Brights News Feed

Dr Evan Harris MP (Lib Dem), Frank Dobson MP (Lab) and David Wilshire MP (Con) have tabled an amendment that would effectively abolish Britain’s archaic blasphemy law. The vote is tomorrow.

From New Humanist:

A letter published in today’s Daily Telegraph makes the case for repealing the law: “As the Law Commission acknowledged in 1985, when it recommended repeal, it is uncertain in scope, but lack of intention is no defence, and the law is unlimited in penalty.

This, together with its chilling effect on free expression and its discriminatory impact, leaves it in clear breach of human rights law. In the end, no one is likely to be convicted under it.”

The letter is signed by a host of honorary associates and distinguished supporters of the Rationalist Association, the BHA and the NSS, including Richard Dawkins, RA President Jonathan Miller, philosopher and regular New Humanist contributor AC Grayling, historian David Starkey and author Philip Pullman. It’s even been signed by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, with the letter pointing out that “the Church of England no longer opposes its abolition on principle”.

The NSS point their members and subscribers to www.theyworkforyou.com where you can write to your MP in support of the amendment. The BHA have a specific “Write to your MP” page with a pre-set message about the law. Don’t delay! MPs will vote on the amendment as early as tomorrow.

With one eye on trigger-happy western nations, a Lebanese group of intellectuals have questioned the uniquely confessionalist Lebanese political system — in which power is proportionally distributed amongst representatives of different religious groups — in favor of a secular, humanist code.

The Lebanese Daily Star carries the following (via).
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The government has responded to a faith schools petition on the Downing Street website. The petition read:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ban within government-funded schools the promotion or practice of any particular faith or religion. […] Faith-based or sect schools encourage and propagate divisions within our society. Schools should be places where our children are taught to think about the world around them and come to their own conclusions. In short, they should be taught, not only about the profusion of religions and faiths but also about how moral and socially responsible lives can be led without them; rather than, at a time before they have sufficiently developed critical faculties, being indoctrinated.

The government response follows below.

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According to the press release:

A British branch of a new Europe-wide phenomenon is to be launched on Thursday 21 June in London. The Council of ex-Muslims of Britain is building on the stunning success of other branches already operating in Germany, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The British Humanist Association and National Secular Society are sponsoring the launch and support the new organisation.

The Council will provide a voice for those labelled Muslim but who have renounced religion and do not want to be identified by religion.

• Read the manifesto at Maryam Namazie’s blog
• The website (still under construction at the time of writing) is www.ex-muslim.org.uk
• Also see AC Grayling back on Comment is Free
• Islamophobia Watch have already dismissed the organization on the basis of one comment made on Maryam Namazie’s blog

The New York Times reports a worrying trend in Federal money given directly to religious groups. The article comments: “because the First Amendment prohibits direct government financing of religious activities, earmarks that steer money to religious groups pose constitutional risks. Indeed, several faith-based earmarks were successfully challenged as unconstitutional long after Congress approved them.”

A New York Times analysis shows that the number of earmarks for religious organizations, while small compared with the overall number, have increased sharply in recent years. From 1989 to January 2007, Congress approved almost 900 earmarks for religious groups, totaling more than $318 million, with more than half of them granted in the Congressional session that included the 2004 presidential election. By contrast, the same analysis showed fewer than 60 earmarks for faith-based groups in the Congressional session that covered 1997 and 1998.

More here: “Religious Groups Reap Federal Aid for Pet Projects“.

The ecumenical theologian and co-director of Christian think-tank Ekklesia, Simon Barrow, has today published an article (aimed at his predominantly liberal Christian audience) called “Why we need to rid ourselves of the ‘god of the slots’“.

As he says in his blog, the article’s “main concern” is:

to show why “the god of the slots” in culture is the equivalent of “the god of the gaps” in science — a related, but distinct, issue.

He links the “God of the slots” to very current questions, such as the religious monopoly of Thought for the Day and hints at the validity of the British Humanist Association’s complaint against religious privileging in politics and broadcast media. In a parallel article (”Losing our (radio) religion?“) also published today, he says:

the idea that a “Christians only” or “religious only” policy is a good way to advance the churches’ attractiveness in the media (or anywhere else) seems to me extraordinarily miscalculated, quite apart from indefensible in a plural era and contradicting of the Gospel message.

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Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced yesterday (release) that — following a decade long debate and a lawsuit — the Department of Veterans Affairs had finally settled with them. Americans United said: “The litigation charged that denying a pentacle to deceased Wiccan service personnel, while granting religious symbols to those of other traditions, violated the U.S. Constitution.” The Veterans Affairs department has agreed to add the neo-pagan pentacle to the list of 38 other symbols which it already approves for engraving on the memorial markers of deceased service members.

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The automatic rights of a certain number of Anglican bishops to sit in the British House of Lords was seriously undermined last week, by comments from the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, which displayed a dazzling lack of human insight. His speech is proudly displayed on the Diocese website. How do we know that, deep down, everyone is religious? This is how:

Twenty-seven years ago I was chaplain to a young offenders remand centre, Latchmere House. Every inmate was asked to declare his religious affiliation, and four young men were registered as having no religion. One Sunday, all the inmates were offered the chance to go to worship.

The four young men with no religion declined the offer, while their fellow inmates on the A wing took up the offer. The prison officer, not wanting the four men to remain locked up in their cells, asked them to clean the toilets on the wing. The following Sunday, our four non-religious young men took up the offer to go to worship. The prison officer was puzzled why they had opted in this week. “Why are you going to chapel?” he asked. The four replied, “Sir, we didn’t like the ‘No Religion’ place of worship”. Crudely as they put it, those four young men were saying in their naivety that we are all essentially religious.

So, not only does the bishop fail to understand why someone would rather sit in a quiet room than scrub a prison bog, but he passes without remark the notion that non-religious inmates should be given undesirable chores. Indeed, it sounds as if he did not object in any way to this policy at the time.

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After decades of campaigning that BBC Radio’s infamous flaship morning god-spot, Thought For the Day, should be open to non-religious thinkers, the British Humanist Association (BHA) and the Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS) have decided to go ahead and share their own thoughts on meaning, ethics and life, regardless. The HSS says:

Ethical insights into the issues of the day are not the sole preserve of religious people but the BBC have always denied humanist and secular thinkers a slot on BBC Radio’s Thought for the Day. Now, on a new website specially created for the purpose, the Humanist Society of Scotland is pleased to bring to you a series of podcasts entitled Humanist Thought for the Day, to be launched on Darwin Day (12 February 2007).

Humanist Thought For the Day launches tomorrow at www.ThinkHumanist.org, on Darwin Day, and will feature regular downloadable podcasts. Thoughts are scheduled from various BHA supporters — Stewart Lee (“Jerry Springer the Opera”, TMWRNJ); Julian Baggini (The Philosophers’ Magazine); Nigel Warburton (”Thinking from A to Z”); A.C. Grayling (the Meaning of Things series); HSS celebrant, Gillian Stewart; and chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Kate Hudson.

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The debate is over. Despite threats from the Catholic Church — backed by the Church of England, and regarded as “blackmail” by many — that their adoption agencies would be closed if they were forced to treat gay couples the same as heterosexual couples, the British Government has today confirmed that the Sexual Orientations Regulations in the Equality Act will apply to religious institutions. A transitional period will stretch to 2008. It may or may not herald the closure of the agencies, but either way it will ensure that vulnerable children will not be neglected, Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly insisted.

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