So today is the day that same-sex civil partnerships become legal in the UK. Needless to say, most of the UK media is carrying the story, although the Daily Telegraph is somewhat stingy with its coverage, preferring instead to concentrate on Christianity.

 

Hopefully, at some point the law will permit full civil marriages, just as here in The Netherlands, but this is a good start.

 

And for those who think that the institution of marriage is somehow under attack, a review through history will show that marriage has always had a wide range of expression. My favourite of these historical examples is also the very earliest: the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep – dating from around 2,400 BC. Although even here we’re not free of the stereotypes, it would seem. They are both described in the hieroglyphs as having the title of "Overseer of the manicurists in the palace of the King". Honestly, if we’re not all supposed to be screaming hairdressers or make-up artists, we’re bloody manicurists…  

As you’re probably aware, The Vatican has now published its document on gay men who want to be priests, and as you would imagine, it’s not a barrel of fun. I wasn’t going to comment on it, but then a document was published yesterday that I did want to comment on. That document was a leader in The Guardian that was headlined "Distinctly Without Prejudice" and which was, to my eyes, a surprisingly uncritical take on the Vatican’s document.

 

It opens with a sentence that raised my eyebrows: "The most important thing about the Vatican’s new document on gay priests is that it is not bigoted" and it went on from there, keeping my eyebrows firmly entwined with my receding hairline. I see, from the Guardian’s letters page today, that I’m not the only one to have had a similar reaction. I think the best summary is given by a Dr. Dan Healy:

Hear, hear!

Steve, over at The Sharpener, pens a piece about Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s appearance at the ICA in London. Worth reading.

Rachel’s story has been published today in The Sunday Times. Just go and read it, you hear?

 

Update: Rachel writes: "Resentment and anger are the breeding ground for the pitiless narcissism that I believe lies at the heart of human evil, where you choose to deaden your empathy towards others and elevate your personal beliefs over any concern for the human consequences of your actions". While I think that resentment and anger are certainly two of the breeding grounds, I don’t think that they are the only ones for that "pitiless narcissism that lies at the heart of human evil". Personal beliefs, in the form of blind faith, can be sufficient in themselves, as witness this awful story in the Sunday Telegraph. 

There’s an interesting article in the Sunday Telegraph today written by Umberto Eco: God Isn’t Big Enough for Some People. In it, he weighs the religious celebration of Christmas against the purely commercial one. Not surprisingly, he finds the latter wanting. But where I think he and I part company is that he seems to be comparing apples with oranges here. He is partially right when he says that "Religions are systems of belief that enable human beings to justify their existence and which reconcile us to death". I say partially, because I think that religions also give rise to institutions that bring about a whole other set of reasons for religious belief – more akin to powering the institution rather than the individual human. Be that as it may, he seems to be suggesting that, beyond the aspects of Christmas celebrations that have triggered this piece of writing, the only alternative view of the world is the commercial, materialist view.

 

I was reminded of a rather silly piece of writing a couple of weeks ago in The Guardian by Nicholas Buxton on why religion has the edge over secularism. According to him: "The alternative is nihilism. If we truly believed that life was meaningless, we would have no reason to get up in the morning – ultimately, the most rational thing to do would be to jump over the edge of a cliff". As Ophelia Benson retorted in ButterfliesAndWheels: "Oh, please. Why would that be rational? ‘Hey ho, life is meaningless. Whaddya know. Well, here I am, I’ve just finished writing this book, I’m going to Italy tomorrow, next year I’m going to China, I’m learning to play the cello, a friend is coming over for dinner tonight and afterwards we’re going to the theatre, this afternoon I’m going to go for a walk in the mountains, I have a bowl of fresh peaches for breakfast, the coffee smells good, the Trout Quintet is playing on the radio, it’s a gorgeous day, oh look, there goes a bald eagle – but life is meaningless, so obviously the most rational thing to do is go jump over the edge of a cliff’".

 

I think Eco is being like Buxton: making false comparisons. The alternative to religion is not nihilism; the alternative to a religious celebration of Christmas is not a commercial one either.