An interesting week for secularism
Editorial by Terry Sanderson
This week has been an interesting one for secularism in Britain. It began with the announcement by the Government that it intended to amend — at the behest of the Catholic Church — its Children’s, Schools and Families Bill provisions on mandatory sex and relationship education in all schools. After whingeing from the Catholic Education Society, Mr Balls gave an opt-out for “faith schools” to teach sex education in conformity with the teachings of the faith. He insisted that it would not compromise the Bill in any way. But he did not adequately explain why, if that was the case, the amendment was necessary in the first place. (See also this interesting video on YouTube on what it will mean in practice).
Mr Balls received a massive kicking for watering down the requirements – not least from the NSS, which was on the front line of attack for this further disgraceful concession to the “faith communities”. (You can read all about it by following the links in the “NSS Speaks Out” feature below.)
No sooner had this gift been given to the Catholic Church, than the Government’s (zealously Catholic) Scottish Secretary, Jim Murphy, gave a speech in Westminster opining that religion has a big part to play in politics and that the Labour Party should court the “faith vote”. It wasn’t clear what exactly he wanted the party to do, beyond an embrace of “family values” (a concept that takes on a sinisterly authoritarian shade in a Catholic context), but presumably appealing to religious voters means giving them something in exchange for their vote.
What Mr Murphy forgot to mention – or perhaps is unaware of – is that there is no such thing as a “faith vote” any more. It went the way of the Dodo and is now extinct, if it ever existed.
How do I know this? Well, the latest ComRes poll for the Theos think tank (sponsored by the Bible Society) tells me so. Disregarding the foolish spin Theos puts on the poll, let’s look at some of the interesting details.
When the 1,085 respondents were asked to say what religion they belonged to, 674 claimed to be Christians. Of the 674 claimed Christians, only 127 (less than 12% of the population) thought that their beliefs were more than “a little or “some” importance. (Almost 27% of the respondents were honest enough to say that they had no religion.)
This does not augur very well for religious claims that people vote according to the teachings of their religion. Neither does the result of the British Social Attitudes Survey published last month which showed that when asked about religious leaders trying to influence how people vote in an election, 75% said that they shouldn’t, while 67% think religious leaders should stay out of Government decision-making. When asked the question: If many of our elected officials were deeply religious, do you think that the laws and policy decisions they make would probably be better or probably be worse? Nearly half of respondents thought they would be worse, whereas only 26% thought they would be better.
A Yougov poll carried out for Catholics for Choice showed that only around a quarter of self-defined Catholics in this country support the teachings on abortion propounded by the Church of which they are titular members. And the proportion for homosexuality is likely to be far less and for contraception even less than that.
All this seems to point to the direct opposite of what Mr Murphy has been preaching.
But that did not stop the bellowing Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh (and Scotland’s only cardinal) berating Mr Murphy the very same day for being part of a Labour Government that had failed to do what the Church had ordered and retard progressive legislation. O’Brien said that the UK government had undertaken a “systematic and unrelenting attack on family values”.
He said: “When introducing legislation to permit experimentation on and destruction of human embryos, objections of the church and other faiths were ignored. When introducing legislation to permit civil partnerships and same-sex adoption, the objections of the church and other faiths were ignored. In refusing to tackle the soaring toll of abortions, the views of the church and other faiths were ignored.”
But who is out of step with the will of the people here – the Labour Party or Keith O’Brien?
It is surely time for our politicians to come to terms with the fact that the churches do not wield the power that they claim and nor do they, in the main, represent the people they claim to represent.
It is time for the secularists in the Labour Party to stand up and make their voices heard more clearly. Instead of allowing the Churches to cow them into compliance on important legislation, they should tell them to take their teachings back to the churches where they belong.
The whole “faith vote” was widely discussed as the Tories claimed to be the Christian party. The chief proponent of this idea is Tim Montgomerie, who wrote in the Guardian:
"Although the 'faith vote' is relatively small in Britain and motivated by many different factors, it still matters. It is an energised voting bloc that takes democracy seriously. The 'internet age' also means that it can be targeted in a way that wasn't true in the 'broadcast age'. Wise political parties will set up websites that advertise their policies on faith schools, international aid and freedom of religion. In marginal seats, organised faith communities may make the difference."
NSS honorary associate Johann Hari countered with this denunciation of the influence of evangelical religion in the Tory Party:
"As the Conservative Party has shed its mass membership — like every other party — even a relatively small number of people with a determined agenda can become dominant. So evangelicals have been signing up as Cameron's Militant Tendency. Where the Tories have held open primaries to select its candidates, they pack the meetings to secure one of their own. Candidates are increasingly frightened to take on their agenda. A ConservativeHome poll of candidates selected to fight marginal seats for the Party found that large majorities want to curtail a woman's right to choose an abortion, and say it's OK to discriminate against gay couples who want to provide a home for an orphan."
For further debate on the topic of religious vote-gathering see:
Faith leaders in Scotland gang up on Labour
Pope could give Labour hell, says cardinal
