Crybaby Christians ‘muddy the water’

By
Barry Duke
– February 28, 2012Posted in: 'Persecuted' Christians, Christian fundies, gay, Religion and politics, The Freethinker

LAST November, you may recall, we reported on the start of a Parliamentary inquiry into claims that Christians in the UK were facing “intolerable levels of persecution”.

Well, the Christians in Parliament all-party group, led by Conservative MP Gary Streeter, have now published their findings – and their report, Clearing the Ground, opens by saying that in the UK:

Gary Streeter, MP

There is a high level of religious illiteracy which has led to many situations where religious belief is misunderstood and subsequently restricted.

And it alleges that civic and legal authorities in the UK, suffering from this so-called ‘religious illiteracy’, have forced laws on Christians:

Compelling them to provide services that they had never previously offered and which may be contrary to their beliefs.

This led Simon Barrow, co-director of the religion and society think-tank Ekklesia to say of the report:

This is not clearing the ground, it is muddying the water.

In his scathing response, Barrow says:

Initial impressions from this report are that it raises significantly more questions than it answers. For example, it seems to assume that most people who are convinced Christians automatically share, or should share, a range of prejudices – notably against LGBT people – which make them unwilling to comply with requirements to act in a non-discriminatory way in the provision of public services.

This is not the case. Many Christians from all traditions believe that equal treatment of others is not simply a legal requirement but a Christian obligation.

He continues:

The report employs the dubious notion of ‘competing rights’ to seek to posit a clash between Christians (taken to be a homogenous group) and gay people (who are assumed to be quite separate from Christians). In fact, the whole point of the human rights convention and UK equalities legislation is to seek to ensure fair treatment regardless of religion or belief, or indeed sexual orientation. It protects Christians against discrimination as much, but no more, than anyone else.

He went on to point out that:

The Christians in Parliament document also jumbles up a range of quite distinct and different legal cases, advocating the notion of ‘reasonable accommodation’ in a way that stretches from matters like workplace dress, where negotiation may be entirely appropriate, through to cases where exemption from equality requirements in the provision of goods and services would clearly disadvantage and discriminate against those not sharing narrowly conservative Christian views. This is not ‘clearing the ground’, it is muddying the waters.

Mr Barrow added:

The bottom line here is that being a Christian is no longer a ‘trump card’ in public life in the way that it may once have been, and many Christians whose views are not reflected by this report will undoubtedly say, on strong theological grounds, ‘nor should it be’. Christianity is a free choice, and freedom of belief is abused when it is imposed on people, particularly in a limited and limiting way.

The general public mood now is that discrimination and prejudice against gay people, for example, is as unacceptable in public life as discrimination against black people or any other social or ethnic group. It is very sad that some Christians find this hard to accept, and wish to maintain a privileged position for themselves, regarding equal treatment as ‘discrimination’ against them.

He also pointed out that legal cases brought by a small number of religious complainants have failed again and again.

This has not happened because there is bias or ignorance in the legal system, but because of a failure of evidence …  Specific attempts to show that the law has been inaccurately or unfairly interpreted have been notably unsuccessful, so attempts are now being made to insinuate prejudice. This is regrettable, to say the least.



‹‹
››