David Lammy?

Seems nice enough. Bit nondescript. Has even had his picture taken with Barack Obama…

Has now made a complete arse of himself (via Tom Watson)

Lammy calls for Ethnic Minority Shortlists

In a remarkably frank interview in today’s New Nation newspaper, David Lammy MP (pictured with Barack Obama), Britain’s most senior elected ethnic minority politician, has called on the Labour Party to introduce all ethnic minority short lists for the selection of parliamentary candidates.

Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck.

Look, David. This is not difficult - all you need to do is consult a dictionary thus:

Equality (n) : the state or quality of being equal; correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, or ability.

Tokenism (n): the practice or policy of making no more than a token effort or gesture, as in offering opportunities to minorities equal to those of the majority.

Which leads neatly to the following conclusions…

Equality - all candidates are assessed on merit and selected on ability.

Tokenism - gender/ethnic minority only shortlists

The Culture Minister and MP for Tottenham said, “there should be 18 black MPs, 21 Asian MPs and the rest made up from other ethnic minorities if we were in proportion to our population.

Huh? 18 black MPs, 21 Asian MPs and the rest made up from other ethnic minorities?

No English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish MPs then? Surely not…

And, in any case, what’s all this Asian MPs business?

‘Asians’ are just one big homogeneous mass of humanity, are they? If it’s just 18 Asian MPs you want then 18 ethnic Kazakhs would fit the bill, wouldn’t it.

For fucks sake, David, if you must try an make a diversity-based argument for restricted short-lists, the very least you can try to do is not resort to unrepresentative generalisations like ‘Asian’. ‘South Asian’ would be an improvement as it at least recognises ethnic distinctions between those whose heritage derives from the Indian subcontinent as against, say, ethnic Chinese, who are also ‘Asian’, and so on so forth.

Not much of an improvement, mind, but at least one that shows some recognition of the fact that Asia is fucking big place - get an atlas if you don’t believe me.

We aren’t just politicians. Let’s remember, the House of Commons is a house of representatives.”

Okay, so following that particular piece of asinine logic, how far should we take this idea that parliament should be ‘representative’ of population demographics.

We’re starting here with 646 MPs and a population of 58 million to play with, of which, using the main census classifications and data as our guide…

51% (329 MPs) should be female.

92.1% (595 MPs) should be white - I suppose we should drill down into matters of the proportions of English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, etc. but I can’t be arsed to do the numbers.

Then we’ll take Lammy’s 21 ‘black’ MPs and 18 ‘Asian’ MPs as read, plus we’ll need 6 ‘mixed’ - exactly what the mix should be isn’t specified in the data I’m looking at - a couple of Chinese and a couple of ‘other’. Quite what ‘other’ amounts to isn’t detailed either. Could be fucking Martians for all I know…

Actually, if it is Martians then we’re half way to being covered - step forward Lembit, and I suppose there’s the Vulcan as well.

There’s no census data on sexuality, but as post-Kinsey thinking put general estimates of the gay population at around 3-5%, so we’re looking for 20-32 gay, lesbian and bisexual MPs… do they have to be out or does closeted count as well?

Matters of faith demand that we have 463 Christians, although if we factor in church attendance figures as well then most of them only need go near a church a couple of times a year, and a few could get away with just admitting to watching ‘Songs of Praise’ once in a while. Plus we need 17 Muslims, 6 or 7 Hindus, 4 Sikhs, 3 or 4 Jews, a couple of Buddhists and two ‘others’ - don’t suppose we’ve got much chance a squeezing in a Jedi?

As for the rest, no religion required - although whether that means just atheists or leaves space a few agnostics is anyone’s guess - don’t try asking the agnostics by the way, they’re not sure either. (Boom-boom!)

We’ve also got over 5 million carers - they’ll need 58 MPs - and 194 MPs for all the people who live alone, half of which should be of pensionable age. Mmm… might have to borrow a few from the House of Lords to cover us.

About 10% (65 MPs) should be in poor health - sorry haven’t had time to do the numbers for disabilities in detail, but we’ll definitely need a few members of the ‘wheel and stick’ club, a hearing loop system and Blunkett’s dog will probably get a couple of new friends to play with, which I guess will mean we’ll need a ruling from the Speaker on whether shagging, pissing on the upholstery and sniffing MPs crotches is allowed in the chamber…

…unless the late Alan Clark managed to create a few precedents that I’m not aware of.

And so, and so forth ad nauseum until one reaches the point at which we get to the constituency with the ‘one-legged, Armenian, lesbian with dyslexic child only short-list’.

Parliament in NOT representative of the British population - if it were, a quarter of us would be lawyers and there’d be no one to empty the fucking bins.

MPs are representatives in the sense that - nominally speaking - they are elected to represent the interests of their constituents, who may belong to any of the above mentioned categories and thousands more besides. They represent the people, but are not representative OF the people. If you want a democracy that is actually representative of the people, then you need direct democracy and to be taking all your decisions by public plebiscite.

The Labour Party is presently taking legal advice on the viability of the introduction of hybrid (all women and all ethnic minority men and women) shortlists, but Lammy goes further:

I think the party will have to look in constituencies like my own where 50, sometimes more than 50 per cent of the electorate are from an ethnic minority background.

And if 50% or more of the electorate of a constituency are from an ethnic minority, then where’s the fucking problem in the first place? Give or take the odd bit of fucking around by party HQ, constituencies still select their own candidates/MPs, so you might think that where ethnic minorities are in a majority it would follow that they’d choose an MP whose background is similar to their own.

And against a background that London 2020 is 50 per cent ethnic minority, the party does have to look at all-ethnic minority shortlists where the constituencies are failing to step up to the task.”

So the beef here seems to be about London, where there are ‘too many’ white MPs at present.

First question has to be, why? If the supposition is that an area with a majority ethnic minority population should return an ethnic minority MP, then why isn’t that happening.

It could be that this is simply a function of population mobility - if the sitting MP has been in situ for a while, they may well have been selected at a time when the majority of the local population were white, and things have now changed around them.

In which case, maybe its time for the CLP to consider selecting a new candidate.

It could also be that the membership of the CLP is out of kilter with the make-up of local population - in which case the answer is to go out a recruit some more fucking members from those communities that are under represented.

It could also be that the membership, given the chance of a selection contest, votes down communal lines, splitting the ethnic minority vote and letting the white candidate through - in which case, tough shit, that’s democracy for you, and if you must try and cook the electoral process your best option might well be to introduce the alternative vote system for selection contest. It’s a bit less obvious than cooking the short-lists.

And, of course, all this presupposes that ethnicity is an overriding factor in determining how members vote in selection contests - it couldn’t possibly be the case that, having given the candidates the once over, even the ethnic minority members decide they like the white guy best and vote for him.

If we’re serious about equality - and not just creating the tokenistic appearance of equality - then our starting point has to be to develop a culture in the party in which things like gender, ethnic origin, sexuality, age, etc. are not a factor in influencing the outcome of selection contests.

That’s equality, a political culture in which merit (and politics, of course) determines who gets to stand for election and enter parliament not whether someone possesses the right arrangement of chromosomes, the right amount of melanin or an extensive collection of ornamental dental dams.

It’s that simple - either we are the progressive party we think we are, in which case gender, ethnicity, etc. should not be a factor in determining who we select as candidates - or we’re not the party we like to think we are and need to do something positive about it, which means changing attitudes and not relying on a bit of tokenistic fucking about with short-lists.

As I’ve noted on a couple of occasions I have a few issues with the ‘equality industry’, the parasitical mix of Quangos and special interest groups that sits astride what is, after, a very simple idea - equality - and seeks to milk it for every last drop of advantage they can possibly get.

I have a very simple view of equality - its for all of us.

And for all that that simple idea has become hopelessly clogged with calcified, over-politicised bullshit over the years, its not something that is, or should be, very difficult to grasp. Equality means nothing more complicated or profound than treating people as people, individuals, rather than as amorphous, homogeneous masses of stereotyped cattle.

Britain is a rich and diverse country not because it contains people who are white, black, South Asian, Chinese, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Atheists, young, old, rich, poor, gay or straight. It is diverse because it has a population of just over 60 million people - all of them different. You can’t get any more diverse that that.

Because I see the world as I do, I fully support the government’s decision to replace the many special interest ‘equality’ bodies with a single Commission for Human Rights and Equality and, to take matters to their logical conclusion, will also support proposals to consolidate the UK’s existing piecemeal equality legislation into a future Single Equality Act, if and (hopefully) when those proposals emerge. In fact, such an act cannot come soon enough for me and modest though my position is in the Labour Party - I am but an ordinary member - I will advocate strongly the inclusion of just such a commitment in our next election manifesto.

Regular readers will know, also, that I am no fan of hypocrisy, and amongst the worst hypocrisies, as far as I am concerned, is that of someone who preaches equality, even makes a career out of it, but who then shows themselves to be someone who defines equality only in terms of equality for people like them.

As is often the case, Orwell said it best:

“My sight is failing,” she said finally. “Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?”

For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters. It did not seem strange to learn that the pigs had bought themselves a wireless set, were arranging to install a telephone, and had taken out subscriptions to John Bull, TitBits, and the Daily Mirror. It did not seem strange when Napoleon was seen strolling in the farmhouse garden with a pipe in his mouth-no, not even when the pigs took Mr. Jones’s clothes out of the wardrobes and put them on, Napoleon himself appearing in a black coat, ratcatcher breeches, and leather leggings, while his favourite sow appeared in the watered silk dress which Mrs. Jones had been used to wear on Sundays.

Animal Farm - Chapter 10

Which brings me to Derrick Campbell and this recent article in The Stirrer.Derrick is - well, lets just save a little time and effort and reproduce part of the biography that accompanies this article.

Derrick Campbell is a man on a mission; he has dedicated his life in pursuit of equality and fairness.

As the Chief Executive of the Race Equality and Community Cohesion Council in Sandwell, where he works with key partners and stakeholders to achieve his goal. He already has a number of successes to be proud of, he was Britain’s first black chief officer, appointed 2001, with the Chambers of Commerce movement, in it’s 300-year history, where he led the Sandwell division in the Black Country.

Well, lets see shall we - this is an example of Derrick’s dedication to equality and fairness, lets see what you think.

GAY ADOPTION – “ACCEPTING THE UNACCEPTABLE”

Oops, that’s not such a good start is it? Still headlines rarely provide a full picture of the story that follows, so I’ll reserve judgement for the moment.

People have a right to choose and make choices in their lives; however, I argue that “Just because we can does not mean that we should.”

Well yes, Derrick, that’s fair enough as long as what you’re advocating here is the principle that people should be free to make their own moral and ethical judgements about how they live their live without undue interference from others, but is that really where you’re going with this?

This debate around homosexuals and lesbians being allowed to impose their views on others in society is wholly wrong. The discussion is not about abusing or oppressing people who have these tendencies but one of morality and what is acceptable and natural.

Evidently not.

Derrick is, of course, referring to the recent furore over the government’s as yet unpublished Sexual Orientation (Provision of Good and Services) Regulations which provide the gay community with the same basic right not to be unlawfully discriminated against as is already enjoyed by women, ethnic minority communities and religious believers.

I’ve highlight three crucial words there - same basic right. We’re not talking about homosexuals being give more right than others and certainly not talking about them ‘imposing their views on others in society’, simply afforded them the same legal protection against unlawful discrimination that we already give to others who we know to be, on occasion, subjected to irrational and unjustifiable prejudice.

As for this being about ‘morality’ and ‘what is acceptable and natural’, let’s look at Derrick’s next statement before we get into that fully.

In this so called tolerant society we spout that people have the right to express their preferences, choice and ‘free will’, but being forced to accept something that is abhorrent to true Christians, and clearly against nature, is a worrying situation.

Well, the one thing I do agree with Derrick on is that this is a worrying situation. It worries me greatly that a man who considers himself to be some sort of ‘champion’ for equality sees nothing at all wrong in spouting such errant, prejudicial nonsense.

Let’s take ‘morality’ first - and the question has to be who’s morality are we talking about here. Certainly not mine.

What two consenting adults (or perhaps more, on occasion) get up to in the privacy of their own home, and especially the privacy of their bedroom is no business of mine, nor of Derrick Campbell’s.

I see nothing morally wrong with homosexuality and while I do much care for people who do, I also accept that they have the right to hold a different opinion on this matter from myself. What I don’t accept, however, is that anyone has the right to enforce their moral beliefs on me, or society in general, if whatever it is they happen to be moralising about causes no harm - and homosexual relationships between consenting adults harm no one.

As for whether homosexuality is ‘clearly against nature’ - Derrick you are talking complete and utter rubbish.

We are here today because of a process of evolution by natural selection - as outlined by the great Charles Darwin, first in ‘On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection‘ and then more specifically in the case of our particular species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, in ‘The Descent of Man‘.

Natural Selection is a process in which the transfer of certain genetic characteristics and traits are passed on from generation to generation according to whether, and to what extent, they confer a survival advantage on the species in question.

Now, in the case of homosexuality, that may seem a rather counter intuitive statement as homosexuality would seem to preclude reproduction, which is necessary to pass on genes to the next generation, but such a view is one that takes a stupendously narrow and ill-informed view of natural selection, not least because homosexuals are perfectly capable of reproducing if they choose to, give or take the usual vagaries of human fertility.

So, in terms of the question of whether homosexuality is ‘against nature’ one has to consider two things; does it have a genetic basis and, if so, is its incidence sufficiently prevalent to suggest that it is a trait that natural selection has either favoured, or at least treated as being sufficiently benign as to not require it to be eradicated from the species in the interests of survival.

Well, on the question of whether homosexuality has a genetic basis, the answer seems to be that it does, at least in part. This is admittedly a controversial area of study and one that is not always popular with the gay community for fairly obvious reasons. If homosexuality were to be found to be based entirely on a genetic predisposition then this would be seen by some as a basis upon which it could be bred out of the species, either by eugenic means or using some form of direct genetic manipulation - a foul and wholly unethical prospect as I’m sure most rational people would agree.

So far as the evidence stands at present, it seems to suggest that things are rather more complicated than simply whether someone has ‘gay genes’ or not - other environmental and social factors do come into play - but one can say with a fair measure of confidence that it has some genetic components and these, therefore, must be subject to the process of natural selection provided that the prevalence of homosexuality is sufficiently high as to preclude the possibility of it arising by means of a chance mutation.

The question of just how many people are actually gay is a complex one, not least as social pressures all too frequently serve to cause people to deliberately conceal their sexuality for fear of prejudice and discrimination, and also because human sexuality is rather more complex than simple delineations like gay, straight and bi-sexual. My own view of human sexuality is (I hope) rather more nuanced inasmuch as I see it not as limited series of convenient little boxes in which people can be put but as continuum within which people can move around according to their particular circumstances and situation. Homosexual and Heterosexual are labels that define opposite ends of that continuum but as for people, they can ’sit’ at different points in that continuum at different times.

However, to stick with conventional labels in the interests of retaining a degree of simplicity of argument, the most commonly cited estimate for the ‘incidence’ of homosexuality (around 10%) derives from the Kinsey Reports, and more recent research now suggests this figure to be on the high side; 3-5% of the population is increasingly coming to be thought as a more realistic figure based on modern research.

Whatever. Whether its as low as 3% or as high as 10%, the base incidence of homosexuality in humans is still far too high to be accounted for by mere chance and that alone suggests that there is some survival advantage in homosexuality and that that advantage is sufficient for it to have ’survived’ the process of natural selection - as to what advantage exactly, this has yet to be determined although as a reasonable source for a working hypothesis i would venture that one would have to look to the social (and sexual) behaviour of our close relative, the Bonobo (or pygmy chimpanzee) and the role this plays in cementing their social structures. As the British primatologist, Richard Wrangham as noted:

[Common] Chimpanzees and Bonobos both evolved from the same ancestor that gave rise to humans, and yet the Bonobo is one of the most peaceful, unaggressive species of mammals living on the earth today. They have evolved ways to reduce violence that permeate their entire society. They show us that the evolutionary dance of violence is not inexorable.

It seems reasonable to me, from that, that the survival advantage in homosexuality is likely to be linked to our species’s evolutionary development as a co-operative, social animal.

Where this all leads, for anyone who accepts the validity of Darwinian evolution (and I certainly do) is to a simple conclusion. Homosexuality is entirely natural having evolved as a fairly common trait in the human species through the process of natural selection - in fact you simple cannot get any more natural than that.

What is entirely unnatural, is the belief that homosexuality is ‘against nature’ based on a personal belief in an entirely artificial sociological construct - god.

This country and government has got itself into an awful mess and I am amazed at the ease in which homosexuality has now taken the high ground and all who wish to express their objection to the practice have now become the villains, being labelled as ‘homophobic,’.

Well, Derrick, if the cap fits…

Well if that is the case, the bible is homophobic, God is homophobic and all His followers are homophobic. Do we then go on to criminalize all who oppose this law? Well that will mean a whole lot of people going to prison.

Rubbish.

The Bible contains very few presumed references to homosexuality and the vast majority of those are unclear, not least in terms of the accuracy with which source texts were translated from Hebrew and Aramaic into, first, Greek, then Latin and then eventually into English.

It also relates three stories that could easily interpreted as depicting same-sex relationship - Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan and Daniel and Ashpenaz.
Without getting into a full essay on the subject of the different interpretations of Biblical texts, a fairer assessment of the Bible would be that where it appears to homophobic, by modern standards, it is highly likely (almost certain, in my view) that that is a reflection of the particular prejudices of earlier authors and translators, particularly in the case of St Paul, whose writing evidence both homophobia and a deeply marked misogyny.

Still, if you wish to debate Biblical morality, Derrick, then perhaps you would enlighten us all as to the moral message of Judges 19:14-29, a charming little tale in which a mob surrounds the house of old farmer in the town of Gibeah in the tribe of Benjamin and demands the householder should hand over to them an unnamed male Levite traveller, who the farmer has charitably given food and lodgings to for the night, so that they may ‘know him’.

‘Know him’ here is generally treated in its usual Biblical fashion as a sexual euphemism although it is entirely unclear if this is actually what was meant in the original text.

Whatever. What happens next it what matters as in order to avoid giving up his guest, the farmer offers to hand over to the mob both the visitor’s concubine and his virgin daughter. In the event its the concubine who is handed over and gang-raped by the mob until the next morning, when she manages to return to the houseand dies on the doorstep.

This results in a genocidal civil war, in which the other 11 tribes of Israel gang up on the tribe of Benjamin and slaughter all their women having first vowed not to allow the men of the tribe to marry their daughters.

However, after all this they decided that could not allow the tribe to die out altogether and as they couldn’t break their vow either, they solved their little dilemma they wiped out all the inhabitants of the town of Jabesh Gilead, which hadn’t joined in the civil war, but for 400 virgins, who were given to the tribe of Benjamin and then conspired with the tribe to kidnap girls from the town of Shiloh during a festival, the logic of that little escapade being that as the women were kidnapped and forced in marriage without their fathers’ permission, the vow hadn’t been broken.

And the moral of that story is, Derrick?

As to whether god is homophobic, in a literal sense the question is moot so far as I’m concerned as the question amounts to ‘can something that does not exist be homophobic?’.

However, in the interests of fair play let’s no dismiss the question out of hand.

Rather, perhaps we should reframe the question in a different manner - with the whole universe to (allegedly) look after, does anyone really think that god (if he/she/it exists) actually gives a toss?

Exactly where on god’s ‘to do’ list is an individual decision as to whether someone prefers Arthur or Martha likely to sit as compared to, say, a supernova or a black hole?

And as for ‘all His followers are homophobic’, I should think there’s a fair number of Christian out there who’ll look at that statement and think ‘Oi! Leave me out of it!’.

No, Derrick, all Christians are NOT homophobic. Many take a far more sensible and enlightened view of the contents of the Bible that, it seems, you do and can happily exclude themselves from any such criticism.

This behaviour has stealthily crept out on TV screens, into our theatres, advertisements, etc and the church - which is supposed to be the custodian of truth, ethics, morality and good principles - has idly sat by for many years and allowed this to happen.

I don’t know about ’steathily’, Derrick. There is a segment of society that scream s loudly enough about it any time there’s a gay (theatrical) scene on the TV and its still the case that the majority of depictions of homosexuality tend to be rather negative and depict people who are somehow ‘tortured’ by their sexuality. Positive images of homosexuality, especially male homosexuality, are still relatively few and far between and rarely does a TV programme provide a joyful picture, such as that put over by ‘Queer As Folk’.

Okay, lesbianism tends to get a slightly better ‘press’ (if that’s the right word), but then it also gets a fair-sized male heterosexual audience as well. That’s still, however, rather the exception and, let’s be honest, much of the ‘hot girl-on-girl action’ that does leak into the mainstream is far from being realistic anyway.

What interests me most, though, is this idea that ‘the church… has idly sat by for many years and allowed this to happen.’

Well, first off I’m not sure that you can safely talk in terms of ‘the church’ - this isn’t the Middle Ages and even within Christianity there is no ‘one true church’, or at least not one that all Christian agree on.

Then there’s this business of the church allowing this to happen. What makes you think its the Church’s decision - last time I looked we still live in a Parliamentary democracy and not a theocracy, so I’m not sure where you get the idea that church could or should have some sort of veto on this kind of thing.

Now that the majority of people are asking the questions “Why are we being force-fed things that are completely against our core beliefs, rights and moral principles? Why are we being pushed aside for something that what has long since been regarded as a sinful act, but which is now gaining high prominence in our society”.

Majority, Derrick? And your evidence for that claim is?

I dare say that you’re referring to the last census and the 72% of people who ticked the box that said ‘Christian’ the majority of whom almost certainly did so for no better reason than that’s what their parents put on their birth certificate. I know that that statistic has become a favourite canard of the religious lobby in this country but please, do try not to insult the intelligence of those of us who can actually weigh ‘evidence’ like that properly.

And, in any case, speaking as a man dedicated to the pursuit of equality and fairness would you not agree that one of prime tests of a civilised society is not whether it slavishly follows in the wake of the tyranny of the majority (bit of Plato, there for you) but rest, instead, in the tolerance and respect it displays towards its minority communities? At least that’s what I think - you may take a different view.

As for your claim that you are being ‘force-fed things that are completely against our core beliefs, rights and moral principles’ is that really what you think?

No one here is trying to tell what to believe - if you wish to espouse Biblically derived prejudices against homosexuals then you’re perfectly entitled to do so.

What is happening is that a democratically elected Parliament has determined that the common good of the British people is best served by the prohibition of certain behaviours that specifically discriminate against a section of society, in much the same way that an earlier Parliament arrived at the same conclusion in regards to prejudice and discrimination against individuals on the grounds of the racial/ethnic identity.

Outlawing racial discrimination has not made racism ‘go away’ - some people are still racist, but what is has done is afforded victims of racism with a legal means of redress when that racism is expressed outwardly in terms of discrimination and abuse.

How does that differ from the situation today vis-a-vis homosexuality? After all, the rights afforded to homosexuals by the Sexual Orientation Regulations are almost identical to those contained in the Race Relations Act - and I say almost because one has to acknowledge that specifically religious institutions, i.e. churches, will be given certain exemptions on regulations covering homosexuality that they do not have in relation to race and ethnicity.

A church cannot legally turn away a would-be worshipper because they are black, but it can turn one away because they are gay.

Can you justify that Derrick? I can’t, not in any circumstances.

And please, do not try and patronise me with the canard that claims that this is not about sexuality but about sexual conduct, just exactly how mean-spirited a view of the world does that evidence - you can have you sexuality just don’t you dare express it.

And that, apparently, is ‘morality’.

Speaking of which…

I am a Christian and feel that I am being forced down a road of accepting immorality, simply because the gay lobby is strong and attempting to force me to accept their behavior - which I have strong objections to. To then be expected to show acceptance of this behavior is completely against my conscience and core values.

Again, no one is asking you to personally accept homosexuality. What you are expected to accept that discrimination against homosexuals in the provision of good and services (but, alas, not church services - boom-boom) will be unlawful with the passing of these regulations.

And if you have a problem with that, then frankly you have no business whatsoever styling yourself as being ‘dedicated to equality and fairness‘.

Who stands up for me? And why should this desire for legalizing sodomy now force religion onto the ropes and put it into a position where it is seen as the great evil in our society.

I beg your pardon Derrick? Legalising Sodomy?

You are a little behind the time here, I fear - “Sodomy” between consenting adults has been legal in the UK since the passing of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which was introduced a private members’ bill by Leo Abse and Lord Arran and, itself, based on the 1957 Wolfenden Report.

Okay, so it took until 2000 to give male homosexuals parity in terms of the age of consent - this was 21 under the 1967 Act, and dropped to 18 in 1994 before finally falling to 16 in 2000. That’s far from ideal, but at least we got there eventually, which is something.
More to the point, the 2003 Sexual Offences Act finally removed the offences of gross indecency and buggery from statute law in the UK, in addition to legalising sexual activity between more than two men (yes, right up until 2003 homosexual men could be prosecuted for indulging in group sex, while no restriction applied to heterosexuals - although quite how this might have applied to a heterosexual ‘gang bang’ is a matter on which I’m far less clear) so I’m afraid, Derrick, that your hobby horse has long since bolted anyway.

For someone who worked professionally in the field of ‘equality’ you seem remarkably ill-informed as to the contents of the Sexual Orientation Regulations, which I find quite remarkable given that, although the regulations for England and Wales have yet to be published, those for Northern Ireland were in print and freely accessible via the Parliament website - that or you’re deliberately trying to mislead the public as to the contents of the regulations, which have nothing whatsoever to do with or say on the subject of ’sodomy’.

Perhaps you might explain that, Derrick? Were you unaware or or misinformed as to the contents of the regulations, or were you simply putting your own spin on things to suit your own personal agenda?

From your comments it seems that you’d like to Britain’s law rolled back to what they were prior to 1967 - have you any conception of what that would mean?

Maybe you’ve heard of a man by the name of Alan Turing. Turing was a scientist, a war hero - at least in so far as I regard his work at Bletchley Park on the cracking of Enigma code is concerned; heroism can take many forms - and with John Von Neumann, one of the two fathers of modern computing.

Turing was also a homosexual, and in 1952 was convicted of gross indecency with a 19 year old man, with whom he had had a consensual relationship and was given the ‘choice’ of a two-year prison sentence or probation and a course of ‘hormone therapy’ that would have amounted to chemical castration, the latter of which he accepted.
Having been stripped of his security clearance, costing him a cryptography consultancy with GCHQ, in 1954 Turing found a third option - an apple laced with cyanide - and took his own life.

Have you ever looked into how male homosexuals were treated in this country in the 1950s? I mean really looked into it properly?

The lucky ones managed to keep their secret, if not from the world than at least from the authorities but for those that didn’t the choice was prison or the barbarity of being treated by the state as having a mental illness; one that the state would try to ‘cure’ either by means of hormone injections, as happened to Alan Turing, or, even worse, by use of electro-convulsive ‘therapy’.

Is that your morality, Derrick? Men, and more rarely women, strapped to a gurney while a doctor passes an electric current through their brain to try and ‘cure’ them of their sexuality? Or of not ‘cure’ them, at least render them incapable of expressing their sexuality in a physical manner. Is that your moral prescription for homosexuals - celibacy or else?
You seem to think gay men will go to hell - just what do you call chemical castration and ECT if its not ‘hell’ - and then you claim to a moral man. Well if that’s your morality then you can go to hell as well, because I want none of it.

Regardless of the super liberal do-gooders this is still a Christian country (according the 2001 census) and our laws have been built on biblical principles.

I’m not sure that that even deserves a response. It certainly doesn’t merit one that could be repeated in polite company and I’m trying real hard not to make the shift into ’swearblogger’ mode, much as comments like that deserve it.

Perhaps its enough to say that this is not about being a ’super liberal do-gooder’ but simply a human being, one possessed of reason and rational thought, and leave it at that.

The bible teaches that a man and woman should go forth and multiply, leading them onto care and nurture their off-spring.

So what! It also teaches that people should be stoned to death for working on the Sabbath - are you advocating that?

The fact that you live in Britain in the 21st century necessitates that you disregard all many of Biblical injunctions, especially those contained in some of the more prurient verses of Leviticus. How you rationalise that is down to you, but the fact is that you do it, so what the problem with taking just one more of those injunctions and saying to yourself that maybe the world has moved on over the course of 2000 years so maybe its about time that the very limited number of passages on homosexuality went the same way as those that advocate stoning people for working on the Sabbath, domestic violence (and violence against women generally) and other the other stuff that society has dropped along the way for being barbaric and uncivilised.

Homosexuality is clearly acceptable to some…but not all…but it should not be paraded about in everyone’s face as if it is the norm.

But, Derrick, homosexuality is within the normal parameters of human sexual behaviour and that makes it perfectly normal, no matter what you think?

It’s certainly not for everyone, but for those who are gay its a normal as breathing.

They’re not the problem. They’re not trying to impose their values, beliefs and lifestyle on you, me or anyone else. They just want to treated with the same basic respect and courtesy as everyone else - as equals.

I do not advocate victimization or discrimination against gay people but I do believe in fulfilling the scriptural command of teaching people who engage in these practices that God condemns what they do and calls them to turn away from it, and He will help them to be complete in Him.

Except, Derrick, that’s precisely what you are advocating. What the Sexual Orientation Regulations do is make it unlawful to discriminate against homosexuals because of their sexuality, and what you want are exemptions that would allow religious believers to discriminate against homosexuals.

No amount of semantic salami-slicing or talk of ’sodomy’ around the presumed difference between sexuality and sexual conduct is going to alter that basic fact in any way, shape or form. Nor does it alter the fact that what you taking about here is not a matter of conscience or religious ‘liberty’ but a desire to impose your values and your morality on society, whether or not people like myself are willing to accept those values.

If you dislike ’sodomy’ so much, then don’t do it. Its a simple as that.

You have the right NOT to be a homosexual, that’s your choice, your privilege and your prerogative. What you do not have, in this case, as in so many others, is the right to dictate to others what they can and cannot do and who they can and cannot be, so long as such matters remain private, cause no harm to other and take place between consenting adults.

Homosexuality is a sin and if we try to call it anything else we to become part of the move to erode the scriptural truth and then we are really in trouble and skating on thin ice.

I disagree, obviously.

What you call the ’scriptural truth’ is nothing more than a semi-coherent collection of myths and folk tales, the precise contents of which were not even agreed up until more than three centuries after the events that the New Testament purports to depict.

Little or nothing that you refer to as ‘truth’ can be backed up with contemporaneous documentary evidence and studies in comparative religion and social anthropology can quite easily trace the origins of much of the contents of the New Testament to other religious cults of the same period in which the core texts upon which what we now call the Bible were first codified, the most prominent of which was the cult of Mithras.

That’s the truth, Derrick - the historical truth, however you and those like you want to try and dress it up with claims of divine inspiration. I mean, who are you to say that what I’ve written here is not ‘inspired by god’, atheist that I am - after all if your god is all that claim him to be then he should be perfectly capable of putting these words in to my head without me even realising that he’s doing it.

That’s nonsense of course - what I’ve written here is simply the product of reason and rationality and an education that enables me to express my views in words, and nothing more. How could I ever possibly claim to inspired by something that I do not believe exists any more than I can swallow Derrick’s claim that the basic inhumanity of his views on homosexuality are defined, inspired and sanctioned by the same source.

It’s patently absurd - and yet he clearly expects to be taken seriously on precisely that basis and, more to the point, expects that he and others like him should be permitted the right to discriminate against homosexuals on that self-same basis, or rather on the basis of a dozen or so short passages in a 1700 year-old collection of myths, folk tales and creative fiction.

What was that you said, right at the very start of all this?

“Just because we can does not mean that we should”.

That is sound advice - no two ways about it. So why is it that you and others like you are incapable of applying that advice to what the Bible has to say about homosexuality, Derrick?

Just because it says (questionably) that you should be prejudiced against the gay community, it doesn’t mean that you should blindly accept that view as ‘gospel’ does it - many other Christians don’t.

Equality is for everyone, Derrick, including the gay community - if you cannot accept that then I’d suggest change your biography and drop the bits about equality and fairness as you clearly do not practice what you profess to preach.
Res Ipsa Loquitur

There are good day. There are bad days. And then there are those days that just make you despair of the infantile character of the human race…

A Tory councillor who suggested gay people were paedophiles was given a conditional discharge today.

Peter Willows, who has been a councillor in the UK’s self-styled gay capital Brighton and Hove for 12 years, made the comment at a mayor-making reception in May.

The 75-year-old was asked by the editor of a gay magazine whether he thought a gay councillor was a paedophile, Brighton Magistrates’ Court was told.

“James Ledward asked Willows, ‘Do you think Paul’s a paedophile?”‘ prosecutor David Packer said.

“Willows replied to that with, ‘I know you are not Paul [Elgood], it’s the other gays’.” The barrister said the words “equated gay people with paedophiles”.

Willows, who the court heard has “fixed, traditional views on marriage, church and families”, was found guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting works or behaviour or disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress after a day-long trial.

He had denied the charge, which was brought under Section 5 of the Public Order Act. Chairwoman of the Bench Pauline Quinton said: “It’s quite clear that you did use the word gays not guys, despite your denial.

“Because you knew that both men were gay…your remarks would inevitably be insulting.”

But she added that the comments were not borne from hostility towards people who were gay. Willows was given a conditional discharge and told to pay £250 costs.

Yeah, right guys. That’s real fucking clever isn’t it. Let’s stitch-up the local homophobic dinosaur and teach the reprehensible old scrote a fucking lesson he’ll never forget.

Whatever you might personally think of Willows’ views of the gay community, and frankly equating homosexuality and paedophilia is about as a foul as such views get, if our pair of fearless gay avengers think they’ve somehow struck a blow against the evils of homophobia then they’re a bigger pair of prize idiots than even this case has makes them look.

The only thing that this kind of sanctimonious crap ever achieves is to harden attitudes. No one who harbours an irrational hatred against the gay community is going to ever read a story like this and come away from it with the idea that maybe their view of the world is just that bit fucked-up and offensive. Their sympathies will automatically lie with Willows, who they’ll see as having been royally stitched up by a pair of conniving queers and then dragged into court to be publicly humiliated and pilloried for being a ‘traditionalist’.

They couldn’t have done much worse if they’d beaten the living shit out of the old codger on the spot.
That’s just real fucking clever isn’t it. Sending a very public message to the prejudiced that simply confirms and reinforces their prejudices; one that bolsters their belief that the system is already being stacked against them. Fuck the moral high ground, let’s just have a bit of petty revenge on the antiquated old twat, who, if the content of this letter from the local business community about this incident is anything to go by…

Whilst collectively we are supporters of all political parties and indeed none, we cannot help but note that repeated comments have been made against the city’s diverse communities over the years by Peter Willows and too often gone unchallenged. Last year we saw the good work of our local LGBT Police Team undermined by his unwise comments. Sadly, last month he failed to support a council motion to mark the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO), with the flying of the rainbow flag from Brighton Town Hall. Through the letters to the editor page in the Argus he has been critical of the Pride celebrations and in his latest outburst he suggests LGBT people are not normal and paedophiles.

…is already doing a damn fine job of painting himself into a corner and making himself look like a complete arsehole all by himself and without your assistance.

And as for crap like this, from the same letter…

We call on Councillor Willows to resign from the Council. He is not fit to make decisions which affect the City’s 35,000 strong LGBT population. Furthermore we call on the Conservatives to expel him from their party, and demonstrate that the recent commitments of their national leadership to communities such as ours are not just hollow words, but are followed through with deeds.

Yet again, we seem to be forgetting that we still live in a fucking democracy and that the only right and proper place for dealing with such matters is the ballot box.

If Willows had aired his appaling views in a public arena then, fair enough, you’ve got damn good cause for complaint through the appropriate channels, starting with his local Conservative Association and the Leader of the Tory group on the council - in case you haven’t already worked this out, demanding that the Tories live up to the ‘recent commitments of their national leadership’ means jack shit if they’re only expected to do that with the fucking media breathing down their necks. The real test of the Tory’s commitment to equality (and that of any political party or other organisation) is whether or not they can manage to clean the shit out of their stables without being put under that kind of pressure. Commitments to equality mean something only if such commitments are both made and acted upon voluntarily, if people do the right thing because they want to, not because they’re backed into a corner and forced to.

But in this case, Willows didn’t make his comments in public, he made them at a public function, but in what looks for all the world like a private conversation, and only then in response to a deliberately leading question.

The only mitigation for the decision to take this public is if a complaint was, in fact, made to local Tories, and they refused to deal with it or take action against Willows. In that case, then you have some justification for taking things further - although your next step should have the Tory Central Office or perhaps the Standards Board - must as I loathe their getting involved in such matters.

However, when it comes to talking bollocks, its this part of the letter from the business community that completely takes the fucking biscuit…

Finally, we ask the Police to investigate these comments and act on what we believe to be inflammatory language intended to incite hatred. Such comments are highly destructive to community relations.

What the fuck?

So far as one can tell from the reports of the trial, it would seem that the only people present at the time these remarks were made - at least in earshot - were Willows, Ledward and Elgood, the latter pair both being gay men.

So if Willows intend to incite hatred with his remarks, who was it who was supposed to respond to this incitement? Elgood or Ledward.

I suppose it must a Elgood, as Willows clearly excludes him from the ‘charge’ that homosexuality and paedophilia are synonymous…

Nah. Still don’t make sense. Still sounds like a load of overheated and hysterical bollocks to me.

And the moral of this story?

Look, if you really, seriously think that someone’s private and personal opinions are so downright fucking appalling that they absolutely deserve a come-uppance then, for fuck’s sake, just give them the rope and let them hang themselves.

Don’t get caught tieing the noose and kicking the chair out from under them - that only makes you look like a cunt, not them.

Apropos of my last post and the Honourable Member (in its double entendre sense) for Monmouth, David - with a nonentit-’e’ Davies - Laban Tall has kindly popped up in the comments and pointed me towards this fine example of David’s unquestioned commitment to equality and tolerance.

Sunday, August 28, 2005 - More PC nonsense

A story in the Telegraph revealed that a £48000 lottery grant is being used to make a film about the “traditions” of gypsy travellers.

The film will be shown to schoolchildren in Hampshire. I have written the following letter to the chief executive of the Lottery.

If my application is unsuccesful (as I suspect it will be) it might at least prompt them to think about the double standards they apply when handing out barrel loads of cash to groups who want preferential treatment.

Copy of Letter to Carole Souter Director Heritage Lottery Fund 7 Holbein Place London:

I am writing to you in the hope that you might see fit to consider my interesting, vital and culturally-relevant application for a grant from the “Your Heritage” scheme.

Following on from the £48,000 you gave for the production of a video aimed at giving schoolchildren a greater understanding of the culture and traditions of “Gypsy Travellers,” I am very keen to commission an equally “useful” and “informative” piece of film that will serve to educate said “gypsy travellers” on some of the ancient traditions and communal practices of another group of people, who we might called “settled folk”.

I use the term to describe that large group of people in Britain who opt to live their lives in houses or flats. Although large in number “settled folk” often face prejudice and misunderstanding from gypsy travellers when they come into contact with them.

I should like my film to focus on such issues as the importance which the “settled community” place on property rights, their rigid adherence to an ancient code which they refer to as “planning regulations,” and the time honoured custom of clearing up one’s rubbish. Should time allow we could also include a section about the cardboard circle which settled folk purchase annually from post offices and use to adorn their vehicles - known as a tax disc.

The film could then be distributed to traveller sites across the country to give travellers an insight into the customs of the settled community. I am sure you will agree that this film will be as worthwhile and relevant as the one currently being made in Hampshire. I look forward to receiving confirmation that you find this project acceptable and will ask a film maker to get in touch.

Now I could make a few smart arse observations about pot and kettles, living in glass houses or ‘you’re a fine one to talk’, but instead I think I’ll simply borrow a word or two from John Cooper Clarke:

What kind of creature bore you
Was is some kind of bat
They can’t find a good word for you,
but I can…

TWAT.

I don’t often repost information from a previous article I’ve written, expecially one posted only a few minutes ago, but this is important enough to merit such action.

To be absolutely clear, while researching Northern Ireland’s version of the Sexual Orientation Regulations for this post (I generally research as I write) it has emerged that Churches HAVE been afforded a number of exemptions in the regulations that will permit them to continue to discriminate against the gay community.

Specifically a Church may:

1. RESTRICT membership of the organisation;

2. RESTRICT participation in activities undertaken by the organisation or on its behalf or under its auspices - this would exclude refusing access to youth clubs, breakfast and after school clubs, lunch clubs or even a Church-run tea dance.
3. RESTRICT the provision of goods, facilities and services in the course of activities undertaken by the organisation or on its behalf or under its auspices - for example, refusing to serve a gay couple in a church tea room would appear to be permissible, and
4. RESTRICT the use or disposal of premises owned or controlled by the organisation - for example, the could refuse to hire out the church hall to a gay couple for a reception after a civil partnership ceremony.

From my reading of the regulations, this does not:

A. apply to non-Church run Christian groups.

B. apply to activities and serivices for which the receive state funding, or

C. prevent them being sued for harrassment.

With B, in particular, being the main source of claims that Church-run services and activities will have to close if the same regulations are introduced in the rest of the UK.

This is NOT about ‘religious liberty’ but about, largely, retaining access to state funding while continuing to provide services and activities that discriminate against the gay community.

If, the article in the Independent, today, is correct in its assertion that Ruth Kelly is unhappy with Peter Hain for ‘jumping the gun’ in introducing the regulations in this form - even allowing for the concessions to religious prejudice that are already present - it can only mean that she may be planning to:

A. Afford churches (at least) some protection from claims of harrassment.

B. Extend the privileged status given to Churches in Northern Ireland to non church-based religious groups.

C. Water down or remove entirely the provisions that prevent Churches (and possibly non church-based religious groups) from discriminating against the gay community in the provision of services for which they received state funding.

It is bad enough that Churches in Northern Ireland have already been handed a licence to discriminate - looks like your halo’s slipping there, Peter - but it would complete unacceptable for further concessions to be made, particularly in regards to protect from claims of harrassment and access to state funding, which should categorically not be available to groups that discriminate against any community on irrational grounds.

If today’s Indy is correct then it seems the cat may be out of the carefully concealed bag in the matter of Ruth Kelly’s real intentions for the implementation of the new Sexual Orientation Regulations:

A row has broken out in the Cabinet over how far the Government should go in outlawing discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, has pushed through regulations in the province that will be tougher than the Government plans for England, Wales and Scotland. He has defied a call by Ruth Kelly, the Cabinet minister responsible for equality, to hold fire until a common approach has been agreed.

Way to go, Peter. Nice to see a few principles resurfacing every now and again. But wait…

Allies of Ms Kelly have accused Mr Hain of pandering to Labour activists to enhance his prospects in the election for the party’s deputy leader next year. His liberal approach may derail sensitive negotiations between the Government and church leaders, who are urging ministers not to put the rights of gays above the rights of Christians. But gay rights campaigners are urging Ms Kelly to extend the Northern Ireland rules to the rest of the UK.

Mmm. So Hain’s allegedly pandering to Labour activists, while Kelly’s pandering to a bunch of religious bigots.

I wonder whose side should I take? Coo, that’s a toughy.

Am I going to support Hain’s run for deputy leader, just because he’s done the right thing here? Probably not, there are other factors to consider, but I welcome and applaud his stand on this issue.

Would I vote for Ruth Kelly in any circumstances? Only if we were electing a cess-pit cleaner on a lifetime tenure.

Let me absolutely clear in my views here. There should be no compromise on equality.

In fact I’d, personally, go further that the government has done and bring forward a consolidation bill to replace all existing equality legislation and regulations with a single bill to cover all forms of irrational and unlawful discrimination.

There are two main problems with the current piecemeal system of individual legislation/regulations.

First, as this specific issue illustrates, it encourages and emboldens some groups to seek (and obtain) exemptions from the law to cover their own peculiar and unacceptable prejudices, and that I object to most strongly. It is no more acceptable for Christians to be afforded the privilege of having a right to discriminate against homosexuals enshrined in law that it would be for our laws covering race equality to incorporate exemptions covering the British National Party and other racists on the far-right.

Second, the peacemeal structure of current laws creates entirely the wrong impression and permits these laws to be too easily misrepresented by those seeking to preserve the privilege of their own prejudice. Equality laws are for everyone and, for the most part, apply equally to everyone, not just to specific groups in society. And yet by having individual laws to cover discrimination against particular groups, the false impression is created is that those laws are only for those specific groups.

It;s time to move both the law, and the vast bulk of public discourse, on from talk of women’s right. minority rights, gay rights, religious rights, etc. to a framework based on a simple principle. Equality.

But for the odd anomaly that would need to be ironed out, there is very little in our current patchwork of equality legislation that could not, and should not, be applied generically across the whole sphere of equality law. The core rights, the right to equal treatment in society and before the law and the right not be discriminated against, abused or harrassed on irrational grounds are the same irrespective of your gender, your ethnic background, your sexuality or whether you have a disability.etc. and there are few instances in which one can rationally justify additional provisions in law for any specific group, most of which relate to the area of disability, which presents its own unqiue challenges and considerations.

The introduction of a bill consolidating the entire canon of current equality law into a single Act of Parliament would send out a very clear and uimportant message, that equality is for all of us and help put an end to the ‘them and us’ culture that too often dominates the public discourse on equality. That’s a message and an approach I would both welcome and wholeheartedly support.

Kelly is reported to be:

…sympathetic to pleas by the Anglican and Catholic churches, who claim that tough anti-discrimination laws could force their adoption agencies, youth and breakfast clubs to close, their bookshops could be sued if they refuse to stock gay literature and hotel owners with strong religious beliefs could be fined if they do not allow gay couples to share a room.

Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - if those Christians who opposed these regulations want to take their ball home then fuck ‘em, let them do it. They’re entirely free to withdraw their services.

But then we’re also entirely free to withdraw any and all state funding from religious groups and organisations that refuse to work to the same standards of behaviour that apply to everyone else. If I thought that I wouldn’t get the stock reply ‘this information is not held centrally and would be too expensive to compile’, I might be inclned to put in a few FOIA requests to find out just exactly how much public money gets sucked into the gaping maw of ‘faith’ organisations, most of it on the premise that these groups are providing services that are of a non-religious character and are not, therefore, primarily for the purpose of promoting their religious views.

I look at it this way. If you run a youth club and its open to all young people in your area, then your purpose is to provide a much-needed and valuable service to youung people. If, however, you attempt to exclude young people from your club because their relgious beliefs (or lack thereof) do not coincide with your own or something as fundamental to their identity as their sexuality ‘offends’ against you religious sensibilities, then your purpose for running the club is primarily religious - you are using as a vehicle to bring young people into a closed environment in which you can seek to indoctrinate them in your particular beliefs.

And if that’s your purpose, then you can kindly get your snout out of the public-sector funding trough.

The article also refers to the possibility of a legal challenge to the new regulations by the Christain Institute, whose press release on the subject includes all the usual overheated claims of imminent doom, including the absurd claim by its Director, Colin Hart, that:

Peter Hain talks about equality. But he should read his own Regulations which elevate gay rights above all other rights for religious people, and rights on the grounds of age, sex and disability. It is a preferential status which will drive a coach and horses through religious liberty.

Hart, who one would presume is not a lawyer, is talking absolute rubbish, of course. These regulations do no such thing. All they do is put the gay community on an equal footing with everyone else.

So far as one can tell, Hart’s contention here is based on an assertion that the regulations are drafted ‘too loosely’ (pdf) in their wording, specifically in regards to the matter of harrassment:

Of particular concern is the new loosely worded harassment law, Regulation 3(3):

(3) A person (“A”) subjects another person (“B”) to harassment in any circumstances relevant for the purposes of any provision referred to in these Regulations where, on the ground of sexual orientation, A engages in unwanted conduct which has the purpose or effect of —

(a) violating B’s dignity; or(b) creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B

Therefore, at its lowest,‘harassment’ can constitute an ‘offensive environment’ for a homosexual. Furthermore, under Regulation 52 the burden of proof is reversed so that the person accused of harassment will have to prove their innocence.

Sorry Colin, but here’s Regulation 5 of the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations 2003:

5. - (1) For the purposes of these Regulations, a person (”A”) subjects another person (”B”) to harassment where, on grounds of religion or belief, A engages in unwanted conduct which has the purpose or effect of -

(a) violating B’s dignity; or

(b) creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B.

And here’s the CRE explaining the definition of harassment in the Race Relations Act 1976.

The Race Regulations make harassment on grounds of race or ethnic or national origin a separate unlawful act. This will occur when a person, A, subjects another person, B, to unwanted conduct on grounds of race or ethnic or national origin that has the purpose or effect of:

* violating B’s dignity; or

* creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B.

Is that enough, Colin, or should I take the time to dig out the relevant passages from regulations covering gender, disability and age to to demonstrate clearly, fully and unequivocally that your assertion is entirely false and without substance.

The problem here is not the wording of the law, that wording has been in use for at least thirty years, building up a sustantial body of case law to define precisely what is meant by violating someone’s dignity or ‘creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’; case law that will be applied by the courts, if and when any cases are brought under these new regulations
The problem is your attitude to and beliefs about homosexuality.

Oh, and I should mention that the burden of proof has been reversed, certainly in the areas of race and gender, since 2002/3 and comes into effect only after the plaintiff has shown the actions about which they’ve complained are discriminatory or constitute harrassment, and was reversed to limit the scope of the ‘I’ll just say that I didn’t really mean it and you can’t prove that’ defence.

As usual, the Christian Institute’s ‘briefing’ contains all the usual specious and highly tendentious ‘examples’ of how the law could be used to ‘harass’ Christians:

An aggrieved pupil can sue a teacher who says in a lesson, or an assembly, that sex is only for marriage.

Rubbish. Not only is the teacher expressing an opinion but the statement is so generic as to apply equally to both homosexuals and heterosexuals (umarried people do fuck, you do realise?).

A homosexual student could argue that a university has created an ‘offensive environment’ by permitting the ‘homophobic’ CU to advertise its meetings on campus.

Rubbish. Such a case would only be actionable if the content of the advertisement were deemed to be homophobic.

Using the discrimination provisions in Regulation 9, a pro-homosexual parent could launch a legal action against a school over its English lessons. It could be argued that texts such as Romeo & Juliet with a heterosexual love theme are used but not novels about homosexual relationships. Such a court case could force schools to use pro-homosexual books. This has already happened in North America.

This is not America, and the legal basis of any challenge against censorship in American schools is fundamentally different to anything that might be brought in the UK, as such cases would rest on the US First Amendment and on its provisions for the separation of church and state.

Oh, and I’d pick something other than Romeo and Juliet to illustrate you point here - Juliet Capulet is only thirteen years old in the play.

A homosexual could argue that the Bible is a ‘homophobic book’ and that a hospital creates an ‘offensive environment’ by having Bibles by the beds.

Or they could simply ask for the book to be removed by a nurse, assuming that the homosexual in question is not, themselves, a Christian, who might well appreciate finding a Bible at their bedside.

The prison authorities could ban an evangelical prison ministry, which believes that sex is only for marriage, after receiving threats of legal action from a homosexual prisoner who alleges he has been ‘harassed’ by the ministry.

The Christian owner of a block of flats puts up a poster inside the entrance advertising the services of his church, whose minister is a well-known opponent of homosexuality. A homosexual who rents a flat passes the notice board every day and alleges harassment.

Again, whether or not the tenant is aware of the minister’s views on homosexuality is largely immaterial - such a case would, if brought, would depend whether the content of the poster could be deemed homophobic or whether the owner put up the poster, knowing full well that one of their tenants is gay, specifically for the purpose of causing harassment.

In the latter case, if the owner get sued and loses the case then they will be getting only what they deserve.

A hotel firm is sued by a homosexual for providing Bibles in every room on the grounds that this creates an ‘offensive environment’.

As in the case of the hospital given above, this is complete and utter rubbish

A Christian magazine which refuses to take advertising from a ‘gay Christian’ group loses a legal action brought by the group and is forced to close down because of legal costs.

Notice that the words gay Christian are written in quotation marks, exposing the Insitute’s prejudical belief that the two words are entirely incompatible. If such a case is brought then it will be dealt with by the courts on its merits, and if the magazine loses, that’s its problem.

Two men sue a wedding photographer who refuses to photograph their civil partnership ceremony.

Should this arise then in vast majority of cases the couple will simply find a photographer who will attend their ceremony, and if the photgrapher does get sued then tough.

In both the last two examples, the refusal to provide a service would already be unlawful if carried out on grounds of gender, race or disability.

Religious organisations are in theory partially exempted from the regulations for certain purposes (Regulation 16), so that, for example, a church can refuse to rent out its hall to homosexual activists. However, the Church could still be sued for harassment. Regulation 16(8) prevents the exception applying where an organisation has entered into a contract with the state to provide a particular service. This means that religious bodies providing a service on behalf of the state must comply with the new laws.

This passage reveals that, in fact, religious groups have already wrung a number of concessions out of the government, specifically the right:

(a) to restrict membership of the organisation;

(b) to restrict participation in activities undertaken by the organisation or on its behalf or under its auspices;

(c) to restrict the provision of goods, facilities and services in the course of activities undertaken by the organisation or on its behalf or under its auspices; or

(d) to restrict the use or disposal of premises owned or controlled by the organisation,

Provided that such actions as, in the wording of the regulations, either ‘necessary to comply with the doctrine of the organisation’ or ‘to avoid conflicting with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the religions followers’.

So churches in Northern Ireland (and one would expect the rest of the UK whent h regulations come in) will be permitted to refuse to hire out their church hall to a gay couple for a reception after a civil partnership ceremony, or refuse a gay, lesbian or bisexual youth access to their youth club or even refuse to serve a homosexuals in their church bookshop or tea room, after all, the only exceptions being those where the church receives state funding for the activity or service in question (and quite right to) or where they are disposing of premised outright (i.e. selling them).

What they’re sweating on here is, in fact, that these regulations do afford them an exemption against a claim of harrassment when taking such an action, which is quite right. Even if they are allowed to refuse to serve a gay couple a cup of tea, that does not mean that they are entitled to harrass that couple in the course of making such a refusal.

Still, they go on to complain that:

A Christian old people’s home receiving state funding and which refused to provide a double room to two men in a civil partnership would be held to be unlawfully discriminating. The costs of losing a legal case could force the home to close.

And I think I’ve already made my views plain on this particular score.

But hang on a second, doesn’t this rather contradict the blanket claim that Church-run services like adoption agencies, youth clubs, breakfast clubs will have to close if these regulations do go through?

Why, yes it does, because on these regulations don’t appear to prevent churches from discriminating against the gay community, so long as services are provided directly under the auspices of the church and not hived-off to a separate church-controlled voluntary organisation, but they do prevent churches from receiving state funding for those activities, if they discriminate against homosexuals in the provision.
So when it comes to churches, this isn’t really about the right to hold certain religiously founded prejudices at all, but about the right to expect taxpayers to subsidise them while they exercise those prejudices.

And, that, my little droogies, is what’s called hypocrisy.

I haven’t done a full-on fisk for a few days, and with everything going on in the Middle East at the moment I really haven’t got the stomach to look in on the fifth horsewoman of the tabloid apocalpyse, Mad Mel Phillips, to see whatever it is that she’s shrilling on about at the moment; so I was quite pleased to come across this eminently fiskable piece of intellectual flotsam from a charity called the ‘Christian Institute‘, not least because charity law and the current Charities Bill is a bit of speciality of mine.

*There some more interesting information on the Christian Insitute and a little pat its having with the Gay Police Association over at MediaWatchWatch, at the moment - well worth a visit.

The background to my interest in all this is simply that one of the more creditable innovations in charity law that the Charities Bill is due to bring in is the extension of the ‘public benefit’ test to all charities and not just those registered under the previous catch-all category in which they claim to be ‘of general benefit’ to the community.

What this actually means is that where, previously, charities registered under the other three traditional ‘heads’ of charity - relief of poverty and sickness, advancement of education and advancement of religion, were simply assumed, in law, to benefit the public merely by their very existence, in future all registered charities will have to show that they really do operate for the public benefit - and not just new registrations either, as the Charity Commission are committed, at this stage, to conducting a review of all existing charities to see whether or not they shape up under the new legal framework.

This is not that an unusual thing for the Commission to undertake. A few years ago there was a review of Charity Register which looked, in particular, at Armed Forces charities and the charitable status of sports clubs, out of which a number of charities that were no longer doing anything of significant value wound up being deregisteredby the Commission. That’s just the way things go; the world moves on, society changes, and something that looked pretty charitable 50-60 years ago just really isn’t relevant or justifiable anymore.

It also ought to be said that this last review has its positives as well, particular when it came to the review of sports clubs in which the commission decided that simply promoting a particular sport on its own was not enough to justify charitable status, to register a sports club as a charity you had to be promoting sporting activities for a purpose; improving people’s general health is one of the more common ones that many clubs went for, for example, while another good one for sports clubs working with young people is to focus on the positive things they can learn through sport; leadership, teamwork, personal discipline, etc. all the good character-building stuff.

The upshot of all this was that a few old and outdated registrations were cancelled, but the sporting charities that stayed on the register reassessed the kinds of things they were doing and  focussed more clearly on the real benefits that their activities provided with the result that we, the public, and especially the taxpayer started to get much better value for our money.

And yes, there is an element of this that does come to hard cash - one of the major perks that comes with charitable status is the favourable tax regime that registered charities operate under; no corporation tax on surplusses (technical point, charities don’t make profits but they can make a surplus, which is either put into reserves or reinvested to improve, enhance or sustain their work) plus the use of the gift aid system, which allows charities to boost their income by reclaiming basic rate income tax on the donations they receive.

Altogether charities get a pretty fair package of support from Her Majesty’s Treasury - and because it does come from the Treasury and, therefore, from all of us as taxpayers, even if we have no particular personal interest in the charity sector there is legitimate public interest we all share as taxpayers, so we all, in a small way, have a bit of stake in the new Charities Bill.

So, as someone who works in the not-for-profit sector, who has a particular interest in charity law and who appreciates how and where I have an interest in this issue as taxpayer, my general view of the proposed extension of the public benefit test to all charities is that its a perfectly reasonable thing for the government to be doing - in simple terms, if charities want to hang on to the tax breaks they get (and they do) then its entirely reasonable for us, the taxpayer, to expect then to be able to show that what they’re doing is for the public benefit. It’s a simple matter of quid pro quo.

As you might guess, however, the Christian Institute sees things a bit differently, as you’ll see below…

Charities Bill

Removing the presumption that religion is a public benefit

The advancement of religion has always been presumed to be in the public benefit unless the contrary is proved. The Charities Bill removes this presumption. This is a massive change which in our view is likely to seriously damage religious liberties.

Nothing like starting with a good scare, even if there is absolutely nothing in the Charities Bill that would genuinely damage religious liberties. there are certain types of activity that some relgious groups may engage in that Charity Commission considers to be incompatible with charitable status but that does not stop religious groups carrying out such activities, it just means they have to make a choice about to continue with those activities or continue as a charity. They have a choice and its up to them how they decide to exercise it.

Under the existing statutory regime, the Charity Commission largely succeeded in regulating religious charities without passing judgement on their doctrine and ethics. But we sense that an entirely new approach is being adopted. The Commission’s position paper: Public Benefit – the Charity Commission’s approach is very secular in tone. It states that that public benefit must be assessed “in the light of modern conditions” and that keeping up with “modern society” is required if a charity is not to have its charitable status revoked.

All this is alarmingly subjective. The Charities Bill gives the Commission greatly increased powers to reject the applications of religious bodies or even to de-register an existing religious charity. The Commission should not adjudicate on religious beliefs. Removing the presumption creates the risk that it will. Religious Charities are in effect deemed to be guilty until proved innocent. There is nothing in the Bill to ensure that objective criteria are used.

In reality, when you’re trying to scare the faithful, there is nothing in the Charities Bill which would permit them to pass judgement on the doctrine and ethics of a religious charity, although in common law there is certainly a legal test as to whether a particular set of beliefs actually consitutes a religion in law, as this decision on an application for charitable status by the ‘Church’ of Scientology clearly demonstrates.

The ‘religion test’ is actually fairly straightforward inasmuch as it consists of two basic questions…

1. Is there a belief in a deity/supreme being (or beings), and,

2. Do the ‘religious’ practices of the group include a definable act of worship.

Taken together with the requirement that an applicant for charity status must seeking the ‘advancement’ of their religion, that is as much of a view as the Charity Commission is entitled to take in law.

The Charity Commission can, and has, therefore ruled on whether a particular set of beliefs and practices meet the common law requirement for being considered to be a religion but, certainly to my knowledge, has never one issued a ruling on a specific matter of doctrine.

However, a quick search for information on any previous dealings between the Commission and the Christian Institute did actually show a bit of previous form on the Institute’s part…

The Charity Commission has criticised the Christian Institute for breaching the terms of its charitable status in a letter sent this August. It has ordered the Institute to change its subtitle, "influencing public policy", and accused it of engaging in politics. Following complaints and a formal investigation, the commission has told the institute that its aims of furthering and promoting the Christian religion and the advancement of education in accordance with certain Christian doctrines and principles have not been obvious in its campaigns.

It criticised its 1998 publication Homosexuality and Young People for failing to articulate a Christian view. The Commission also criticised the publication Bankrolling Gay Proselytism: The case for extending section 28, which in isolation, it said, "could be viewed as overtly political for a charity publication". "It is not acceptable for a charity to declare particular purposes which stray from [its] stated objectives. Normally a charitable research body is required to analyse and assimilate all the evidence … there were occasions when the link between the charitable object and the publication was not always clear."

The Commission met the Institute in May last year after complaints that it was a political lobbying association for conservative Christian values, and that some of its publications were "of a political or propagandist nature".

What this story refers to is a complaint to the Charity Commission by GALHA (Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association) regarding its campaigning activities on political measures included the repeal of section 28 and the legalisation of adoption by same-sex couples and, in particular, a stunt in which it issued at card to its supporters that read "In the event of my death I do not want my children to be adopted by homosexuals."

The Commission, which did not formally investigate the Christain Institute, did not criticise it for its doctrinal view of homosexuality but for the manner in which it strayed from its charitable objects, which are…

1.THE FURTHERANCE AND PROMOTION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
2.THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION.

…into some pretty obvious political activities of a kind which the Commission routinely consider and rule on - a few years back the human rights organisation, Liberty, ran into much the same problem with the Charity Commission as that which the Christian Institute faced in 2002 and were required by the Commission to draw a clear line between the activities of political campaign arm (Liberty) and its charitable arm (the Civil Liberties Trust)

To be absolutely clear, the Charity Commission has no power to rule on doctrinal matters, other than in the context of whether an applicant is genuinely a religious group, but it can (and does) rule on matters where doctrinal views are expressed in a political context that is incompatible with charitable status.

So far, then, every substantive point in the Christian Institutes ‘briefing’ has been inaccurate and based on errors in material fact… time to move on to the next bit…

Missionary minded charities

The Commission has made clear that, as well as applying the test to new applications, they will reassess whether existing religious charities should retain their charitable status.iii This could result in historic Christian charities losing their charitable status and their assets being confiscated and given to another charity.

A particular area of concern to us is that under the new thinking at the Commission proselytising or missionary organisations could lose their charitable status. Virtually all religious faiths seek to convince ‘non-believers’ of the merits of what they believe. For example, Evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and Muslims all have organisations which seek to spread their faith.

Proselytism is where one faith seeks to convert those of another faith. Government Minister, Lord Bassam of Brighton, was asked if proselytising activity would be deemed to be of public benefit. He seemed to suggest it would. However, Charity Commission officials have made clear that they do not take this view. If put into effect, this would mean the de-registration of charities such as ‘Jews for Jesus’.

Example: A Christian group exists specifically to promote the Christian faith to Jews. Elements within the Jewish community vehemently oppose its charitable status. The Charity Commission will be required to arbitrate on this dispute.

Is a charity that does nothing but proseltyze providing public benefit?

Personally I’d say no, but then I’m not the one making the decision on this question.

But lets’ turn this question around and look at it from another direction - should the taxpayer provides funds, in the form of tax concessions, to an organisation when all that organisation does is try to recruit new members?

Does that seem a reasonable proposition to you?

As things stand I doubt very much that many existing organisations will see their charitable status run aground on this particular question. For one thing, in most cases, religious groups will have much the same kind of ‘character building’ aspects to their work to rely on that the Charity Commission have already accepted as being valid in the case of sports clubs.

Next one has to consider the human rights aspects that will come into play - I suspect that the Commission will be reluctant to head too quickly into a face off over the application of Article 11 of HRA 1998, which covers freedom of religion.

And then, finally, any religious group that has a reasonable open relationship with th epublic at large and, particularly, which supplements is religious activities with a traditional Christian approach to ‘doing good works’ will inevitably find itself on solid ground.

If the Charity Commission does move on any particular groups in the manner that the Christian Institute suggests it will only be where a particular group is not open in it dealings with the public - the Commission is generally pretty watchful in applying the public benefit test for anything that looks like a private members’ club masquerading as a charity.

As a result, one of clearest effect that I would expect the application of the public benefit test to religious groups will have is to make it much easier for the Charity Commission to identify and remove from register and groups that operate as religious cults rather than legitimate ‘churches’ - and that is no bad thing at all as far as I’m concerned.

Again, the Institutes claims lack substance.

Conflict with modern values

Of course, the major religions are not ‘modern’ since they tend to base their fundamental beliefs on writings that are thousands of years old. Religious bodies often come into conflict with the values which pervade the modern world. They should not be told to ‘modernise’ their basic beliefs in order to comply with the new thinking at the Charity Commission.

In any case what is currently ‘modern’ soon becomes outdated. It is of the essence of religious belief that an appeal is made to timeless values. The following examples illustrate orthodox religious beliefs that are unlikely to be deemed ‘modern’.

A Roman Catholic educational charity which opposes birth control exists to produce material for sex education which is against use of condoms.

A Pentecostal adoption charity exists to place children with Christian families. It will not place children for adoption with unmarried or homosexual couples.

A group of Muslim doctors want to set up a medical ethics charity that advocates Islamic teaching against abortion, embryo experiments and IVF.

Helpfully, when it comes to trying to scare the faithful about the pernicious evils of ‘modern’ values, the Institute provides a number of examples to shhot down in flames.

Remembering that Commission have no authority to rule on matters of doctrine…

In the case of the Roman Catholic Educational Charity, this would be entirely free to produce its sex education materials provided that its avoids the mistake that the institute, itself, made with its anti-gay adoption campaign and steers clear of politicking. Such a charity is quite within its rights to produce materials that promote its values and ideas as long it does so in a reasonable fashion. In short it is entirely free to explain, in its literature, what the position of the Catholic Church is on the use of condoms.

Whether many schools would be happy to use that literature in the classroom is an altogether different matter.

In the case of the Pentecostal adoption charity, what would happen will depend very much on the exact form that the new regulations of discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation take. Unless these include a concession allowing such a charity to turn aware prospective parents on grounds of their sexuality then they would not be able to legally operate such a service in the manner that the Institute suggests.

Whether this creates problems in terms of its charity registration is another matter, not least because such a charity is not necessarily going to be registered as a religious charity as its primary purpose (facilitating adoptions) has nothing to do with advancing religion.

The question, itself, is a non-seqiteur - in fact a charity of this kind would almost certainly come under general benefit to the community under the existing Charities Acts and have to pass the publice benefit test anyway.

The same applies to our hypothetical group of Muslim doctors - a medical ethics charity is not a religious charity, per se, in that its not set up specifically to promote the Islamic faith, merely a limited aspect of that faith.

Again the question is a non-sequiteur.

In none of these three cases would the religious views on display necessarily compromise theoir application for charitable status, although I’d expect the adoption charity to come under a fair bit of scrutiny in terms of legal complience with the 2002 Adoption and Children Act and the 2005 Voluntayr Adoption Agencies (Amendment) Act.

Sorry folks - wrong again…

Creating uncertainty

There is no sense that the current legal presumption in favour of religion is causing great difficulty. However, removing it will crack wide open the question of what is and is not state-approved religion. There are few precedents on what constitutes public benefit in the context of a religious charity precisely because the existence of a presumption has meant the courts have rarely had to consider the question. The change will lead to immense uncertainty both for existing religious charities and for new applications.

There is certainly no evidence to show that the current legal presumption in favour of religion is causing difficulties simply because that presumption precludes any real questions being asked about the legal status of religious charities.

All they are saying here is ‘we get a free ride and we want to keep it’ - their argument is based solely on seeking to maintain their current privileged status. For that reason alone it is right that religious charities should face a public benefit test if they wish to keep the tax breaks afforded to them by charitable status.

In Britain there is no question currently as to what constitutes state-approved religion - the only state-approved religions are the Anglican Church in England and Wales and, in Scotland, the Presbytarian Church. There is, as I mentioned earlier, a common law test of what constitutes a religion for the purposed of law, but that is not a matter on which the state (i.e. Parliament) has even taken a view - if it had the legal definition of religion would have been codified in statute law and not have been left to the common law.

There may be few precendents on what constitutes public benefit in the context of exclusively religious activities, because religious charities have never faced the public benefit test until now, but there is no shortage of precedent on what constitutes public benefit in general and therefore ample basis upon which the Charity Commission, which has judicial powers in respect of regulating charities, can develop relevant precedents, not least of which is the ruling on public benefit issued in the case of the Church of Scientology.

Creating scope for organised complaints

Religious belief, particularly related to sexual ethics, can be very unpopular in a secular world. Bashir Maan, Scottish Chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain, was recently forced out as President of the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations for stating moderate, orthodox Muslim views on sexual morality. Mr Maan was told to resign by the SCVO board for criticising plans to teach homosexual sex in the school curriculum.

In England many Christian charities have been subjected to campaigns of organised complaints to the Charity Commission. Opponents of religious groups routinely use complaints to the Commission as a campaign tactic. Dropping the presumption of public benefit gives them a major weapon in their armoury.

Having looked, I can find no evidence to support the assertion that many Christian charities have been subjected to campaigns of organised complaints to the Charity Commission - okay, so the Christian Institute found itself on the wrong end of a justifiable complaint from GALHA, which I covered earlier, so one wonders if its own experience is colouring its views on this matter.

As far as Bashir Maan is concerned, what he actually said in his letter that got him into difficulties was…

"These politicians, through certain elements of sex education in schools, are motivating young innocent children to indulge in premature sex that is resulting in teenage pregnancies."
 
He went on: "As if that were not enough, gay sex education is also being added to the sex curriculum in schools.
 
"This will encourage experiments of homosexuality among young children and add to the growing creed of homosexuality."

And really one cannot be surprised if you receive complaints after making comments like that - Mr Mann certainly didn’t seem surprised himself…

Mr Maan, who will be 80 in October, has been president of SCVO for nearly six years, and he said last night he was going to retire soon.

This has forced my hand. It is a pity it has to end in these circumstances," he said.
 
"I can understand the SCVO’s point of view; my views would bring me into conflict with the gay and lesbian organisations in their membership, so perhaps I should have retired before I opened my mouth. I did not intend to demean anyone."

*By the way, The Herald, from which those comments were taken, sets new standards in online shittyness, unsurpassed even by the Indy’s pay-per-view firewall, by trying to use a scripted routine in its pages to prevent you from copying the text of its articles. Not only is this blogger-unfriendly but its also a waste of time as its can be easily bypassed using by viewing the page source.

If one looks at the Charity Commission’s inquiry reports section on its website you will certainly find that faith groups attract their fair share of complaints and investigations, although I’ve not checked to how this relates, in terms of proportion to the number of actual religious charities in the overal charity sector - anything more than about 13-14% would indicate that religious charities are disproportionately likely to attract complaints and face investigations than other types of charity, although it difficult to get accurate figures as these figures would not include the complaints that Commission rejects every year for jurisdictional reasons.

Reference to the alleged threat posed by organised complaints has become pretty much a standard feature in the propaganda put out by, particularly, right-wing evengelical Christian groups whenever there’s a piece of legislation they don’t like the look of - much the same scare tactics were adopted in relation to Religious Hatred Bill and is being used right now in their campaign against the upcoming sexual orientation regulations.

What such claims invariably lack, however, is any hard evidence to back up the claim that such groups are really being are subjected to such organised complaint campaigns- although there is plenty of evidence from things like Jerry Springer: The Opera to show evangelical Christian groups using the very same tactics that they’re now complaining about.

This leads me to three basic observations.

1. This is blatant propaganda designed to scare the faithful and create/reinforce a siege mentality amongst their supporters.

2. Letter-writing campaigns have a long and distinguished history in open and democratic societies as a means of expressing legitimate concerns and the real test of the legitimacy of such tactics rests not in whether they’re adopted and used by a particular group in society but whether they encapsulate a legitimate complaint. To peddle scare stories like this, before any complaints have been lodged, seems nothing more than a pre-emptive strike designed to try and invalidate all complaints, however well founded, and is, therefore, thoroughly undemocratic, and

3. This quite obviously indicates that while they can happily dish it out, they can’t take it themselves.

What we have here, then, is a two-page briefing on an aspect of the Charities that contains several errors of fact, plenty of unsubstantiated and erroneous speculation, a bit of propaganda and not one single rational argument to support the contention that religious charities should continue to be enjoy an exemption in Charity Law from the requirement that they show that their activities provide public benefit in return for the tax concessions they receive from the Treasury.

What they want is their privileges for free adn without having to make any effort to justify them to the taxpayer, who ultimately pays for them…

… in which case, not only should the provisions in the Charities Bill extending the public benefit test to all charities stand as the Commission intends but, as far as I’m concerned, their introduction cannot come soon enough.

Last night’s defeat in Blaenau Gwent seems to have prompted Gareth Davies to revisit some old ground on the issue that caused a schism in the local party before the last election, the imposition on the local CLP of an all female shortlist during the selection of the party candidate - the resistance to which, as I recall, Gareth referred to at the time as ‘jobs for the boyos’…

I’ll get back to result in a minute but first I want to make a few observations on all-women shortlists and the myths that surround this particular practice.

In his piece Gareth states:

Some members of the CLP, including the man who stood to benefit most from the rebellion against the party, decided they didn’t want to accept a party policy that was designed to correct the gender imbalance in the Commons. That policy was only imposed as much as any democratically decided policy is imposed.

Peter Law’s decision that his personal desire to be MP overrode party policy designed to deliver equality has nothing to do with whatever laws were observed in medieval Blaenau Gwent, if any. Williams’s claim that there was a polity known as Gwent, observing Welsh law for seven centuries is a grandiose exaggeration of the kind that only the self deluded can make. Hywel Dda may have been cited as authority by someone in a row over land rights in a manorial court, but the law in medieval Wales was the sword, and the force with which a landlord could wield it.

Not being up on Welsh history, I’ll defer to Gareth on the finer points of the medieval Welsh legal system, although, looking at what he has to say on the subject, it may be better he let this drop so as not to give our Imperious Leader any more idea… but what I will take issue with the statement that all women shortlists are a ‘party policy designed to deliver equality’, because that precisely what they don’t do.

All women shortlists and, indeed, any other system of quotas based on gender, ethnicity or whatever you might want to apply them to, simply do not deliver equality - they create the facade of equality, it’s external appearance, but not equality itself.

It is certainly not wrong for the Labour Party to aspire to equality and to a position in which women have the same statistical chance of selection as a party candidate as men, nor is it wrong to suggest that the idela scenario, somewhere doewn the line, is a position in which the balance of male and female candidates (and MPs) reflects much more closely the gender balance in wider society.

But equally, lets not pretend that quota and all women shortlists, which are no more than crude social-engineering devices, actually create or deliver equality - that comes only when things such as gender, ethnicity, etc, entirely cease to be a factor in the selection process at all and we arrive at a situation where the balance of the party in terms ot gender, etc, exists without the need to cook the system in anyone’s favour.

The implied slur on the former members of Blaenau Gwent CLP who opposed the imposition of all woman shortlist last year is that there were motivated by sexism - a charge which, because of the circumstances in which the selection was conducted, simply cannot be substantiated simply because they were never given the choice in the first place - there is no more equity or equality in the imposition of an all female shortlist on an CLP than there is in one declining to consider selecting a female candidate purely because of her gender. two wrongs don’t make a right.

All women shortlists may superficially look like a solution to the issue of gender imbalance in the short-term, but in the long term they are counterproductive, simply because the fail to address the real issue here, which is not about the selection process but about attitudes amongst the party membership, and worse still, as with any exercise in tokenism, the real effect of imposing such shortlists is more often than to harden alre