Newsline 3 February 2017

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to present Secularist of the Year awards

News | Thu, 2nd Feb 2017

The National Secular Society is pleased to announce that this year's Secularist of the Year award will be presented by journalist and writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.

Alibhai-Brown is an author, columnist and broadcaster who has written for the Guardian, Daily Mail, Independent, Telegraph and New Statesman.

In recent years she has been a powerful advocate for women's rights and a critic of sharia law and faith schools.

Keith Porteous Wood, the executive director of the National Secular Society, said: "We are delighted that Yasmin will present this year's Michael Irwin prize for Secularist of the Year.

"There are so many campaigners and groups worthy of recognition this year for their work in defending human rights, secularism and freedom. Come along and show your support."

The award will be presented at a lunch event in central London on Saturday 18 March. All are welcome to attend, but members of the National Secular Society benefit from a discounted ticket price.

The winner is chosen by the elected council of the National Secular Society, from nominations sent by our members and supporters.

Recent winners include Educate Together, Charlie Hebdo and Turkish MP Safak Pavey.

In addition to the main prize, National Secular Society uses the occasion to thank other individuals and groups for their contributions to the secularist movement and for their support of the Society and its mission.

Trump to shred key separation between religion and politics

News | Thu, 2nd Feb 2017

President Trump has promised to fulfil a campaign pledge to abolish the Johnson Amendment, which prevents tax-exempt organisations, including churches, from partisan political activity.

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast he said he would "get rid of and totally destroy" the amendment – introduced in 1954 and signed by Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Trump said he wanted to "allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution—I will do that."

"Freedom of religion is a sacred right, but it's also a right under threat all around us and the world is under serious, serious threat in so many different ways.

"I've never seen it so much and so openly. We're going to straighten it out. That's what I do, I fix things. It's time we're going to be a little bit tough."

During his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination he claimed the law stopped evangelical Christian leaders "speaking your minds from your own pulpits".

Trump promised to "work hard to repeal" the amendment "to protect free speech for all Americans.

However the amendment only prevents tax exempt organisations from engaging in partisan activity such as endorsing or campaigning for specific candidates.

The New York Times explained that "ministers are restricted from endorsing or opposing candidates from the pulpit" and "If they do, they risk losing their tax-exempt status."

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, has previously blasted the proposal as "short-sighted, reckless and corrosive to religious life."

Americans United's Project Fair Play seeks to educate Americans about the law banning partisan activity by houses of worship and religious non-profits and urges religious leaders to comply with these provisions.

Meanwhile a document reported to be a leaked draft of an executive order on "religious freedom" sets out how the Trump White House could enshrine specific religious beliefs—reflecting conservative Christian social tenets— in executive policy, expanding the ability of religious groups to discriminate against LGBT people.

Watch President Trump's full speech at the National Prayer Breakfast

President Trump: American theocrat

Opinion | Tue, 31st Jan 2017

Donald Trump may be America's latest 'atheist president', but his presidency has put Christian Nationalism at the heart of its policy agenda.

Modern theocracy whether of the Islamist, Christian Dominionist or Hindu Nationalist variety is about belief, but it is also a form of identity politics. Theocratic movements really do believe in their versions of their religion, but they are also concerned with the creation and imposition of identity. The nativist far-right in both Britain and America have long suffused their racist identity politics with Christian identity politics – and their attacks on equalities and human rights through the myth of Christian Persecution.

During the presidential campaign the democratic ticket was an example of America's secularist tradition. Both Hillary Clinton and Tim Kane made much of their personal faith, and their appeals and occasional pandering to religious groups were firmly rooted in America's secular tradition – in praise of religion's role in civil society but not in government. Meanwhile Trump was the opposite, his protestations of personal faith were laughable (Two Corinthians, his claim that the IRS were targeting him for his religion etc.) yet he consistently articulated an attack on American secularism, and theocratic support for Christianity's role in politics, the state, education, immigration and women's healthcare.

Secularism is about actions not beliefs. A secular democracy doesn't care if someone thinks their neighbour is going to burn in hell, it cares about whether they plan to burn their house down. Pointing to Donald Trump's widely purported atheism is as irrelevant as pointing to Jihadists traveling to the caliphate stopping to pick up Islam for Dummies from the book store.

As Michelle Goldbergjan wrote in the New York Times last week: "President Trump may lack a coherent ideology, but he shares with the religious right a kind of Christian identity politics, a sense that the symbols of Christianity, if not its virtues, deserve cultural precedence. As he said in a speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference in June: 'We will respect and defend Christian Americans. Christian Americans.'"

Consider also some of the politicians that Trump has expressed admiration for. Vladimir Putin's personal religious credentials are dubious and he is said by some to have little personal animosity to homosexuals. Yet Putin has seen in the Russian Orthodox Church a powerful ally for his authoritarianism, and in his crackdown on LGBT rights a powerful tool for both riling up populism and targeting troublesome human rights activists. Narendra Modi's policies combine Hindu Nationalism with a 'Business Man' populist approach to the economy while seriously undermining India's secularism. Nigel Farage's religious protestations are more credible and dovetail nicely with his promotion of the equalities persecution myth.

Trump's abortive 2012 presidential run failed in its early stages because he was opposed by the Christian far-right, particularly from the televangelist and anti-abortion wings. Since then his language has evolved and it is remarkable how quickly such figures have fallen in behind the president. It's not just the view articulated by among others the religious commentator Archbishop Cranmer that Trump will be influenced in a 'Christian' politics by the 'prayerful influence' of Mike Pence – his Vice-President and an out and out theocrat.

Between 2012 and 2016 Trump changed his language. Buffoonish though it may remain, he has figured out how to articulate a form of white, nationalistic and Christian identity politics that many in the mainstream had written off. He spoke to people who may not attend Church but who felt (and could be made to feel) that their identity – including their Christianity – were under threat.

Whether Trump is a genuine convert, or just hopes to ride this beast to his preferred destination is largely irrelevant. He's backed rhetoric with policies and appointments, quoting Michelle Goldbergjan again: "For all his flagrant sinfulness, he's assembling a near-theocratic administration, his cabinet full of avowed enemies of church-state separation."

His Education Secretary is prepared to deliver the Christian Right's long held dream of federal voucher funding for religious and creationist schools.

If Trump doesn't deliver the Christian right's dream of a complete ban on abortions, it may be because he understands that they need abortion. Not in the sense that American women need reproductive healthcare, but in the sense that the Christian right needs abortion because opposition to abortion is such a central part of their identity. Similarly they need marriage equality in order to justify anti-LGBT 'religious freedom' laws, as part of the myth of equalities persecution.

Trump's prioritising Christian refugees while banning Muslims has to also be seen through the lens of this identity politics. Such theocrats' concern for persecuted Christians may be genuine, but they also see them as a useful tool. They seek to as Rowan Williams said, conflate the persecution of Christians in the Middle East with their feeling "mildly uncomfortable" with gay people and non-Christians having human rights in the US.

While Trump's policy is not technically a 'Muslim ban' it is a signal of intent, the foundation of the policy architecture necessary for such a ban. The ban isn't just about attacking Muslims and it certainly isn't about fighting terror, it is about limiting citizenship based on identity.

Both Islamist and anti-Muslim identity politics seek to make Muslims a group defined primarily by a faith identity that is in conflict with 'Western', 'American' or 'Christian' society. Both need this conflict to define their own identity, and the stronger that identity is the more it can be used to exclude those whose identity/ideology is impure and just as significantly to support policy.

Government’s own legal advice says plans to outlaw ‘non-violent extremism’ are incompatible with free speech

News | Tue, 31st Jan 2017

The Government's plans to ban 'non-violent extremism' are "sinking without trace", a source close to the efforts has told the Guardian.

Critics including the National Secular Society and the Christian Institute have said the plans pose a serious threat to freedom of expression and that the Government cannot define 'non-violent extremism' without entrapping large numbers of people with eccentric or unorthodox views that are peacefully held.

Proposed 'extremism disruption orders' would tackle "the vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs".

The Guardian reported that the Government's own legal advice agreed with critics of the proposals, finding that it could not define 'non-violent extremism'.

They quoted a source who was reportedly "close to the process" who said "The bill is sinking without trace. They cannot get a working definition of extremism – lawyers are effectively saying it's incompatible with issues like free speech."

The measures were first proposed under David Cameron, when Theresa May was still Home Secretary, but since then the Government has failed to announce concrete definitions since they were first mooted.

NSS campaigns director Stephen Evans commented: "For several years the Government had been promising to outlaw non-violent extremism, while being totally unable to define what that non-violent extremism actually is.

"We share their aspiration to tackle extremism and challenge the Islamist ideology that fuels terrorism, but the extensive delays and now the Government's own legal advice demonstrate the fundamental flaws in their approach.

"Shutting down freedom of speech and the freedom to peacefully hold unpleasant or obnoxious views does nothing to strengthen British values, in fact a draconian response would undermine them.

"We again urge the Government to drop these ill-considered proposals for 'extremism disruption orders'.

"In the meantime, all of us, including civil society organisations and citizens, have a duty to speak out and challenge extremism of all kinds, just as we would object to racism or abuse of other kinds."

Children lose contact with transgender parent because Orthodox community will ostracise them

News | Tue, 31st Jan 2017

A judge has declined a transgender father's request for contact to see her five children, reluctantly concluding that the children could not escape the adult reaction to their relationship.

The judge himself described the ruling as a "bleak" outcome, but said that no court order had the power to make the Jewish Orthodox community the family emanated from more tolerant or accepting.

Charedi children are "educated to believe that the world is hostile to the Jewish community", the judge said.

The father, who was a member of the Jewish Orthodox community, petitioned for regular access to see the couple's five children.

She wanted to be "sensitively reintroduced to the children" and sought "regular and significant contact". She argued that "The opposition of the community should be confronted and faced down," an argument that the judge reluctantly rejected.

Since leaving the community "the father had been subjected to threats". Her offer to pay "modest child maintenance" was met with no response.

Mr Justice Peter Jackson said the "sad reality" was that he could see "no way in which the children could escape the adult reaction to them enjoying anything like an ordinary relationship with their father."

The 12 year-old child was "extremely anxious about contact" and would be placed under "extreme pressure" by the community's reaction, the judge said.

In contrast, the children themselves, he believed, would cope with contact: "Children are goodhearted and adaptable and, given sensitive support, I am sure that these children could adapt considerably to the changes in their father. The truth is that for the children to see their father would be too much for the adults."

The judge said that there was no "real prospect of a court order bringing about a beneficial alteration in the attitude of the community towards this family, even to the extent of some relatively limited normalisation of approach."

This "must be a subject of regret", the judge concluded, "not only for this family, but also for others facing these issues in fundamentalist communities, for whom this will be a bleak conclusion."

The mother decided that the impact of the children "having a relationship was worse than the impact of them having no relationship."

The judge said her decision was centred on the children but made "within the limited horizons of her upbringing".

In his ruling Mr Justice Jackson said the children's "identity is completely bound up with their place in the community" and that it was impossible to separate their needs from that religious identity. "If they left the community, it would have a huge negative impact," he found.

Deprivation of contact was a "last resort" and he described his own ruling as an "unwelcome conclusion" that the negative effects on the children of ostracism from their community would be greater than the benefits of contact with their father.

"I therefore conclude with real regret, knowing the pain that it must cause, that the father's application for direct contact must be refused."

It was not a "failure to uphold transgender rights" nor a "win" for the community", he said, but a decision to uphold the rights of the child to have "the least harmful outcome in a situation not of their making".

The judge strongly criticised aspects of the ultra-Orthodox community the family came from, citing one case where a 15 year-old girl who had been sexually abused in the community was ostracised and lost contact with all of her friends.

One foster parent said these "awful case studies" were not "standout cases" and this behaviour was "unchangeable" by local authorities, foster carers, courts and the law. The foster parent said "they will find a way around it."

Robert Bernard of the GesherEU Support Network, which supports those who leave the Charedi community, said the ultra-Orthodox "approach to religion leaves little or no room for personal deviations in the public realm" and said that the community would use "coercive" means to keep individuals within the community.

Mr Bernard gave evidence that "If one partner leaves the community, the community tries to minimise the exposure of the children to the outside world."

The older children attend single-sex faith schools and the schools "expect the children to be fully compliant with school rules", according to the minutes of a community meeting held to discuss the family's case.

A teacher at one of the children's schools said that "where there is risk of negative influences from the outside world to other children in the School, the School will experience tremendous pressure from the Parent body and the governors not to allocate a place to any child who will bring these potential risks."

Read the full ruling here.

Read the New Statesman on the intolerant attitudes in faith schools highlighted in the ruling. It reveals that the judge was so concerned that he sent a copy of his report to the schools minister, Nick Gibb.