The extreme decision of an employment tribunal in the case of Ladele vs Islington (pdf), that of the registrar who claimed to have discriminated against on religious ground for refusing to officiate in civil partnership ceremonies, has naturally drawn a considerable amount of attention.

Thus far, the general consensus amongt legal bloggers is that the tribunal’s ruling is, at best, extreme, if not bordering on perverse and in the days since the ruling it transpires that Ms Ladele, whose views on marriage were described in the judgement as follows…
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This brightens my day. Fundamentalist campaigner may have to declare bankruptcy as a result of the court case I covered last December. He has apparently asked us licence payers to cover the costs:

in the interests of goodwill and justice

Seriously. This petty little fundamentalist bigot who misused a long outdated law as part of his personal crusade against freedom of expression now wants to be let off the costs of the case in the name of “goodwill”.
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I have spent about five hours so far collating reactions to last night’s Who and am still not done yet, so if this is a bit disjointed, blame Russell T Davies. When I’ve finally done I’ll be making Liberal use of this and picturing Rusty in the role of Boss.

Tips to the usual address: all submissions will be considered, although there’s no guarantee of inclusion.

Andrew Hickey has a great post about why the Lib Dems’ current strategy is completely arse-about-face, which neatly encapsulates my own feelings on the matter and chimes with Mike Smithson’s recent post too.

Stuff White People Like dissects Godwin’s Law: “all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.”

Shakesville reports on a fiscal fly in John McCain’s soup.

On my blog there are tips for those who wish to pile the pressure on Heinz like Lynne F. Continue reading…

During the HFE Bill debate, several members of the House of Commons stood up to claim that fathers are being sidelined by the lack of legislation on whether lesbians should have to provide evidence of a male role model in order to qualify for IVF.

Several other members stood up to claim that the child has rights, and that these rights are best looked after by the existence of such a ‘father’ clause.

The terrible logical inconsistencies in such statements became very obvious in debate. If we’re insisting on a male role model, because it will result in a better brought up child, why is it immaterial what sort of role model we’re talking about? If the male role model is a drunk, a wife-beater or any number of other things, then that will hardly result in a better brought up child.
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1) On March 19th Nadine Dorries MP published a blog-post titled The Hand of Hope, which featured this image of a small hand apparently coming out of a uterus. She said:

When the operation was over, baby Samuel, at 21 weeks gestation, put his hand through the incision in the uterus and grabbed hold of the surgeon’s finger, a gesture which was apparently met with a huge amount of emotion in the operating theatre. Dr Bruner said that it was the most emotional moment of his life and that for a moment he was just frozen, totally immobile.

Except, it was a hoax and Dr Bruner himself had said so. This was pointed out on several blogs including LC and Dorries wrote another post defending her actions with the view that the photographer, a born-again Christian, should be believed over the surgeon (who she had earlier quoted herself).

The Hand of Hope also makes an appearance on the pictures and video section of her new campaign. In other words, a member of parliament is actually perpetuating a hoax that has been debunked several times.

In many ways, this sums up her entire campaign.
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A week ago Nadine Dorries launched the 20 weeks Campaign through the Daily Mail, which wrote up this glowing story and dedicated its editorial comment strip to supporting it. The 20 Weeks website has Nadine Dorries MP’s picture on every page and she has promoted it relentlessly through her blog. So we can reasonably assume it is her campaign.

But who is behind this campaign? Is it just Ms Dorries? The website doesn’t say. On the Q&A page however it does have this question: Is this a religious campaign?. Answer: “No. There are people of all faiths and of no faith who support this campaign.”

But that’s about it. Shouldn’t we be told who is running a campaign fronted by a Conservative MP?
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A few weeks ago, Tory Mayoral candidate Boris Johnson was endorsed by the fascist British National Party. His response was swift, short, and sweet:

I utterly and unreservedly condemn the BNP and have no desire whatsoever to receive a single second-preference vote from a BNP supporter

This week, Labour and Liberal Democrats were placed in pretty much the same situation by the Muslim Association of Britain. Candidates should likewise reject with alacrity, the endorsement of this extreme right-wing organisation.
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Before my granddad died, he suffered for around nine years with Alzheimer’s. The worst thing wasn’t the forgetting things, the not recognising people or the needing round-the-clock care. The worst symptom of Alzheimer’s was the depression.

He knew he was a burden to those who cared for him, he knew what was happening to him and it broke his heart every day.
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There’s often a row about religion over the Easter holiday, usually involving a pronouncement made a bishop that the media has half-grasped and wants to turn into a good old scrap between believers and others.

This year, however, the bundle has been much more political. It was kicked off by Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s gaudy intervention in the debate about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill Continue reading…

I have a rule of thumb: if the Sun newspaper is running a campaign for something, it is generally a bad idea. It’s worked beautifully so far and its latest campaign to ‘Bash the Bishop’ is no exception. I make no apologies for this defence of Dr Williams.

First, let’s get the straw-man argument out of the way. I’m no fan of the sharia as it is intepreted now and have long recognised its bias against women. In fact I’m against religious interpretation by orthodox middle-aged men in general. I’ve also repeatedly pointed out how multiculturalism fails women, so I don’t need a lecture from the Sun or Daily Mail on feminism.

So what did he say, didn’t say and why the hell was the BBC coverage so bad?
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is in trouble over his comments on the incorporation of Sharia law into UK law.

It is my opinion that Dr Williams’ suggestions deserve reasoned consideration; that they do not require a change in the nature of the law; and that much of the opposition to them, implicitly, requires a very grave change in the law from defining what is illegal to defining what is legal.

I think it’s important to work out exactly what the most reverend Primate is saying. It has generally been reported as ’sharia law is unavoidable’ along with cries of Londonistan and dhimmitude.

According to this transcript of an interview between the Archbishop and Jonathan Landau, what Dr Williams believes is that

“the application of Sharia in certain circumstances if we want to achieve this cohesion and take seriously peoples’ religion seems unavoidable”

What I intend to do in this post is briefly to sum up Dr Williams’ argument before giving my reasons for supporting it. I will then seek to show not only that the arguments used to oppose his comments are based on misconceptions, accidental or otherwise, of his opinions and that they, in fact, to a great deal to damage community relations in the UK. Finally, I will reflect on the implications of Dr Williams’ comments and the reaction they have provoked.

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Its been a while since a good multicultural conundrum came along to bother us. For a while, I thought that the issue of the mosque in Oxford that wants to broadcast its call to prayer might be one such issue, but while reading a couple of articles in order to write a blog, I came across this quote from the Telegraph:

“We want to fix a loudspeaker to our minaret to broadcast our call to prayer. We would like to have three two-minute calls a day, but if that is not accepted then we would like to have it at least on Fridays.

“In Islamic counties the call is loud so people are reminded to come to prayer. We do not need the volume to be loud, that can be adjusted because our members have a time-table for the prayers. But we want to have the call in some form because it is our tradition.”

Now this doesn’t look like a culture clash to me, so much as groups engaging in a dialogue with a local authority, just as they should in a liberal democracy.
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Kate Belgrave’s piece on Monday, Jesus. H. Christ. Rides. Again, refers to the “Jesus freaks” in Brown’s Cabinet and asks why followers of God still get airtime in politics and press. Kate’s piece well illustrates that many people - particularly those who take a left of centre approach to politics - either ignore or at least fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people’s lives.

With debate raging about the Embryology Bill, veils, faith schools and social cohesion, I wonder if it isn’t time for those who espouse the “progressive” agenda to debate just how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

We are not alone in struggling with this issue. In the United States Barack Obama has recently argued that his own party has been reluctant to engage in serious debate about the issue of religion and politics. Speaking back in June last year he said: “At best, we [Democrats] may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands.”

The reality of political engagement is that we have to meet people where they are - even if we do not agree with where they are. If, as a progressive movement, we are to communicate our hopes and values in a way that is relevant to the lives of others, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse. In his speech, Obama argued that secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into public debate.
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Following Barack Obama’s surprise victory at the Iowa caucuses, how will Hillary Clinton recover to confirm her place as Democratic frontrunner? Exlcusive to Liberal Conspiracy, we can reveal extracts drawn from advance copies of speeches the junior senator from New York intends to make over the next few months as the primaries roll on…

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The argument between Newsnight and Policy Exchange is, quite rightly, carrying on. On Monday The Times published an apology to the MCB’s Dr Abdul Bari for claiming the East London Mosque was responsible for hate-literature Policy Exchange had unearthed.

That evening, writing on Newsnight’s blog, journalist Richard Watson said:

A professional document examiner found evidence that three of the receipts may have been fabricated. Later, we had concerns about the authenticity of another receipt – from Al Muntada mosque in south west London – so that makes a total of six questionable receipts.

Now it seems that there are doubts about the quality and reliability of the research in a seventh case – East London Mosque.
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This then is very similar to the scenario set out to us by the management at Tawhid mosque in Leyton, a case we did feature in our film. Policy Exchange has accepted its researcher bought books from the bookshop next door but argue it was justified in saying in the report that they came from the mosque because, they say, its researcher was led from the mosque into the bookshop to buy the books – and that means the mosque approved the material. If this was the case, then why is this not spelled out in the report?

And by the way, we still haven’t had an answer from Policy Exchange to that simple question: do they believe all of the receipts are genuine?

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Associated Press is reporting that:

A gang-rape victim who was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being alone with a man not related to her was pardoned by the Saudi king after the case sparked rare criticism from the United States, the kingdom’s top ally.
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Justice Minister Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Sheik said the pardon reported Monday by Saudi media does not mean the king doubted the country’s judges, but that he was acting in the “interests of the people.”

What he means is that western media outrage, which led to the issue being raised with President Bush, forced the Saudi king to back down. For the victim this is undoubtedly good news and I would hope this incident would make the Saudi legislative think again next time when they convict rape victims. Though, I doubt it. Governments are understandably reluctant to tell other countries how they should treat their own citizens, lest it comes back to haunt them.

For lefties there are (possibly) added dimensions to such stories.
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According to my Facebook profile, I am variously an anesthetist, and aesthete, and (less frequently) a non-practicing atheist. But whatever guise I choose for myself, I tend to look upon the tribulations of Dr Williams with the detachment of an outsider. I reason that because I’m not a church-goer, the possible ’schism’ over gay clergy should not really concern me.

But now I’m wondering whether that is the correct view. Looking again at the word ‘Anglican’, it occurs to me that this particular Communion of Churches might actually be considered an exporter of British ’soft power’ and influence, much like the British Council. The Church of England is still a formal branch of our state, and Anglican Bishops sit in the House of Lords. Furthermore, it is the British Prime Minister who effectively appoints the Archbishop of Canterbury. So I would say that the Archbishop and his Church are formal (though obviously not democratic) representatives of our country.

If The Church represents us all, is is not reasonable for atheists, agnostics and secularists to poke their nose into its affairs? Traditionalists say that Britain is still essentially a Christian country built on Christian morals. If that is the case, and while Church of England retains its privileged position in our political system, then I would say that us non-believers have the right to interfere in its policies and rulings.
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Yes, it’s that time of year again. No sooner does an important traditional religious holiday roll around than the PC-brigade feel the need to strip-mine it of its original significance, just so’s no-one’s feeling get upset. Fuck that.

For many years now, it’s become unfashionable to talk of Geola, as Muslims, atheists, and Christians have all attacked our traditional holiday.
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The Tory think tank, The Policy Exchange is under fire from Newsnight. At stake, specifically, is the credibility of their recent report, the Hijacking of British Islam.

More generally at stake is the reputation of The Policy Exchange itself.
Osama Saeed summarises the Newsnight allegations as follows:

Tonight’s Newsnight investigation into The Policy Exchange’s recent report on extremism in British mosques found major irregularities with the receipts that the think tank handed them to investigate the issue further:

• Receipts from North London mosque’s bookshop, when the mosque doesn’t have a bookshop. Forensic examination revealed that the receipt’s heading had been printed on an inkjet printer - when usual procedure for such pieces of paper would be mass printing
• Receipts from other mosques printed entirely on inkjet printers
• A receipt for Euston Mosque with the address on it being for the mosque next door to it on North Gower Street (who would have thought that two mosques next door to each other would be an advantage one day!)
• Forensic tests that found handwriting matching on two separate receipts for different mosques
• Forensic tests showing that the writing on one receipt had been done on top of another receipt for an entirely different mosque

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I had a conversation yesterday with a friend about domestic violence within the Muslim community in the UK and the issue of why some Muslims resist discussing what they know is happening in the company of non-Muslims.

In my friend’s view, challenging Muslims, and Muslim men in particular, about domestic violence in such an open space, where non-Muslims are present, is problematic because of the current socio-political climate within the country, including widespread Islamophobia. She felt that a public naming of the problem would be hijacked by those with a racist agenda to further demonize Muslims in the eyes of the UK public, for instance by accusing Muslims of having barbaric cultures.
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