Newsline 22 March 2013

New poll shows religious leaders out of step with the nation

News | Mon, 18th Mar 2013

A new Yougov poll for the Sunday Times finds that the nation is split down the middle on the issue of whether it is appropriate for clergypeople to get involved in politics. Of the 1,918 people questioned, 70% said they had no religious affiliation.

In answer to the question "Do you think it is right or wrong for Bishops and senior clergyman to comment on political issues and government policies?" 44% of respondents thought it was right while 43% thought it was wrong. 13% didn't know.

In response to the question "In the last decade the Catholic church has faced a series of scandals about historical child abuse by priests. Since these stories emerged, how well or badly do you think the Catholic church have dealt with the issue and taken action to prevent it happening again?" 79% thought the Church had handled it badly, while 7% thought they had dealt with it well. (Catholics were most likely to think they had dealt with it well (27%) and those of no religion least likely (4%)).

The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, doesn't get much support for his opinions, either. When asked "Do you think the new Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is right or wrong to say that sex outside marriage is wrong?" only 17% said he was right and 69% said that he was wrong to do so. There was a remarkably similar response across all ages, regions, genders socio-economic groups, except for the religious – who were less condemnatory. But even a majority of them thought him wrong, except for "Other Christians", only 37% of whom thought him wrong.

On same-sex marriage, 48% think he is wrong to oppose it, while 38% say he is right to do so. Most conservative on this are UKIP voters 72% of whom think he is right and Christians, 56% of whom do so. The 18–24 age group is much more liberal with 67% thinking he is wrong to 23% thinking he is right.

Sixty-one per cent of respondents think the Church of England is "out of touch" with only 21% thinking it is "in touch". The Catholic Church fares even worse, with 77% saying it is "out of touch" and only 10% saying it is "in touch". Unsurprisingly, those of no religion were the most critical, but those identifying as religious were pretty unflattering about their own churches. A whopping 59% of Catholics thought their own church "out of touch", compared with 34% that thought it "in touch" – something politicians should bear in mind when being pressurised. Only a narrow majority (45% v. 43%) of Anglicans thought their Church "in touch".

See the full poll (pdf).

University & student union fail to publicly condemn preachers

News | Wed, 20th Mar 2013

The University of East London (UEL) blocked an Islamist meeting that was due to be held on the Stratford campus last Friday, 15 March. The meeting was billed as featuring hate preachers Khalid Yasin (right) and Jalal Ibn Saeed.

The meeting was also advertised with "segregated seating", where women would be forced to sit separately from men.

The Peter Tatchell Foundation, the LGBT Society at UEL and the Braki blog lobbied for the meeting to be cancelled.

Khalid Yasin says homosexuality and lesbianism are "aberrations, they are immoralities." He endorses the execution of gay people.

He also insists that Muslims should not have non-Muslims as friends, condemning non-Muslims using the derogatory term, kaffirs. He praises public executions and amputations and claims AIDS is a western and World Health Organisation conspiracy to kill Africans.

Jalal Ibn Saeed reportedly supports the Taliban, despite their terrorist tactics and their abuse of human rights.

"The advocacy of execution, violent jihad and human rights abuses — plus the organiser's insistence on gender segregation — contravene the university's equal opportunities and anti-discrimination policies. Students and staff should not be subjected to hate and menaces," said human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell, Director of the human rights advocacy organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

"Universities are supposed to be places of enlightenment, tolerance, liberalism and human rights. It is shocking the way student Islamist societies are promoting hate preachers who are anti-Semitic, sexist, homophobic and who abuse fellow Muslims who do not conform to their hardline interpretation of Islam," said Mr Tatchell.

Following protests from the Peter Tatchell Foundation, at the initiative of the LGBT Society at UEL, the student union confirmed that the meeting had been cancelled and, as an extra precaution, ensured that the room was locked so the Islamists could not meet on campus.

However, the student union was unwilling to make a public statement condemning the extremists; claiming this would give them publicity. In a message to the LGBT Society, Miles Battye, the Societies and Cultural Activities Coordinator at the University of East London Student Union (UELSU) said: "Not necessary – and may do more harm than good. We shouldn't acknowledge them as they are not even students at this uni, never mind UELSU societies, as far as I am aware our students don't even know about this event. Publicising it is doing them a favour."

Loren Wright, the LGBT Society president, who played the major role in ensuring that the meeting did not go ahead, disagreed:

"It is good that this event didn't go ahead but the student union and university still could have publicly denounced the fact that the speakers had been scheduled. I think it would have been fairer to students and the surrounding community to have the university and student union publicly release a statement criticising this event; making it clear that the university is a place of diversity and equality," said Wright.

In response to lobbying by Naseer Muhammad, a gay Muslim activist working with the Peter Tatchell Foundation and author of the Braki blog, the university advised him privately:

"We are guided by the 1986 Education Act, Part IV, Section 43, which requires a university to permit speakers, who operate within its own code of practice onto site, if they have been booked to speak. A conference has been organised by an external organisation to take place which we have reviewed and declined given that we believe it is in breach of our equality and diversity policy. The Students' Union has confirmed that neither they, nor any of our student societies was involved in this booking."

However, like the student union, the university declined to publicise their statement.

Rev Jude Drummond, the university chaplain, reportedly told the LGBT Society that the university authorities and student union should have publicly criticised the hate preachers, in order to send a signal that the promotion of hatred and violence is not tolerated by UEL.

Naseer Muhammad of the Braki blog added: "The university was very cooperative and understanding. I am glad the meeting was cancelled because it is wrong for extremists to misinterpret Islam to justify homophobia and other hatreds. The Qur'an is ambiguous on homosexuality. It doesn't condemn same-sex relationships or prescribe any punishments."

Khalid Yasin's Wikipedia page

Feeding the fires of fundamentalism

Opinion | Tue, 19th Mar 2013

By Terry Sanderson

Professor Lawrence Krauss, the world-renowned theoretical physicist, is the NSS's newest honorary associate.

He made a significant splash last week by threatening to walk out of a debate at University College London because the Islamist organisers wanted men and women in the audience to be segregated.

Professor Krauss, a former adviser to President Obama, was taking part in a debate entitled: "Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?" organised by a group called the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA), which has now been banned from holding events on the UCL campus.

Professor Krauss was due to debate with Hamza Tzortzis, a Greek convert to Islam.

Mr Tzortzis is a name familiar to the NSS. He writes to us regularly challenging us to debates with propositions such as "Is there a God?" and variations on the theme of the superiority of religion (Islam) over atheism or secularism.

We no longer accept his invitations because it has become clear that the only purpose of these "debates" is to prove to his devout followers that the infidels must be overcome.

There is nothing that fundamentalists like better than to be outraged by those who not only disagree with them, but actively oppose them. Arguing that there is no God or that religion has no value with such people is like lighting the blue touch paper on a firework.

So, we would seriously suggest that all atheists, humanists and secularists give Mr Tzortzis a wide berth when he comes knocking with invitations to "debate" with him. Don't give him the opportunity to represent you to his extremist audience as proof that people in the West are simply "heretics" or "infidels" or "blasphemers". We should also swerve other Islamist groups who issue similar invitations.

The topics they propose — usually theological in nature — are not arguments you can win, even if you make the better case. Your challengers will be laughing up their sleeves because these confrontations are nothing to do with free exchange of ideas and everything to do with reinforcing and increasing fanatical feelings.

And should Mr Tzortzis be under the impression that we are afraid to engage with his ideas because we have no answer for him, just show him this and ask if it is true. There is no way that any debate is going to change the mind of a man who does not believe in freedom on any level, despises democracy and seeks totalitarianism. Those who agree with him and make up the bulk of his audience are not there to listen to arguments and balance the evidence. They are there to have their unwavering certainty underpinned by the wicked unbelievers.

Meanwhile, you can see Professor Krauss making his brave objections at UCL.

And see some of his many other excellent videos here and here.

See also: How Tzortzis is trying to score points from the Krauss encounter on the internet

Evangelical MP’s attempt to dismantle Human Rights Act and permit religion to do whatever it likes, falls in the House of Commons

News | Thu, 21st Mar 2013

A Conservative MP's Private Members Bill that sought to replace the Human Rights Act with a "UK Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" was withdrawn at the Second Reading last month.

The Bill would have included special privileges and exemptions for religion.

The Bill, which was presented by Charlie Elphicke, MP for Dover and Deal, was entitled the Human Rights Act 1998 (Repeal and Substitution) Bill. Its intention was, among other things, to make the UK Supreme Court the final court of law for human-rights matters. The Bill would have repealed the entrenchment of the European Convention on Human Rights in UK law. UK courts and public authorities would not have had to ensure that their judgements were compatible with Convention rights.

"Human rights matter, but they are in crisis today, with a substantial majority of the British people regarding human rights as a charter for criminals and the undeserving," Mr Elphicke claimed in Parliament. "A new settlement is needed to restore trust and confidence in human rights."

Mr Elphicke, an evangelical Christian, set out the "pillars" of the new settlement that he was proposing. Among these was protection for freedom of thought, conscience, and religion: "We have seen too much attack on people's thoughts...too much in the way of aggressive secularism, which has sought to attack the Church and attack people with deeply held religious beliefs...they should be able to set out and preach what they think."

But, he said, "We cannot have a situation where freedom of religion could possibly be used to promote terrorists." The Bill that he proposed would have reduced the circumstances in which it was permissible to limit the right to manifest religion to the cause or incitement of physical harm to others.

Mr Elphicke was obviously seeking to tap into public outrage over some recent cases where criminals and terrorists have used the Human Rights Act to avoid deportation.

The Bill's final Article set out six "basic responsibilities", which, Mr Elphicke said, would be taken into account when a person sought to claim one of the rights set out in the Bill. These included "rendering civil or military service when his country requires his support for its defence".

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "This Bill was doomed from the start, as most Private Members' Bills are, but given the Government's own agitation about the Human Rights Act, it would not be beyond imagination for them to introduce something similar. In that event, we must be vigilant that religious privilege doesn't slip under the wire while attention is distracted with tales of our courts not being able to expel Islamic madmen and foreign criminals from the country.

"Inconvenient as it is, and frustrating as it is, to see cases of criminals using the Human Rights Act to evade deportation, we cannot escape the fact that Human Rights are for every human being, not just those we approve of. Once you start picking and choosing who is entitled to or deserving of human rights, the concept becomes meaningless. I suspect that was Mr Elphicke's intention."