Pope reveals he doesn't understand religious freedom

On the Guardian website last evening I saw a news story that Pope Benedict XVI thinks that anti-discrimination laws are restricting Catholics' religious freedom.

His remarks were a little cryptic about the specific legislation, but the Guardian article speculated thus:

It is thought his comments relate to laws that came in last year preventing adoption agencies from discriminating against gay couples and also Harriet Harman's equality bill, currently going through parliament.

...

It is also thought the pope was referring to the equality bill, which narrows the special exemption enjoyed by churches allowing them to exclude people whose lifestyles do not fit in with the religious ethos of an organisation when hiring staff.

The first point is about providing a service (in this specific case, adoption agencies). Here's my take: When you provide a service to members of the public, you do not get to discriminate on religious grounds: I couldn't turn around and say I wanted not to serve someone because they were a Catholic, so why should Catholics get to say they don't want to serve gay folks? The reason that these Catholic adoption agencies don't want to serve gay folks is because gay folks choose not to live by the Catholics' religious code; the choice of gay folks not to live that way does not affect Catholics' freedom of belief or, indeed, of action. The provision of this service, while obviously a controversial point because it involves children (and rightly or wrongly, British society has developed a strong aversion to any hint of upset surrounding children), is not something on which I can see a lot of religious dogma hanging; gay couples say "we want to raise a child in a loving environment", and out there in the world there are children in need of loving environments in which to grow - an adoption agency is just a service to match the people who want to care for a child with a child who needs their care. As the meerkat says, "Simples!"

I suppose a Catholic might turn around and say, "But my religion tells me a child needs a mother and a father, not two of one and none of the other!" But again, while a Catholic adoption agency would I am sure be free to express this opinion to any potential adopters (including gay couples), to deny the service on those grounds would be to force their views on others.

Therefore, there is absolutely no restriction of religious belief or worship involved here.

One last thought regarding the adoption issue: English and Welsh bishops "told [the Pope] sexual orientation legislation that came into effect on 1 January 2009 had forced the closure of half the Roman Catholic adoption agencies because the law making it illegal to discriminate against gay applicants went against their beliefs."

This is probably the element that makes me angriest. It makes me angry as a Christian, and it makes me angry as a humanist, because what this says is that these Catholic adoption agencies put their homophobic beliefs above the welfare of the children whom those agencies were helping to find loving homes. That's neither a Christian thing to do, nor is it an ethical thing to do. Christ preached love for the sinner, preached "I was naked and you clothed me, hungry and you fed me" etc; if these adoption agencies were performing the service as a religious calling, then that calling must surely have been to help clothe and feed and so on the children who were being found homes, and it doesn't matter what homes as long as they had the love and resources to care for them. And humanist ethics as well say, "put the needy folks first for crying out loud!" (and that's the children in this case).

The other point suggested is about hiring workers. Specifically, about excluding those whose "lifestyles" conflict with Roman Catholic teaching. At which point I have to ask, how is it even relevant? If you have a job that needs doing, here's what you need:

A person who does the job efficiently, accurately, to a high standard, and without preference, favour or bias. In other words, someone who will do the job professionally and well.

What they do with themselves outside of working hours (so long as it's not illegal or directly defamatory to the employer) is entirely their own business and not a proper part of the decision process for hiring someone. If you're hiring someone to perform religious (worship) duties, of course, then I think you have a right to expect them to share your faith. But for jobs like admin, repairs, etc - where there's no direct religious involvement - it's a nonsense to say that religious freedom is at stake. An applicant for the job should be judged on their ability to do the job properly and professionally. Nothing else.

My final remarks on the Pope's comments relate to this excerpt:

"In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

Now, a) that's not my understanding of Christian theology of human rights (but maybe I am unfamiliar with specifically Roman Catholic teachings on that matter) and b) it most certainly isn't the basis of secular human rights.

On point a) it is that we are endowed with a spirit that renders us created "in the image of God" - and that goes for all humans, "natural law" or not; what I like so much about Quakerism is the centrality of the concept of "that of God in (all of) us". But it's a key concept in a lot of Christian ethical philosophy.

On point b) just the very fact that a secular human rights exists is proof that this "natural law" gibberish is total bunkum.

Jail cell meme (via Ren)

If you & I woke up in jail together....USING FOUR WORDS....what would you say to me? Copy and paste this in your status and see what funny things your friends say...(And if you make a comment, you gotta put this in your status. Fair is fair.)

Now, this not being LJ I don't have a status but the game looks fun and hopefully people who visit here regularly will join in and spread it across Blogdonia anyway - if you comment, you're tagged to post it at your place, 'kay?

Now, let's hear it!

Colour Quiz

Via Trinity:

you are lightseagreen #20B2AA

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well. Your saturation level is higher than average - You know what you want, but sometimes know not to tell everyone. You value accomplishments and know you can get the job done, so don't be afraid to run out and make things happen. Your outlook on life is brighter than most people's. You like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. You're not exactly a bouncy sunshine but things in your world generally look up.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

I can't remember what words I chose in the end (although I do recall ticking "dark"!) so no point asking me. I think it's quite an accurate picture of my personality (but, given that it's based on self-chosen descriptors, I would expect everyone who tried it to say that; whether people who know them agree or not is another matter!)

What Luke 21:28 DOESN'T mean

I'm in two minds about STFU Believers (for a couple of reasons), but it's useful to give us a chance to debunk idiocy like this:


The relevant passage is Luke 21:5-28, which in the NIV Study Bible is headed "Signs of the End of the Age". Let's have a look at what thing we are supposed to see so that we "look up, for [your] redemption draweth nigh" (incidentally, from the spelling I'm guessing these people used the King James version, which is one of the least accurate translations of God's Word).

This starts with Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem (Lk 21:6). Gosh, when did that happen? Only 1,960 years ago!

Jesus says, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places" (Lk 21:10-11). There is no time in history when these things have NOT been true!

Jesus says, "But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name." (Lk 21:12) And indeed, this did happen to many of the disciples under Roman rule. It really cannot be said to be happening much to Christians in the modern era, though!

Jesus says, "When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near" (Lk 21:20) Again, that already happened in 70CE. If people point to the wars between Israel and the Arab nations, it should be pointed out that Israel won those wars; Jersulame's desolation was by no means "near" when that happened!

Jesus says, "There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations." (Lk 21:23-24) That actually happened as well - the Jewish diaspora!

Jesus says, "There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and the tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken." (Lk 21:25-26) Now, the first reference here might be astrological rather than astronomical (it's reckoned that the signs followed by the Magi were astrological, not astronomical) but the second must have an astronomical reference: if the heavenly bodies are to be "shaken" in astrological terms, it implies they have left their predictable paths - that can only happen if something has perturbed their orbits in astronomical observations as well. Arguably, the only time that has been the case has been in the 19th and early 20th century, when first Neptune and then Pluto were discovered by deducing their existence from irregularities in the orbits of (respectively) Uranus and Neptune.

I think we would have noticed by now if there were signs in the sun and moon of impending doom!

Finally, Jesus says, "At that time, they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." (Lk 21:27) It doesn't seem to me that any such cloud has been sighted recently!

So, whatever Luke 21:28 means, it definitely does not mean that the disaster in Haiti signals the coming of the End of the Age - mainly because most of the signs of that happened in 70CE!

Thoughts on Natasha Walter's 'Guardian' interview

Natasha Walter has a new book out called Living Dolls, and yesterday the Guardian ran an interview with her as part of the publicity for the new release. Walter's previous title, The New Feminism, was widely acclaimed, although according to the article the title alone offended some feminists (and, of course, the content offended others - hard not to offend at least someone on some feminist topics!)

Anyway, the new book is subtitled "The Return of Sexism", but as far as I can tell from the article what's really bothering Walters is the rise and rise of sexualisation.

Skipping gaily past the intro, in which interviewer Kira Cochrane gushes about how clever and calm Walters' writing is and they talk about what makes Walters angry (the F-Word Blog take on that part of it is pretty good), we get to the nitty-gritty of what the book's about.

It is organised in two distinct parts, and the first finds Walter ­taking a journey through the seedy underbelly of modern culture, an ­excursion that starts, in faintly ­surreal fashion, at a "Babes on the Bed" ­competition in a Southend nightclub, a contest to find a glamour model for Nuts magazine.

...

The journey continues through interviews with a former lap dancer called Ellie, who helps illustrate just how sexist the culture has ­become: "Now," says ­Ellie, "women get told they are prudes if they say they don't want their boyfriend to go to a club where he gets to stick his fingers in someone else's vagina." She interviews a woman she calls Angela, who, in ­describing her work as a prostitute, says that "basically you've consented to being raped sometimes for money". And then there's pornography addict Jim, who says that "porn is way more brutalising than it used to be. There is this unbelievable obsession with [extreme] anal sex . . . It's far more demeaning to women than in the past."

The second part is about the gendered roles in which children are being brought up:

When Walter first had her daughter, she says, "I was hit by this deluge of pink. Then, at friends' houses, you'd walk into a boy's bedroom, and it would just be blue and navy, and full of cars and Action Men. I found that when I raised this – even with really liberal parents – they would say, 'But boys and girls are just different. She just LOVES pink.' Or, 'It's such a pity that he doesn't play with dolls, but he just doesn't get it.' They would be ­saying this, sort of bemoaning it, but ­endlessly reinforcing [gender] ­stereotypes in an almost unconscious way . . . I'd hear things like, 'Well, he wanted to do ballet, but he'd be the only boy in the class, so obviously he couldn't do it,' and you'd think, 'Why obviously?'."

Now, it's a fair guess that I'm unlikely to read Living Dolls any time soon, just because I have a lot of reading on the go at the moment, so I'll have to settle for what I can see in the Guardian interview alone to talk about (that's why the post is called "thoughts on the interview" instead of "thoughts on the book", neat that, eh?)

I'll start by saying straight up that I loathe and despise the Nuts magazine culture. In my analysis of the messages sent out by different kinds of sexual media, the "Lads' Mags" of which Nuts is the most well-known example comes out as easily the most sexist and despicable, commodifying women's bodies; the passage that I clipped above demonstrates this aptly:

...at a "Babes on the Bed" ­competition in a Southend nightclub, a contest to find a glamour model for Nuts magazine. It's difficult to ­imagine anyone more ­incongruous here than the intellectual, refined Walter; ­especially when the DJ starts ­shouting, "This is Cara Brett! She's on the cover of Nuts this week! So buy her, take her home and have a wank."

The point where I start to get wary of the analysis is when we're presented with anecdotal evidence: Ellie the lap dancer suddenly stands in for ALL lap dancers; Angela the prostitute suddenly stands in for ALL prostitutes. I am not saying that Angela's story is false, and I'm not saying either that such experiences are few and far between. The recent Men Who Buy Sex survey (for all its faults) did reveal that a lot of men effectively think the same way about prostitution as Angela does (although they don't cast it as "rape" in their own minds). The point of disagreement is whether it represents something essential about sex work [NB - I don't know for certain without reading the book whether that really is a disagreement, I'm interpolating from the rest of the article a little here].

A similar criticism can be made of the anecdotal evidence of "pornography addict" Jim, quoted as saying, "porn is way more brutalising than it used to be. There is this unbelievable obsession with [extreme] anal sex . . . It's far more demeaning to women than in the past."

Firstly, while I agree there is a lot of brutal anal sex porn available if you look for it (I'm a sadist with a love of all anal play - so naturally, I look for it!) I totally disagree that it constitutes an "obsession" in all porn: you get what you look for, generally. That said, anal does seem to have become a part of the standard sequence of porn sex scenes (it usually seems to go like this: fellatio - cunnilingus - PIV - anal - facial/tit cumshot) - on th eother hand, there isn't any particular focus on it.

Secondly, did Jim mean "brutalising", or did he mean "brutal"? "Brutalising" means "turns into brutes/makes brutal", so if that's what he meant then he is saying that porn today makes people more brutal than porn used to. There is no evidence to support this claim, and it's an assumption he's making based on I don't know what. Alternatively, if he means "porn is more brutal than it used to be" then I would repeat my previous observation that porn gives you what you look for: if you look for brutal porn, you'll find it; if you like it gentler, you can find that too. The top-grossing porn films are almost all towards the softer end of that spectrum.

Thirdly, what is it with these assumptions about "demeaning to women"? There seems to be a tendency to apply essentialist assumptions about certain sex acts that is deeply rooted in society (always about what it does to women, never about men being degraded by sex!) but it seems incongruous for a feminist to allow a man to think in a woman's place and determine for women what is or is not demeaning to the women involved. Judging from some of Walters' other remarks in the article, it seems as though the idea is that somehow what one woman does in a porn shoot is somehow demeaning to every other woman in the world (a link that I really don't consider to have been proven yet - who knows, maybe there is groundbreaking analysis in the book, but I doubt it).

Having said that, there is an important analysis mentioned in the interview - it's not a new idea to sex-positive feminists, but it's good to have it out there in published literature (as opposed to internet discussion), and it may form a point of commonality for action between different branches of feminism.

That point is given here:

One email in particular stuck out, a message from a 17-year-old girl called Carly Whiteley. She said that she was "starting to think it was time to give up and sit in silence while my friends put on a porno and grunted about ­whatever blonde, airbrushed piece of plastic was in Nuts this week. What you said gave me back the will not to give in . . . It's nice to see someone else saying it, makes me feel like less of a prude-type oddball."

The "prude" reference was key. In Living Dolls, Walter takes on the ­notion that, for example, stripping and pole dancing are ­empowering, ­liberating choices; instead, she ­suggests, it has become increasingly difficult for young women to opt out of this culture, to take any path other than that which leads inexorably to fake nails, fake tan and, finally, fake breasts. And, if they do, there are ­serious social penalties.

While I don't like the slut-shaming language used by Ms Whiteley in her email, I think that there is an important point to be made about the ways in which sexualised culture is imposing certain choices and making it harder to say "no". I think that our sex education system has to do a much better job of empowering young people (men as well as women) to say "no" to the sexualised versions of ourselves that we are sold every day (men are sold a role as desirers, women as desired).

The whole "stripping and pole dancing are ­empowering, ­liberating choices" thing is a strawperson argument when debating sex-positive feminism; but in the wider "raunch culture" it's a valid criticism that needs to be addressed. As Walters describes, it's only a liberated choice if it's a free choice, and genuinely a personal expression. It's sold to women as such by raunch culture, but that isn't always the way it really is: as Walters explains, "I was surprised by the attitudes of the girls I interviewed, who seemed to feel that they would be mocked if they protested within their peer groups... Of course, a lot them would say, 'It's fine, we can choose whether to [interact with the sexist culture] or not,' and then you dig a little deeper, and you realise that it is more ­problematic than that."

I am reminded of the evidence presented in Channel 4's The Sex Education Show vs Pornography about the ways in which teenagers are coming to terms with their sexuality. Some of it is very pernicious, and it's an issue that needs to be addressed. My mantra is always the same: fully comprehensive sex education, covering emotional as well as physical aspects of sexuality. Give young women and men the power to say "no" to these things, as well as the ability to say "yes".

If there is no "no", there can be no meaningful "yes" either.

The concern I have with the tenor of the interview is that it comes across that for Walter, "no" is the only valid answer to sexual media, to sex work, to displayed sexuality. Her answer to the problems discussed above seems to be "therefore we must have NONE of these things ever - no, none at all, all gone!" But that only leads back into the old forms of sexism and slut-shaming. Maybe I'm misjudging Walter here - maybe it is Cochrane's agenda that is coming through from the interview instead, or maybe the information presented doesn't accurately reflect the thrust of the book's argument, I don't know.

Knowledge is power. Education is empowering. There is a syllabus, a curriculum, that needs to be developed here to put the power into young people's hands so that they are in control of themselves and their relationship to sexuality.

Another reason to be radicalised

If I understand correctly the way that govenrment officials and the media in general use the term "radicalised", it is used to describe the state of having gone through a process by which a peaceful person is persuaded by others to adopt a more extreme viewpoint that encompasses political violence as a means to an end. It's most commonly used in the context of "radicalised Muslims", where the specific meaning is referring to the way in which young Muslims are persuaded by terrorist organisations such as Al Qaida to join those organisations and support their operations.

But taking the term in a more general sense I believe that I am, if you will, a "radicalised democrat" - meaning that I am persuaded that political violence is becoming necessary as a means of protecting democratic rights within our own country (in my case, the UK; I am less certain regarding the US or other European countries, although the Lisbon treaty strikes me as a clear assault on European democracies). I first began to feel this way when in 2003 the largest ever political demonstration in the history of the British Isles (in terms of gross numbers; it certainly outstripped the New Model Army, the Peasants' Revolt and other major revolutionary movements) was blithely ignored by Parliament (even dismissed as "unrepresentative" by some ministers)

The latest assault on democratic liberties is a plan by the police to use airborne military-style reconnaissance drones as part of "the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies" (quote from the "South Coast Partnership", which is "a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE"). Anyone who's read Mark Thomas' As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela, which outlines just how easy it is for arms and torture dealers to bypass international law, will be familiar with just how corrupt BAE's association wht the British government can be.

Here's what the "South Coast Partnership" has to say about the uses of the drones:

• BAE and Kent police say that civilian UAVs would "greatly extend" the government's surveillance capacity and "revolutionise policing".
• The scheme is considered a pilot preceding the countrywide adoption of the technology for "surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering"
• Kent police's assistant chief constable, Allyn Thomas, said that drones would be useful "in the policing of major events, whether they be protests or the ­Olympics".
• Under a section entitled "Other routine tasks (Local Councils) – surveillance", another document states the drones could be used to combat "fly-posting, fly-tipping, abandoned vehicles, abnormal loads, waste management".
• Detecting theft from cash machines
• Preventing theft of tractors
• Monitoring antisocial driving
• Road and railway monitoring
• Search and rescue
• Event security
• Covert urban surveillance.

If that list isn't creepy enough, with spying on protesters, on people in cities, and enforcing "good manners", there is also the suggestion that "Partnership officials have said the UAVs could raise revenue from private companies. At one strategy meeting it was proposed the aircraft could undertake commercial work during spare time to offset some of the running costs." Our democratic limitations on police powers are steadily being eroded, but we have absolutely no democratic control over private companies - unless we're lucky enough to be able to hold a significant amount of shares in those companies (Mark Thomas again, advises that you have the right to speak at AGMs if you hold just one share, but doing so gives one very little control in how the company does business - the book mentioned above describes how protesters who are shareholders are frequently ejected for "disrupting the meeting").

Are you scared yet?

The worst is yet to come. It appears that the police are well aware of the cocnerns about civil liberties and privacy rights, and deliberately devised a strategy to find a way around those concerns:

Previously, Kent police has said the drone scheme was intended for use over the English Channel to monitor shipping and detect immigrants crossing from France. However, the documents suggest the maritime focus was, at least in part, a public relations strategy designed to minimise civil liberty concerns.

"There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be projected as a 'good news' story to the public rather than more 'big brother'," a minute from the one of the earliest meetings, in July 2007, states.

That's the attitude our supposed protectors take towards democracy and rights - they are an awkward thing to be got around using a "good news story".

In the meantime, they are opening up use to all and sundry, it seems: the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the Maritime and Fisheries Agency, HM Revenue and Customs and the UK Border Agency. The observant reader will have noticed that local councils were also included in the earlier bullet-point list.

And here's my radicalised response to this encroachment upon democracy:

Get up there in 2-seater aeroplanes from airfields around Kent, take up a gun with you (illegal, I know, but breaking the law is made necessary by these assaults on democracy), find the fucking things and shoot them down. I don't care how. Or, if that proves impossible, find wherever they launch them or store them, and shoot them or blow them up or anything to kill the drones.

Successive governments have proved that they won't listen unless they are forced: the only protest to do any real good in recent times was the Poll Tax riots in 1990, which effectively deposed Thatcher from government. Those were violent protests, not peaceful ones. As long as the government has powers like these drones to use against peaceful protesters, it will see no reason to change or restore democracy - and that goes for any government, not just the New Labour government. Anyone who pretends or believes that the Conservatives would do anything differently is living in cloud-cuckoo land.

How are we supposed to trust a government that feels the need to spy on us constantly? How are we supposed to be satisfied with such oppressive tactics?

just over 230 years ago, one of the most fabled documents outlining the basis of democratic and just government, made the following claims:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Well, I believe that the British government - indeed, successive British governments in the last quarter-century or more (thus rendering our current democracy not fit for purpose) - have made just such a train of abuses and usurpations, have indeed pursued just such a design. I believe that with the progress of the Lisbon treaty, that the EU now has also joined that design. I was never a Eurosceptic; greater union with Europe I see as a good thing. But the undemocratic manner in which the EU has taken shape and that the Lisbon treaty enforces upon the European citizenry I view as a compete abrogation and rejection of the principles of democracy.

By the same mode that led the Levellers' cause to be declared at the Putney Debates must British citizens who love democracy force the hand of our would-be leaders; sadly, by their own actions it seems to me that our government is forcing it upon people who love freedom to act in such ways.

Just the act of writing these thoughts, in British law, makes me technically a terrorist. And yet, do I not have a right to feel angry and to express that anger, about these matters?