Category: Society

A few weeks ago, I received a chain email from a distant relative. It was about the James Boulger case. As it happens, the email is one of these zombie emails that constantly circulates throughout the internet refusing to die. While I did not realise that at the time, I did respond to my relative telling her that I did not think that vengeance was a good emotion to exercise, and that I would not be passing the email on, or responding to its exhortations in any way.

I was reminded of that example while reading the coverage of the publication of the report into child abuse within Catholic institutions in Ireland. The two things that leapt out at me were (a) the scale of the abuses against children in care and (b) the fact that the Catholic church cut a deal to limit the scale of the financial penalties against it and to prevent prosecution of the perpetrators of the abuse.

My initial reaction was to think “prosecute the bastards!”, but then I wondered whether I was simply seeking vengeance – something that I said was a bad idea in the Jamie Boulger case. On reflection, I don’t think that the two cases can be compared, and I am, in fact, seeking justice, not vengeance. It seems to me that not to bring the perpetrators to account for their crimes is an evil in itself. As A Thinking Man says in this very excellent post:

…the failure to name the perpetrators and bring them to justice, will do nothing but twist a brutal knife into a very painful wound.

I agree, but I see no recognition from the Catholic church of that fact. Instead they are closing ranks and siding with the perpetrators. Shame on them.

I see that the Guardian is running a series of opinion pieces this week centred around the question: “Is gay marriage a religious issue?”

So far, we’ve had four different people take four different stances. First, we had Candace Chellew-Hodge, an American gay Christian and associate pastor, arguing that marriage existed long before Christianity got its sticky fingers on it. Next up was Martin Prendergast, a British gay Catholic, arguing that the Catholic sacramental view of marriage could be applied to same-sex unions. While his heart is clearly in the right place, I can’t help feeling that he’s flogging a dead horse while the current Pope and his coterie are in power. Still, as he points out, the Catholic Church has itself recognised same-sex unions in the past, so it’s possible that once Benedict bites the bullet, reason, equality and doing the right thing might once again prevail.

Then we got Theo Hobson, arguing that marriage should be opened up to gay people. Fine, except that, being Theo Hobson, his arguments are a pile of old codswallop. He gets off to an abysmal start in his opening two sentences:

Is gay marriage a religious issue? Yes, in the sense that we can only really understand marriage with reference to religion.

Er, sorry? The evidence for that assertion is, what, exactly? Theo attempts to explain:

The event has a religious dimension, even if the couple are atheists, for they are affirming a tradition moulded by religious values.

Ah, the “sticky fingers” argument. Well, sorry, Theo, but my civil marriage ceremony had no religious dimension to it whatsoever – God didn’t get an invite (how could she, when she doesn’t exist?).

The ideal of total communion between two souls is religiously rooted.

There you go again, Theo, I don’t have a soul either – that’s a concept that indeed is religiously rooted, but is total nonsense. However, two people can want to get married because of their love and commitment to each other – no souls required.

And so is the discipline that this entails: confining sexuality to one relationship, for the sake of nurturing a new social entity, the family, involves an idea of social duty that has long been seen in religious terms.

It may have “long been seen in religious terms”, but that doesn’t mean that that is the only way of seeing it. Discipline and the family are not the sole prerogatives of religion, no matter how much Hobson seems to need to believe it. He should try taking off his blinkers once in a while. But what really irritates me about Hobson’s piece is his final paragraph:

Yes, this makes marriage a wider concept, but it doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that many of us will still feel that there is something more real about heterosexual marriage, because of its union of gender opposites, and because of its reproductive potential.

“More real”? Patronising, or what? Excuse me while I catch my breath.

Today, Mark Simpson weighed in with his take on the subject, arguing that marriage is outdated, and that the existing civil partnership laws are all that is needed in 21st. Century Britain, and should be open to heterosexuals, not limited just to gays and lesbians. While there’s something to be said for this point of view, the fact of the matter is that in Britain, at present, straight people, religious or not, can get married, while gay people can only enter into a civil partnership. There’s the discrepancy and the discrimination right there.

Britain is stuck in a halfway house at the moment. Perhaps the way out is indeed, as Simpson suggests, to open up civil partnerships to all.

It’s interesting to reflect on the situation here in the Netherlands. We’ve got both civil marriage (open to all) and civil partnerships – known as registered partnerships (again, open to all). The point is that “marriage” is completely secular: two people must get married in a townhall for their marriage to be recognised as such. If they are religious, then they usually walk across the market square into the church to perform a church marriage, but that is a purely religious ceremonial, it has no standing in the eyes of the State. When Prince Willem-Alexander and his Maxima got married a few years back, that was the pattern they followed: civil marriage in the Townhall, followed by the religious marriage in the church.

There are few real differences between civil marriage and civil partnerships here. If you want the nitty-gritty detail, then this paper by Kees Waaldijk will tell you all you need to know.

I’m probably biased, but the Dutch model seems to be eminently pragmatic, sensible, and treats people equally. I wish more countries would adopt the model.

Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent.

There is also a case for a programme to change the mindset of today’s young officers, some of whom will be the police leaders of the 2020s and 2030s. They must recognise that the right of lawful protest is inalienable. If they cannot accept this, then perhaps we should consider looking outside the service for the senior officers of tomorrow 

It’s not because I was abused or my trust was violated. It’s not because I was wounded or stunted by my religious upbringing (I didn’t have one). It’s not because so much traditional religion is so hateful and damaging to queers.

 

It’s because I don’t believe in God.

Period.

Amen.

Our Maddy of the Sorrows is back with another of her hand-wringing pieces. This time Madeleine Bunting is being sorrowful that real debates about religion are being drowned by the foghorn voices of the “New Atheists”. Funny that, I always thought that foghorns served a useful purpose of warning sailors lost in the mist that there were dangers ahead.

It’s a strange piece. She quotes approvingly folks such as Alain de Botton, John Gray, Karen Armstrong and Mark Vernon – all of whom seem to me to be taking the simple trusting faiths of the faithful into a looking-glass world where it becomes de rigueur to believe six impossible things before every breakfast. Indeed, Madeleine apparently believes the same:

Intriguingly, where Gray, Armstrong and Vernon all end up is with the apophatic tradition of theology. Apophatic is a word no longer even in my dictionary, but it’s a major tradition of Christian thought, and central to the thinking of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas: it is the idea that God is ineffable and beyond powers of description. S/he can be experienced by religious practice, but as Armstrong puts it: "In the past, people knew we could say nothing about God. Certain forms of knowledge only come with practice." It makes the boundary between belief in God and agnosticism much more porous than commonly assumed.

Bunting quotes Armstrong as saying:

What "belief" used to mean, and still does in some traditions, is the idea of "love", "commitment", "loyalty": saying you believe in Jesus or God or Allah is a statement of commitment. Faith is not supposed to be about signing up to a set of propositions but practising a set of principles.

I’m all for the idea of “love”, “commitment” and “loyalty”, but these I try to express towards my fellow human beings, not towards some mythical monsters. Frankly, I’d far rather be warned about life’s dangers by the sound of foghorns than be seduced by the cruel songs of sirens.

Update: As usual, Ophelia dissects Bunting’s piece to reveal the nonsense and stupidity within. Oh, and perhaps it’s just me, but do I detect just the faintest whiff of sour grapes in Maddy’s crack that “Richard Dawkins could stump up for the crates of champagne out of his sumptuous royalties from The God Delusion”?