, recognises a great debt of gratitude to Hanne for the dedication she has shown to our cause over the past eight years – a dedication that even lead to her being tattooed with the BHA’s Happy Human logo in the cause of fundraising.

“We all wish her well in the next challenges that she will no doubt take on. I and my colleagues are confident that we can continue to gain momentum with our public awareness and key equality and human rights campaigns, at the same time developing inspiration and support for all humanists in Britain.”

Sharia? Not here!

Not all Muslims want sharia law in the UK, it seems. Well, I suppose we knew that already, but we can’t help worrying – as we have often on this blog – when aspects of this system start seeping into our own laws.

We know that sharia law can’t usurp UK laws – yet. Given the constant kowtowing to Muslim demands, however, it could be only a matter of time – and then chickens will come home to roost.

The Muslims who are against it are featured in a story on the Ekklesia website. They’re against a proposed march by some Muslims to demand sharia law in the UK.
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Related links:
Sharia: creeping ever closer
How do you solve a problem like sharia?
Creeping ever closer! When will they ever learn?
Sharia in the workplace
Sharia – the disturbing story continues
The danger of sharia courts
Sharia – a waste of time

Proving Wilders’s point . . .

Geert Wilders is in the UK, and the protestors who met him seem to have proved him right about Islamic violence – or at least the threat of it.

According to the Telegraph, Muslim protestors carried banners saying “Sharia is the solution, freedom go to hell” and “Geert Wilders deserves Islamic punishment”.

If the cap fits . . .

See the Telegraph’s video below.

Journo’s Gately slur

A Daily Mail columnist has really put the right-wing, reactionary, bigoted cat among the gay pigeons with her suggestion that there was something sleazy and unnatural about the death of the gay Boyzone singer Stephen Gately.

The whole story is in Pink News, and the Daily Mail writer, Jan Moir, has blamed an “orchestrated campaign” for the backlash of complaints against her.

Something approaching a record number have been lodged with the Press Complaints Commission, but such are not in its remit to investigate. If Gately’s family lodge a complaint, the PCC may enter the fray.

However Pink News tells us that some big brands, such as Marks & Spencer, have asked for advertising to be removed from the offending online page.

Nestlé also said it did not share the views expressed in the article and had asked for its advertisement to be removed.

Moir’s comments provoked a wave of anger on the internet as the news of her comment piece spread around Twitter and Facebook today [Friday].

She apparently suggested that Boyzone singer Stephen Gately died because he was gay and said his “sleazy” death struck “another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships”.

In a statement released this afternoon, Moir refused to apologise and denied her article had been homophobic.

Well, she would, wouldn’t she?

Wilders is on his way

It looks as if the controversial Dutch politician and filmmaker Geert Wilders is on his way to the UK, after the former Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, decided in a moment of absolute lunacy to ban free speech when he had been invited to show his short anti-Koran film Fitna to two members of the House of Lords.

As we reported on Tuesday, his ban for allegedly being likely to be a threat to public order – as if we didn’t have many far more potentially disruptive people coming into the country (instance the Pope’s visit next year) – has been lifted.

The BBC tells us he’s on his way.

Muslim challenges Wilders to debate – so let battle commence

We’ve crowed about the fact that the Dutch politician and filmmaker Geert Wilders has now been allowed into the UK, after silly Jacqui Smith banned him while she was Home Secretary.

So now let us see his mettle. He wants free speech, and now he’s been challenged to debate by someone who comes over as an enlightened Muslim.

“The decision by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal* to rescind the unjust ban on Geert Wilders [. . .] entering the UK should be heartily endorsed by all true democrats,” writes Dr T Hargey in a reader’s letter the UK’s Guardian. He continues:

When Jacqui Smith issued her prohibition order last February preventing the controversial leader of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands from coming to the UK – apparently at the urging of certain pro-Labour Muslim groups – this was a worrying triumph for intolerance and fanaticism. The Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford opposed the Wilders proscription as a denial of his fundamental democratic rights and freedom of expression.

Hargey, an imam, echoes our own sentiments in this: let debate commence. What is the point in banning someone and stifling debate – especially when many of those whom he seems to be against would welcome the opportunity? Hargey continues:

In fact, last April, on behalf of enlightened British Muslims, we challenged this far-right Dutch politician to a properly moderated public airing of his mad prejudices against Islam in a neutral venue of his choice, but he has thus far remained strangely silent and non-responsive. Now that Wilders plans to come to Britain next week, will this bigoted populist just play to the viscerally anti-Muslim crowd here, or will he be bold enough to get together in robust intellectual debate and honest dialogue? Is this extremist Islamophobe merely content in peddling a toxic mix of half-truths, caricatures and myths about Islam, or does he have a genuine interest in Europe’s future?

Since Wilders has not had the courtesy even to acknowledge our repeated correspondence, does he have the guts to engage with a progressive Muslim in an earnest and regulated debate? Is he capable of defending his facile claims in a protected public forum in the UK? We are ready whenever this white knight in shining armour is brave enough.

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Goodness knows what lunacy possesses the Guardian’s editor, but even proper nouns are left uncapped, as “Asylum and Immigration Tribunal” was in the letter above (which we have corrected). How are we to know whether it’s a name or just a description? But that's trendiness for you – trendiness for trendiness’s sake. This has nothing to do with the post above, but I thought I’d make the point. Indulge me!

When will the Beeb give us a look-in? asks humanist group

A humanist group in England is demanding that the BBC produce programmes about the humanist tradition, which goes back to ancient Greece and Rome.

But, as usual, the Beeb has been “disappointingly noncommittal”, say Coventry and Warwickshire Humanists, saying only that the request has been registered “on our audience log”.

The group’s chairman, George Broadhead (also secretary of this blog owner, the Pink Triangle Trust), commented, “Humanism is the rational, ethical alternative to supernatural beliefs, including deism. It is obvious that people can lead happy, fulfilled lives and show concern for others without such beliefs.

“According to a Mori poll, 36% of British people – equivalent to around 17 million adults – are Humanists in their basic outlook, 62% of Britons believe that ‘human nature by itself gives us an understanding of what is right and wrong’, against only 27% who said ‘people need religious teachings in order to understand what is right and wrong’.

“Moreover, the Office for National Statistics has reported about the same proportion of people saying that they belonged to no religion as saying that they belonged to a Christian denomination, and the British Social Attitudes Survey has reported that 69 per cent of people either did not claim membership of a religion or said that they never attended a religious service.

“Despite this evidence, the BBC spends more than £10 million a year on religious broadcasting – much of it propaganda like Radio 4’s God slot ‘Thought for the Day’ – and nothing on programmes about Humanism.

“Research shows that Britain is one of the most irreligious nations in the world. So, why is the BBC so biased in favour of the so-called faith communities, and when is the large non-faith community going to get a look-in?”

Why, and when, indeed, George?

Wilders ban overturned

Someone has seen common sense at last, it seems, and the Dutch politician Geert Wilders has been told he can come to the UK after all.

He was banned by the ridiculous then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith (the one who’s had to apologise to the Commons for fiddling her expenses, and who really ought to be thrown out of the party and into jail, if only pour encourager les autres, but that’s another matter.)

As we said back in February:

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, was praised by the Foreign Secretary, an equally politically correct appeasing nutcase, David Miliband, who claimed Wilders was breaking the law because there are laws against religious hatred and [Wilders’s short film] Fitna stirred up hatred.

Anything has the potential to stir up hatred. Muslim bleating has the potential to stir up the hatred of otherwise rather nice people who pat dogs and help old ladies across the road, who give to charity, say good morning to their neighbours and keep cats.

So it’s good to see that the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruling has overturned that decision, which followed his being invited to give a private screening of his film in the House of Lords.

We may not like much of Wilders’s right-wing politics, but he ought to be allowed to make his points. Who next will be barred, just for wishing to express an opinion?

However, you can expect little more from the bunch of third-rate careerist politicians we have in the UK at the moment. The vote is what counts, and Muslims control a minority of it, but an increasing minority.

Any way our grubby masters can secure the vote for themselves will do, whether it goes against freedom of speech or not.

Human rights – on our terms, says Muslim

“We firmly believe that the exercise of freedom of expression carries with it special responsibilities,” said Pakistan’s delegate to the UN Human Rights Council, speaking for the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC).

The “defamation” of religion, he said, “results in negative stereotyping of the followers of this religion and belief and leads to incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them, therefore directly affecting their human rights”.

These words of wisdom come as the UN passes a resolution condemning “stereotyping of religion”.

So this geezer reckons that taking the piss out of religion can lead to consequences for individuals? OK, so how about Islam’s stereotyping of homosexuality as something that is “un-Islamic” or haram? Can that not lead to unfortunate, human-rights-affecting consequences for individuals?

The Index on Censorship piece linked to above says:

Following the OIC’s logic, one could equally apply the language of the resolution to Islamism, a political form which is arguably a “contemporary manifestation of religious hatred, discrimination and xenophobia. It results in negative stereotyping of the followers of other religions and beliefs and leads to incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them, therefore directly affecting their human rights.”

Yup. If you want everyone else to be nice to your hideous religion, Mr Pakistani Delegate, old chum, start being nice to other minorities and stop looking for special privileges and curtailments of others’ freedom of speech and expression.

Prat!