UK Politics

On Freedom Of Religion

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

I have only one further comment to make on the topic of gay marriage and religious freedom for now, this time prompted by another article in the Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9145759/Church-powerless-to-stop-same-sex-marriage-even-if-hundreds-of-thousands-object.html

The article discusses the publication of the British government’s “national consultation document” (no, I don’t know what one is and have never heard of one either, but I’m sure that its publication kept an army of civil servants and several retired, titled former judges well-occupied and remunerated for some considerable period of time, as all lengthy British enquiries seem to do).

The gist of the article that even if hundreds of thousands of people object to the legalisation of gay marriage, it may still go ahead (and it is implied, of course that this would be a terrible thing, because apparently we like the tyranny of the majority – or enthused minority, in this case – in this country, as long as it is working in our favour).

However, one sentence in the article struck me as particularly important and much overlooked:

“The document repeatedly underlines that the change would only affect civil marriage and that there would be an outright ban on same-sex marriages [in] religious premises even if some denominations wanted them.”

Do you understand this, stalwart defenders of “traditional values” and “religious freedom”? Even in the government’s new proposed law, it would be illegal for your church, synagogue or mosque to perform a same-sex marriage even if it wanted to some day. The government is dictating what you can and cannot do within the confines of your own church.

In this case, your view and that of the government are broadly in alignment, believe it or not – neither of you want same-sex marriages to take place in religious spaces. The only argument concerns whether you should be allowed to continue to impose your definition of marriage on the general, non-religious population through the institution of civil marriage. But some day in the future your interests may diverge, and the government may choose to legislate something directly impacting what goes on in your holy place that you profoundly disagree with.

They have the power to do it now, and as this “national consultation document” shows, they are doing it now, but you say nothing because your interests are aligned. But I don’t want to hear a word of complaint if ever a government law is proposed that actually makes your church do something that it doesn’t want to do.

That would be a violation of freedom of religion. Not the legalisation of civil same-sex marriages.

Married Couple Or Just “Profound Friends”?

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

I didn’t go to Mass last weekend because I knew that all of the Catholic churches in Britain were going to read to their congregations a pastoral letter from the Bishops, exhorting us to fight against the government’s plans to legalise gay marriage in the UK. I don’t have time for that nonsense, and I don’t much care if this puts me at odds with official church teaching, because in 100 years’ time the church will agree with me. People that accept gay marriage and contraception will be looked back upon as latter-day Copernicuses, and those who frown upon it will be looked upon much like the Antebellum South. That’s just how it is, huff and puff about traditional values all you like.

I’m used to seeing cringeworthingly anti-intellectual arguments against gay marriage from my church, but this latest one from the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, really takes the cake:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9147559/Gay-couples-are-just-lifelong-friends-says-Catholic-leader.html

Gay couples are, apparently, just lifelong friends who somehow got confused or duped into incorporating a romantic element into said friendship. Says the Bishop:

“I would want to say to them that I understand their desires, that I understand their experience of love is vitally important in their lives, but I would want to say to them that they are called in my view, in the Church’s view, to a very profound friendship in life … I would want them to be respected, but I would want them to have a vision in themselves that what they are called to is not marriage but a very profound and lifelong friendship.”

Good, well that’s sorted then! No need to continue this argument about marriage equality because gay and lesbian people are just good pals who got a bit confused after a few drinks.

Sigh.

The Daily Telegraph has a poll on the subject, which, as is so often the case, misses the point entirely:

It is not for Daily Telegraph readers to decide whether gay marriage in churches should be allowed. That is a matter that does, and should always, remain with the various religions and denominations. No one is suggesting that Vincent Nichols be frog-marched to the altar of Westminster Cathedral and made to bestow the Catholic sacrament of marriage on a gay couple. As long as the official church position is that homosexual unions are a sin, clergymen should and must not be required to violate their churches teaching in such a way.

However, neither does any one religion, church or denomination have the right to impose their particular standards for marriage – or dietary customs or anything else – on the population as a whole. The Catholic church can object to gay marriage and ensure that no such unions are sanctioned within the church, but beyond that it has no authority, spiritual, moral or otherwise, to lecture other people. And any claims to the moral high ground are roundly rebuffed by their tolerance of civil heterosexual unions, and their deafening silence on the topic of extra-marital affairs and the astonishingly high divorce rate.

I’ll leave it to Nick Herbert, the UK government Home Office minister to have the last word in this case:

“I don’t seek to dictate to the Archbishop what happens inside his Church, what standards he sets and what he seeks to do. It would be quite wrong for me or the state to do so. But equally I wonder why he should seek to dictate the institution of civil marriage outside of his Church which is not a matter for the Church.”

Amen.

Labour Party Balderdash On Jobs

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Ed Miliband Jobs Guarantee

 

Good news, everyone. Ed Miliband has solved the youth unemployment crisis in Britain. I guess he was lying in bed last night and the ghost of Michael Foot visited him and told him what had to be done to make everything better again.

Once he and his merry band of super-competent cabinet colleagues are sworn in as the next government in 2015, everything will be fine. Rainbows will appear in the sky and bunny rabbits will hop across the land. We know this because, at the one-day Labour Party conference in Coventry today, Mr. Miliband unveiled his “real jobs guarantee”.

The nasty Conservative Party, of course, likes young people to be unemployed. It gives us right-wingers a kick to pay taxes so that people can receive Jobseekers Allowance indefinitely.

His plan – to give every young person who has been unemployed for 12 months or more a guaranteed internship with a company, paid at the minimum wage – would be paid for by another £600m arbitrary raid on bankers bonuses.

Miliband says:

“To business we say, we’ll pay the wages, if you provide the training … To young people: if you’re out of work for a year we’ll guarantee you the opportunity to work.”

The BBC article goes on to mention:

“Those taking part will be expected to turn up for work, as well as looking for a full-time job and complete training, or face “tough consequences” – including possible benefit sanctions.”

What other tough consequence could there possibly be for failing to turn up for work or complete the other requirements for receiving government benefits, other than to lose those benefits? Being scolded by someone at the Job Centre? Being sent a letter of disapproval? Anyway.

I almost don’t feel as though it is worth delving into the flaws in this dystopian policy, especially given the fact that Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, was apparently clueless when it came to how much the scheme would cost, and whether this cost would be fully met by their proposed one-time (but seemingly all-the-time) tax on bankers’ bonuses.

Nonetheless, a couple of points of rebuttal, just to go through the motions:

1.Guess what, not all “bankers” had a hand in bringing about the global economic downturn. In fact, a lot of people in quite a lot of industries, and government positions also had a hand in it. So when will the Labour Party get over trying to use banks as a piggy bank to raid at will to fund their latest scheme? Gordon Brown was either Chancellor of the Exchequer or Prime Minister for the decade leading up to the collapse, so how about we also arbitrarily add a 10% tax surcharge on all of his future income to help him atone for the consequences of his calamitous incompetence?

The time to extract penance from the banks was at the time of the bailouts, but it didn’t happen. The Labour government missed the opportunity. Businesses cannot plan for the future and grow and prosper if they don’t know if they will be hit by a new punitive tax at any moment to fund the latest socialist pipe dream. Should the country have extracted more of a toll from the financial sector at the time? Almost certainly. But we didn’t, and now it is too late, and we have Gordon Brown and his heirs and successors in today’s Labour Party to thank for it.

2. This policy is so vague as to be worthless. Mr. Miliband says that “saying ‘no’ is not an option”, but doesn’t outline the consequences of saying no. After never once having gotten tough before in their history, does anyone really expect that this Labour policy, if implemented, would actually have any real teeth?

3. Youth unemployment currently stands at around 22.5%, or 1.042 million people. How, exactly, is a future Labour government going to coerce enough firms to take people on in order to reduce this to 0%? The answer is, of course, that they won’t. And if they even come close, it will only be because they bully firms into taking on people to do non-jobs that are of no training value, just to help the government meet its target.

4. Go away, and come back when you have a real jobs policy or any kind of plan that will actually solve the problem of youth unemployment. And in the meantime, perhaps stop demonising the current government’s “Welfare to Work” plans, which are much more cost-neutral and much more likely to succeed.

George Osborne Must Avoid The Urge To Become A Control Freak

Samuel Hooper4 Comments

George Osborne - Chancellor of the Exchequer - Budget

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This well-written piece from The Freedom Association is worth reading, warning the Chancellor of the Exchequer to avoid raising taxes on beer in his upcoming budget announcement.

As an avid beer drinker myself, I can argue from a position of self-interest alone that it would be bad to raise the level of tax on a pint of beer.

But let’s forget about that particular issue for a moment, and concentrate instead on the ludicrous yearly spectacle of the Chancellor of the Exchequer standing at the despatch box in the House of Commons, and reeling off a list of everyday products that he intends to extract more tax from in the coming year.

Could there be a greater example of heavy-handed, over-centralised, petty, British authoritarianism than this?

Why should the central government, in addition to raiding our personal incomes and (if we are so fortunate as to have them) corporate profits or capital gains, also be allowed to decide that it wants a slice of the pie every time we buy a pint at the local pub, or a pack of cigarettes, or a bottle of wine to drink at dinner?

Is the punishingly high rate of VAT (currently 20%) paid on most goods insufficient? Are the higher (40%) and top (50%) rates of income tax not enough, or the additional national insurance “contributions” that we all make (an additional tax in all but name, meaning that the highest marginal rate of income tax is now well over 50% – why bother to work at all when the government snatches more than half of every pound you make before it even hits your bank account?)

Since the Second World War, and for some time before, government in Britain – and the raising and spending of government funds – have been far too centralised. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if taxes were simplified in this country, so that there was one deduction for income tax, one for VAT, one for capital gains, one for corporation tax and nothing else to worry about? Forget “national insurance” and sneaky tax increases on a pint of cider here, or a pack of cigarettes there, or doubling the tax we pay for the privilege of passing through any of Britain’s dilapidated airports (air passenger duty), or any other thing that the Chancellor thinks he can extract revenue from?

If that’s an impossible pipe dream, how about restoring some semblance of a link between the stealth taxes that are raised and what that money is spent on, so that I can be reasonably sure that the ridiculous amount of tax I pay when I fly from Heathrow Airport actually goes to make air travel or general transport better in this country, rather than being added to some massive central pot and disbursed to fund a score of other schemes that I probably either object to, or don’t benefit from?

And since no government will ever do this in the foreseeable future, can we at least implement Ben Gummer MP’s idea to give each taxpayer a yearly statement, personalised for their salary and annual tax contributions, showing where their contributions are going.

And when, for example,  people buy petrol at the pump (or rather, go inside the shop to pay, because this is Britain and paying at the pump is still proving too great a technical feat for us to master in 2012), it would be nice if the receipts would show the original price charged by the company, and then the price payable by the consumer once the onerously high rate of fuel duty is added on.

Government should be transparent, open and accountable, and I for one would like to see where my money is going.

On Closed Information Loops

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

Apparently we are all busy fleeing from, unsubscribing from or de-friending people who espouse differing political opinions on the social media sites that we frequent. Or so says Howard Kurtz, writing in The Daily Beast in an article entitled “Unfriending Over Politics”:

“According to a fascinating survey by the Pew Internet Project, 9 percent of those who frequent social networking sites have blocked, unfriended or hidden someone because they posed something about politics or issues that the user disagreed with or found offensive.”

I find this interesting because it doesn’t chime with my personal experience at all. While I will never know how many people have spat out their morning coffee and hurriedly de-friended me after reading one of my rants on Facebook, I do know that I have never even thought of doing this to anyone else. Well, with one disclaimer – I once defriended someone after she posted a comment in which she eagerly anticipated the death of Margaret Thatcher, a callous thing to say but really only the straw that broke the camels back in terms of that particular connection.

facebookdislike
Computer, cross-reference my friend list with the electoral register…

 

Perhaps I am the exception to the rule, but I rather like hearing contrary opinions expressed on Twitter and Facebook. I like dissenting and hearing other people disagree with me. Sometimes it makes me change my mind, and other times it makes my own arguments stronger. Life would be so dull if we lived in a world where everything that you posted was automatically “liked” by everyone else, with no dissent or discussion. But apparently this is the world that a lot of people are slowly moving towards.

Of course, we have observed this phenomenon for some time in terms of the traditional media, the newspapers and television news. With ever more options at our disposal it has never been more easy to gather one’s news from friendly sources and voices with whom one shares the same biases, prejudices and political leanings. I am guilty of this to some extent myself. As the US Republican Party has drifted ever further to the reactionary right over the course of the Obama presidency, I have found my television news habits shifting from a blend of CNN, Fox and MSNBC to the significant exclusion of Fox News and a slight decline in MSNBC viewing, compensated for by a large reluctant increase in CNN. And in terms of UK politics, when The Times Online went behind a paywall, my first instinct was to gravitate to The Daily Telegraph as a natural substitute, over The Guardian or The Independent.

However, I try to always remain very aware of the political biases of the news sources that I consume, and to compensate for them by reading or watching alternative outlets too. This is really important if we are to avoid buying in to the two-dimensional caricatures of our political adversaries that the television talking heads often perpetrate. Most Republicans are not racist, backward people harbouring a cultural resentment against President Obama and interested only in their own economic wellbeing, and most Democrats are not union-beholden thugs committed to subverting America and establishing a socialist economic model in the United States.

But at times you could be forgiven for holding one of these opinions, given the poisonous rhetoric and lack of balance that exists almost everywhere now. Take CNN for example, the only major cable news network that makes an honest effort to tow a middle-line and avoid political bias in its coverage – they are consistently beaten in the ratings by FOX and MSNBC, each of whom have carved out a lucrative niche catering to and reinforcing the preexisting leanings of their viewers.

Should we go back to the old days, when the trusty voice of Walter Cronkite or the generic BBC News announcer was the sole source of information and the undisputed truth? Surely not – though it is hard to see that movements like the “birtherism” movement in the US, questioning President Obama’s citizenship, would have prospered were it not for a television news network ready and willing give such radical voices succour and airtime.

Surely we would all do well to take time to watch and read the news from alternative perspectives sometimes – and not just to laugh at the crazy stupid liberals/conservatives, but really to watch and see the world from another perspective. We don’t have to change our minds, but we can change our tone and improve the level of public discourse in our respective countries.