Thread: Tim Farron Board: Dead Horses / Ship of Fools.
To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000710
Posted by Louise (# 30) on
:
I only have my phone as I've just gone out to an appointment so can't post with quotes/links but here is a thread so this discussion can move from purgatory.
Being a party leader is a different kettle of piranhas to being an ordinary party member. If your party is passionately morally opposed to fox hunting then even if you have voted against it, if you go back to your constituency and continue to enjoy riding with the local hunt, it's going to go down badly. Especially if you fail to deliver on other fronts.
If it's an issue of human rights it's even stickier - can people from that group feel comfortable and supported working with you? They don't have to - they have the right to say if they don't and to look for a leader who they do feel accepted and supported by.
Posted by DaleMaily (# 18725) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
Being a party leader is a different kettle of piranhas to being an ordinary party member. If your party is passionately morally opposed to fox hunting then even if you have voted against it, if you go back to your constituency and continue to enjoy riding with the local hunt, it's going to go down badly. Especially if you fail to deliver on other fronts.
But if you're like Farron who probably (in my opinion, but only he really knows) thinks gay sex is a sin but doesn't think it's his place to make any pronouncements one way or the other (I've heard him use the "don't judge" and "speck and plank" argument several times) surely it comes down to whether you think he's prepared to put aside these feelings and represent his constituents and his party's policy stances, which he has mainly done, though of course not perfectly.
The thing that seems to have escaped most commentators is that, as an evangelical (correct me if I'm wrong), he probably thinks anyone who doesn't turn to Christ (gay or straight) is going to the other place, which I imagine to be most of his constituents and his own party, so is it that much of a stretch from what we have here to say that an evangelical shouldn't lead a political party (or at least the LDs)?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
Hasn't Farron said that he no longer thinks gay sex is sinful?
Posted by DaleMaily (# 18725) on
:
He did, but I don't think many people believed him.
It's also a strange situation that someone who may or may not think gay sex is a sin but has not intention of doing (or even saying) anything about it, but Jeremy Corbyn spoke at Khomeinist (Iranian regime) rallies in London considering what they do to gay people.
[ 15. June 2017, 15:13: Message edited by: DaleMaily ]
Posted by Louise (# 30) on
:
I know people who condemned Jezza on just those grounds but now grudgingly accept him because of his unexpectedly good results against The Tories. If Tim Farron had delivered a Jezza-like surge I doubt we would be hearing very much about this. The LGBT people who were uncomfortable with him would have probably swallowed their discomfort for party unity, but he hasn't delivered very much and people who felt uncomfortable don't feel constrained to keep schtum any more.
If you believe something a large part of your party are viscerally unhappy with, you need to bring home the goods for them to overlook it (see also Tony Blair) otherwise they will prefer someone who enthusiastically advocates what they believe in and who is as comfortable with their passionately-held moral positions as they are. In fact perhaps a better comparison is Ruth Davidson - there are plenty non gay-affirming Scottish Tory MPs, yet Ruth can do no wrong, as she's delivered the goods...
Posted by DaleMaily (# 18725) on
:
You're right about electoral performance. The Lib Dems are absolutely ruthless in their putsches, and had he got 20 MPs he would still be in situ.
Posted by anne (# 73) on
:
Tim Farron's words and voting record combined give a picture of a developing and fairly nuanced position.
How would it have played with the media if he had stuck to the statement "It is irrelevant to my job as MP whether or not I think that gay sex is a sin. It is relevant that I do not think that it should be a crime, and I do not, as my voting record demonstrates" repeated every time the question is raised?
Would that have shut the story down, or stirred the media up? Because I think that if that statement (or similar statements on other issues) is unacceptable then perhaps Mr Farron is right to imply that people of faith will find it more difficult to work in politics in future.
anne
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
As a LibDem supported (though I voted tactically for Labour in the last election) I have a lot of time for Tim Farron. But I felt he handled the questions badly and failed to shut down the issue. Surely a proper liberal position would have been to say,"Yes, I have views, but I equally respect the views of others".
A couple of other points. First, while I absolutely support gay rights and SSM, I find it slightly ironic that Tim has been vilified for not embracing a position which would have been politically catastrophic just a few decades ago.
Second: he is not the only person of faith in Parliament, so why has he been put under this pressure when (say) Catholic Christians and Muslims have not? Is this because the media are generally out to get the LibDems and he has been made the fall guy? Is it because the Press have a stereotypical view of "evangelical" which they want to uphold and then attack? Or is this the London media wanting to portray him as a retrograde northerner?
[ 15. June 2017, 18:06: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posted by Louise (# 30) on
:
Interesting take by Andrew Brown that it hurt him with swing voters
quote:
For a start, not too many people believe that Farron’s private views disqualify him from office: ComRes polling on this finds that only around 20 per cent of Lib Dem voters think that privately believing gay sex is sinful disqualifies a politician from office if they do nothing to act on their conviction. About the same proportion of Conservatives and even UKIP voters agree. The figure rises to around 30 per cent for Labour and SNP voters... Greens (48 per cent)
Yet that 10 per cent gap between Lib Dem and Labour views is a very awkward one for a Lib Dem leader specifically. In this election, Farron was competing for the young and well-educated vote and it is exactly in those sectors that opinion was least favourable to him. Young people were much more likely even than the generality of Labour voters to regard Tim Farron’s privately-held beliefs as disqualification from office. Not for nothing did Labour put his conservative views on their election literature in Cambridge, where there was a huge swing from Lib to Lab.
...
This suggests that it’s impossible to be an evangelical Christian of Farron’s sort and an effective leader of the Liberal Democrats. It doesn’t mean that all people of those views are being driven out of politics. It probably doesn’t even mean that they are being driven out of the Lib Dems. It just means that if you are a party leader who sincerely holds unpopular views on a matter that your swing voters think is morally salient, you will pay for it.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Thanks. Interesting. I wonder though to what extent also his fudging the issue ultimately was his undoing?
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Second: he is not the only person of faith in Parliament, so why has he been put under this pressure when (say) Catholic Christians and Muslims have not? Is this because the media are generally out to get the LibDems and he has been made the fall guy? Is it because the Press have a stereotypical view of "evangelical" which they want to uphold and then attack? Or is this the London media wanting to portray him as a retrograde northerner?
Up until this moment, I don't think I ever thought of him as a 'northerner'. I have no idea what bearing that might have on the media luke-warmedness for him.
I think (like Corbyn's position on Trident and the cause of republicanism) being Catholic or Muslim and having mainstream Catholic or Muslim views is pretty much factored in already. All the candidate needs to state is "I respect civil rights for everyone, including LGBT+ rights", and it's all good.
Being a protestant, however, probably means you have your beliefs measured by a different, CofE-tinged, yardstick. That the established church has been busy tearing itself apart over several decades regarding both woman and gays has come to the notice of both press and public, so some form of clarity needs to be sought from a Protestant Christian.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
:
I think that being originally evasive about it was more the problem.
Theresa May is of course a practising Christian and with "evolving" views on homosexuality. So it's self-evidently not true you can't lead a political party whilst being a Christian. (Likewise Tony Blair.)
He should have been clear in the first place, and pointed at his voting record each and every question on this. He should also perhaps have been more formal on his belief in the separation of church and state.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Exactly
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
:
Originally posted by anne:
quote:
Would that have shut the story down, or stirred the media up? Because I think that if that statement (or similar statements on other issues) is unacceptable then perhaps Mr Farron is right to imply that people of faith will find it more difficult to work in politics in future.
People of faith who are unable to say whether or not they believe gay sex is a sin will struggle to lead a political party, whose natural constituency are the young and the well educated. (Which is why, btw, the tuition fees debacle was so devastating for them). Politics is a fairly brutal business - if the Lib Dems had won half a dozen more seats, I suspect that we would not be having this conversation - and I'm not convinced that replacing Farron with Jo Swinson or Vince Cable will do much for the Lib Dems tanking vote share because the younglings aren't going to turn out in force for the people who voted to saddle them with 27K worth of debt. But if you are pitching for the sort of people who voted Lib Dem historically, then a biblical literalist is not your ideal leader, to put it politely. It's worth recalling, at this point, that both David Steel and Charles Kennedy were people of faith who didn't have this particular problem. (it's also worth recalling that Charles Kennedy, drunk as a lord, was better than any of his successors, sober as a judge).
I think, btw, that it would be quite funny if this question were to be asked of, say, Sadiq Khan, but that's another argument.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
Interesting take by Andrew Brown
Andrew Brown I think misses the point.
He seems to think that Farron believes that gay sex should be illegal and that is the issue on which he disagrees with his party. (Just as Corbyn disagrees with his party on Trident.) Now, if anyone does believe then they have no place leading any political party with liberal pretensions.
But that is not Farron's position.
Let's suppose an otherwise identical politician called Varron who believes gay sex is sinful. Varron also believes as Farron does that the government ought not to enforce religious doctrines or moral opinions where those don't affect other people, and that therefore while he thinks gay sex is immoral it ought not to be illegal. Now that would be a classical liberal position: one ought not to use the government to enforce one's morality or religion on private matters. That's entirely compatible with John Rawls.
Arguing that Varron ought not to be the leader of a liberal party is to say that the classical liberal position is incoherent.
Finally Farron has said that he doesn't think gay sex is a sin. If he is sacked because he is disbelieved on that point, then unless he has been saying otherwise in private than in public, then there is an assumption that religious believers cannot hold liberal opinions. The mere perception by secularists that all religious believers are illiberal is sufficient to disqualify a religious believer from leading a party with liberal pretensions.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
I think it was improper for secular journalists to go on and on about 'sin' in discussions with a politician who is seeking secular office.
Sin is a transgression of God's law. Since we don't live in a theocracy or a religious dictatorship, Farron's beliefs about God's law are irrelevant. What matters is what he would actually do if he gained office. He made it clear that he had no intention of repealing the laws regarding homosexuality or SSM.
It was a shame that Farron was unable to dismiss this line of questioning more robustly. But I've noticed that Lib Dem party leaders lack a certain robustness. When Nick Clegg (an atheist) has his sad face on, he looks as if he's going to cry! They need someone who exudes a bit more self-confidence.
[ 15. June 2017, 21:28: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
What I want is a politician who actively and effectively supports the issues that I think are important. I would prefer that they also believe in those issue as well, but I'll take effective any day.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
The funny thing is that religious people in Britain probably give this less thought than the non-religious, because the former know that the likelihood of the average senior politician coming from the same place as themselves on these matters is low.
IOW, even if a party leader doesn't believe that SSM is a 'sin' that's not quite the same position as an atheist SSM-activist who doesn't believe that sin exists at all!
And I don't imagine that Farron picked up much of the 'evangelical vote' just because he's a Christian who looks awkward when talking about homosexuality. Christians mostly vote on other issues.
On reflection, it's probably for the best if party leaders are moderately agnostic (or even atheistic), or vaguely CofE at a stretch. Anything else is going to frighten someone.
[ 15. June 2017, 23:00: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Theresa May is of course a practising Christian and with "evolving" views on homosexuality. So it's self-evidently not true you can't lead a political party whilst being a Christian. (Likewise Tony Blair.)
Likewise Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher, and to a lesser extent David Cameron. I seem to remember ken of blessed memory observing that British PMs seem to be disproportionately practising Christians.
(David Cameron called himself 'a member of the Church of England, and, I suspect, a rather classic one: not that regular in attendance, and a bit vague on some of the more difficult parts of the faith'.)
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
(David Cameron called himself 'a member of the Church of England, and, I suspect, a rather classic one: not that regular in attendance, and a bit vague on some of the more difficult parts of the faith'.)
I live not a million miles away from Cameron's country place, and suspect that the regularity of attendance is actually a wee bit higher than you might expect fwiw. Clearly I don't know about the second part.
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
I think it's got to do with how the meaning of the Liberal bit of Lib Dems has evolved.
Classically, it means legislating for the freedom for everyone to make their own decisions as far as possible, whatever your personal morality.
Now it tends to mean personally a social liberal by conviction on any issue of the day.
If the Lib Dems have become the latter then I think it's sad there's no place for the former in British politics any more. Are we doomed to have only idealogues and no one willing to admit their own convictions may be fallible and work for people to make their own decisions on most matters?
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
It's rather like the change in use of the word "secular" which in my book does not mean that religion must have no voice in the public square, but that all faiths (and none) should have an equal right to speak.
As a Nonconformist I am therefore a convinced secularist in the old-fashioned sense (over ad against the State mandating the kind of public religious discourse it wants).
[ 16. June 2017, 09:36: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posted by DaleMaily (# 18725) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Theresa May is of course a practising Christian and with "evolving" views on homosexuality. So it's self-evidently not true you can't lead a political party whilst being a Christian. (Likewise Tony Blair.)
That is actually something I have come to respect about May. If I remember correctly she voted against the repeal of Section 28, but by the time she became Home Secretary she had publicly said she had changed her mind on the issue (she might have apologised, but I can't be sure).
One thing I find a bit troubling by all this is that it we seem to expect politicians to be on the right side of issues from day 1, when "the Church" itself is so split.
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on
:
Though I didn't agree with much of what Tim Farron said and proposed during the election campaign, I felt very sorry for him when he was forced to lie about his devoutly held beliefs out of political correctness. Because a dedicated Bible believing Christian like Mr Farron may well conclude that gay sex is sinful. But I'm sure he would do so in the same spirit as Pope Francis when he said, "Who am I to judge?" Such a Christian might well also conclude that remarriage after divorce is unacceptable, that women shouldn't be in authority in church and must conclude that abortion is murder.
But in the West we live by the 21st century Bible which says that the social norms of Jesus and Paul's day, still more so that of Moses in Leviticus aren't binding on us, and that the loving acceptance we give to people irrespective of what they are trumps outdated laws. In other words we live in an age of relative values where no one lifestyle is considered more "normal" than another. That Mr Farron and his type prefer the real Bible to our reconstructed version puts him at odds with today's culture and politics. For this reason I think he was right to resign, but I don't think anyone has the right to expect him to give up the received Word of God in favour of the prevailing culture's version of it.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
"Real" bible. Nice. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Problem there, PaulTH, is that your homophobic, sexist and murderous (remember, Leviticus doesn't just say men shouldn't lie with men as one does with a woman, it says IS are bang on the money and they should be killed) doesn't seem to have much going for it compared with all this accepting one another stuff.
[ 16. June 2017, 23:08: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
Here is an interesting example of intolerance of conservative religious belief among political liberals from across the pond, coming from Sen. Bernie Sanders, a man I otherwise admire:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/09/532116365/is-it-hateful-to-believe-in-hell-bernie-sanders-questions-prompt- backlash
The mainstream Democratic party is increasingly becoming very similar to the UK Liberal Democrats and young Labour activists in terms of its wariness of, if not outright hostility towards, non-progressive, non-pluralist Christianity.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
I don't think Sanders is being intolerant. What I think he is doing, and rightly, is questioning whether those beliefs will affect people who do not share them.
Given the Orange administration's appointees so far, it is a valid concern.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
But in the West we live by the 21st century Bible which says that the social norms of Jesus and Paul's day, still more so that of Moses in Leviticus aren't binding on us,
Absolutely - our tolerance for lending at interest is simply shocking.
quote:
In other words we live in an age of relative values
Really? Liberal society believes that gay relationships are an objective good and that impeding those relationships is an objective bad. I would call that absolute, not relative, morality.
More generally, if you take any article from either old or new media about austerity, immigration, or the EU, I do not think it will be characterised by its moral relativism.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
Very good (IMO) article by a liberal Muslim.
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl:Liberal Backslider:
Problem there, PaulTH, is that your homophobic, sexist and murderous (remember, Leviticus doesn't just say men shouldn't lie with men as one does with a woman, it says IS are bang on the money and they should be killed) doesn't seem to have much going for it compared with all this accepting one another stuff.
I didn't say they were my thoughts, just that it's what the Bible says. It shows the dangers of biblical fundamentalism.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Though I didn't agree with much of what Tim Farron said and proposed during the election campaign, I felt very sorry for him when he was forced to lie about his devoutly held beliefs out of political correctness. Because a dedicated Bible believing Christian like Mr Farron may well conclude that gay sex is sinful. But I'm sure he would do so in the same spirit as Pope Francis when he said, "Who am I to judge?" Such a Christian might well also conclude that remarriage after divorce is unacceptable, that women shouldn't be in authority in church and must conclude that abortion is murder.
But in the West we live by the 21st century Bible which says that the social norms of Jesus and Paul's day, still more so that of Moses in Leviticus aren't binding on us, and that the loving acceptance we give to people irrespective of what they are trumps outdated laws. In other words we live in an age of relative values where no one lifestyle is considered more "normal" than another. That Mr Farron and his type prefer the real Bible to our reconstructed version puts him at odds with today's culture and politics. For this reason I think he was right to resign, but I don't think anyone has the right to expect him to give up the received Word of God in favour of the prevailing culture's version of it.
I've been reflecting on this post and how many Evangelical tropes and themes it contains. And maybe this is actually the problem; in using the term "bible-believing Christian" one is implying that other Christians don't believe in the bible. In talking about the Word of God, one is asserting that one's own interpretation is correct and every other is wrong. And so on.
Maybe this is more the problem that Farron faced. Less to do with pressure from gays who think he is less than 100% committed to equality and more to do with pressure from Evangelicals who think that he isn't a cookie-cutter politician who is in parliament to promulgate their views. In an era when the DUP and their views are going to be under the microscope, it is tricky to be a liberal MP who says he is from an Evangelical background and to differentiate himself from the noisy fundamentalist bigots.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
:
PaulTH* is it fair to assume he lied about his beliefs ?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
PaulTH* is it fair to assume he lied about his beliefs ?
One hopes he lied. Because if he was forced to resign because it was assumed he was lying when he wasn't that would be a bad sign for the future of Christians in progressive circles in public life.
(I am not gay so I do not feel comfortable complaining about what happened if he does think gay sex is sinful. Though those who think it is a rejection of the classical liberal position that moral positions about private matters should not be reflected in the law are I think correct.)
[ 17. June 2017, 21:54: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
:
He wasn't forced to resign, according to him and the rest of the lib dems.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
He wasn't forced to resign, according to him and the rest of the lib dems.
Brian Paddick resigned as whatever the equivalent of Shadow Home Secretary is the day before, citing Farron's beliefs.
Forcing may be a bit strong. But if Corbyn had resigned last year after the Shadow Cabinet collectively stepped down I think the word 'forced' would have been used.
Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
PaulTH* is it fair to assume he lied about his beliefs ?
One hopes he lied. Because if he was forced to resign because it was assumed he was lying when he wasn't that would be a bad sign for the future of Christians in progressive circles in public life.
(I am not gay so I do not feel comfortable complaining about what happened if he does think gay sex is sinful. Though those who think it is a rejection of the classical liberal position that moral positions about private matters should not be reflected in the law are I think correct.)
I think it's far more likely than not that he did not lie, and that others assumed that he had. The likes of the EA and so forth don't really like to admit it, but there are plenty of evos out there, (self included, and I know lots more of like mind), who don't see a problem with, say, equal marriage, and certainly don't believe that gay sex is sinful. He's not that much of an outlier, surely? Why, then, did Paddick (who, let's face it, must have been aware of TF's supportive voting record) put the boot in. It doesn't make him look good, and, unless he wants the leadership himself, it's hard to see what he has to gain. I just wonder if the root of all this is some form of personality conflict between the two of them.
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
PaulTH* is it fair to assume he lied about his beliefs ?
One hopes he lied. Because if he was forced to resign because it was assumed he was lying when he wasn't that would be a bad sign for the future of Christians in progressive circles in public life.
(I am not gay so I do not feel comfortable complaining about what happened if he does think gay sex is sinful. Though those who think it is a rejection of the classical liberal position that moral positions about private matters should not be reflected in the law are I think correct.)
I think it's far more likely than not that he did not lie, and that others assumed that he had.
My guess is like most of us, he's pretty conflicted about the whole thing, loving gay people in his life, grappling with a faith tradition that says gay sex is sinful (a tradition AFAICT in which he is still firmly embedded) and probably said in the campaign slightly more than he could actually stand by day to day. But on this issue, that sort of personal struggle is not allowed, no matter how you vote.
It probably is unrealistic for someone who holds the conservative position on this now to be a party leader, I think he's right about that. I guess, no matter what you think about the issue at hand, we'll come to regret the death of that type of classical liberalism.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I'm sure it would be possible to privately hold those opinions, and when asked say something along the lines of theological classifications of concepts like sin having no place in a secular society.
Farron couldn't do that for two reasons - one that he'd already made statements to the media on his views of homosexuality that we was now being challenged on, so a prissy refusal to discuss doesn't work, and second that he likely has a constituency of fellow believers who are distinctly unimpressed with the secular take.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
[Farron] likely has a constituency of fellow believers who are distinctly unimpressed with the secular take.
Do we know for sure that evangelicals are a particularly important constituency for the Lib Dems?
Nonconformists used to vote for the Liberals 100 years ago, but I wouldn't have thought that that had translated into 'non-secular' votes today.
[ 20. June 2017, 12:16: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Could he not when questioned gone for the 'tolerant vegetarian' approach ie: "I don't agree personally with eating meat so I don't personally do it, but I'm not going to stop others from enjoying a nice juicy steak"?
Posted by Paul. (# 37) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I'm sure it would be possible to privately hold those opinions, and when asked say something along the lines of theological classifications of concepts like sin having no place in a secular society.
I'm not convinced this is true tbh. In non-theological every day discourse "sin" is an archaic word for wrong/bad/evil. And the theological classification comes down to whether it falls into the category of those things we legislate against or not.
Saying it has no place in secular society doesn't avoid the fact that you've communicated, "I think this is wrong" and rightly or wrongly, people will judge you on that. And by "people" I mean voters of course.
I can't find it now but there was an article on this that reported on a survey where they asked people about supporting someone who had private beliefs they disagreed with but who publicly did not act on them, supported equality etc. A small but not insignificant minority said they would not support such a politician, and the number increased as you went down the age range.
quote:
Farron couldn't do that for two reasons - one that he'd already made statements to the media on his views of homosexuality that we was now being challenged on, so a prissy refusal to discuss doesn't work, and second that he likely has a constituency of fellow believers who are distinctly unimpressed with the secular take.
I have to admit I was confused by his speech. Maybe because I'd taken his previous statements at face value. He's said he's reached the conclusion that gay sex is not a sin. But his speech reads more like he still believes it is but does not believe it right to impose that on anyone else.
So if he doesn't believe it's a sin then I also wonder if there's a christian constituency he's trying to appease. Not in an electoral sense - I can't believe there are enough to make much of a difference - but in terms of trying to personally maintain relationships within a christian tradition/church/groups that disagrees with him on this. But if he's trying to do that by being vague about what he believes I think he's on a hiding to nothing and probably is right to resign.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
In non-theological every day discourse "sin" is an archaic word for wrong/bad/evil. And the theological classification comes down to whether it falls into the category of those things we legislate against or not.
Saying it has no place in secular society doesn't avoid the fact that you've communicated, "I think this is wrong" and rightly or wrongly, people will judge you on that. And by "people" I mean voters of course.
I wonder if there's some way for a Christian public figure to explain that a certain behaviour may go against your religious tradition, but it doesn't mean that the people who engage in it are 'bad' in the popular sense.
It's probably easier for Muslim politicians to do this successfully, because no one really expects them to be utterly secular in their moral perspective; they're just required to be respectful of the beliefs and lives of other people. But 'Christian' is still (just about) a euphemism for white, British, contemporary normality, and any kind of Christianity that stands in relief against that normality is going to make the nominally Christian public feel very offended and embattled. This is how ISTM, anyway.
It's interesting that Mrs May, an Anglican, had no similar worries about offending a 'constituency' of CofE evangelicals. This may be because most self-confessed Anglicans are non-churchgoing and are very relaxed about personal morality; they were the constituency who mattered to her, not the small number of churchgoers who may or may not approve of SSM.
Mr Farron didn't have a constituency of either nominal or liberal evangelicals standing behind him. Britain produces too few of them, despite the existence of moderately famous names in the blogosphere, etc.
[ 20. June 2017, 17:14: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by Paul. (# 37) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I wonder if there's some way for a Christian public figure to explain that a certain behaviour may go against your religious tradition, but it doesn't mean that the people who engage in it are 'bad' in the popular sense.
But I think it does boil down to '"bad" in the popular sense'. Certainly that was always my understanding as an evangelical. To be honest I don't think I've ever come across a Christian who thought it not bad in the popular sense, who didn't also think it not bad in any sense. What would that look like? Something like a food restriction?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
[Farron] likely has a constituency of fellow believers who are distinctly unimpressed with the secular take.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Do we know for sure that evangelicals are a particularly important constituency for the Lib Dems?
The answer is not especially. But that wasn't my point, I was referring to the fellow believers in his church and circle of friends, and possibly his family. It would be an unusual group of evangelicals that didn't include some who felt he was letting the side down in straddling the fence.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
Saying it has no place in secular society doesn't avoid the fact that you've communicated, "I think this is wrong" and rightly or wrongly, people will judge you on that. And by "people" I mean voters of course.
Exactly. Which is why that line only works if one hasn't already communicated "I think this is wrong". My own advice would be not to think that in the first place, but if one did think it then not to be drawn at all. Every enquiry about Christian beliefs regarding sexuality made to a politician should be met with an explanation of why it isn't relevant in a secular society. But once one has opened up indicating sin as a topic of discussion at an earlier stage then the cat takes a lot of putting back in the bag.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
I have to admit I was confused by his speech. Maybe because I'd taken his previous statements at face value. He's said he's reached the conclusion that gay sex is not a sin. But his speech reads more like he still believes it is but does not believe it right to impose that on anyone else.
Yes, that's how it sounded to me, too.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
And taken together with the fact that he didn't like repeating the view he'd come to that gay sex wasn't a sin, it's clear he wasn't comfortable with his apparent conclusion.
Posted by beatmenace (# 16955) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
... not the small number of churchgoers who may or may not approve of SSM.
She might have to take some of them more seriously now.
[ 21. June 2017, 12:15: Message edited by: beatmenace ]
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I wonder if there's some way for a Christian public figure to explain that a certain behaviour may go against your religious tradition, but it doesn't mean that the people who engage in it are 'bad' in the popular sense.
But I think it does boil down to '"bad" in the popular sense'. Certainly that was always my understanding as an evangelical. To be honest I don't think I've ever come across a Christian who thought it not bad in the popular sense, who didn't also think it not bad in any sense. What would that look like? Something like a food restriction?
But consider premarital (hetero)sexual relationships. Some Christians might see those as sinful, i.e. against God's holy law, yet concede that a colleague or neighbour who lives 'in sin' isn't an especially bad person - or no worse than the rest of us, since we all fall short of God's standards.
More broadly, I feel it's seriously problematic for Christians (regardless of what any of them believe is or isn't a sin) to expect non-Christians to live according to some set of religious standards. What this does is secularise Christianity, because it reduces a saving faith in Jesus Christ to a question of 'lifestyles'. The Victorians and Edwardians fell into this trap, and in the long run the Church was undermined.
This being the case, I don't think it's at all wise for evangelicals to elide spiritual understandings of sinfulness with secular, popular, cultural notions of what's 'bad'. Atheism isn't 'bad' in our culture, but it's certainly a 'sin', according to our religion!
But it's amusing to imagine that Mr Farron conjured up visions of his evangelical friends every time a journalist asked him an awkward question. I wonder if Mrs May thinks about the CofE in similar situations!
Posted by Paul. (# 37) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I wonder if there's some way for a Christian public figure to explain that a certain behaviour may go against your religious tradition, but it doesn't mean that the people who engage in it are 'bad' in the popular sense.
But I think it does boil down to '"bad" in the popular sense'. Certainly that was always my understanding as an evangelical. To be honest I don't think I've ever come across a Christian who thought it not bad in the popular sense, who didn't also think it not bad in any sense. What would that look like? Something like a food restriction?
But consider premarital (hetero)sexual relationships. Some Christians might see those as sinful, i.e. against God's holy law, yet concede that a colleague or neighbour who lives 'in sin' isn't an especially bad person - or no worse than the rest of us, since we all fall short of God's standards.
First, the premarital heterosexual sexual relationship also being wrong is one of the common 'defences' evangelicals will use. But I also think that not being an especially bad person is missing the point. Because we're talking about act(s) that are considered wrong. Now you may reject the distinction between calling the act bad and the actor but crucially that's the distinction the evos will make. So if you ask an evangelical whether sleeping with your unmarried partner is wrong, they're not going to say "no" on the basis that you're otherwise a good person.
quote:
More broadly, I feel it's seriously problematic for Christians (regardless of what any of them believe is or isn't a sin) to expect non-Christians to live according to some set of religious standards. What this does is secularise Christianity, because it reduces a saving faith in Jesus Christ to a question of 'lifestyles'. The Victorians and Edwardians fell into this trap, and in the long run the Church was undermined.
Well not expecting secular people to live up to Christian standards seems to be exactly Farron's position. But that doesn't mean he thinks it's a moral rule that doesn't apply to everyone, merely that it's one that we shouldn't legislate.
quote:
This being the case, I don't think it's at all wise for evangelicals to elide spiritual understandings of sinfulness with secular, popular, cultural notions of what's 'bad'.
They, and indeed I, would say that it's not them that are eliding those understandings but you, or the culture, that is making a false distinction between spiritual and non-spiritual notions of 'wrong'. There is a distinction, or principle, about where it makes sense to draw the line about where we try to legislate.
Remember that evangelicals believe these things are clear from the Bible and that the Bible is the revealed word of God. But there's a difference between believing something is definitively wrong and believing that it's your place to try to get everyone to comply by means of law. A common idea is that it's up to God to sort all that out at the Second Coming or whatever - "one day every knee shall bow" as the song has it.
And this idea works both ways of course. Plenty of people judge the actions of Christians based on their (the non-Christian's) own standards/beliefs. Not allowing women to be priests for example, is seen as discrimination plain and simple and they're not going to give a pass to those whose beliefs differ because they believe that the idea of equality should apply to everyone.
quote:
Atheism isn't 'bad' in our culture, but it's certainly a 'sin', according to our religion!
But if you believe your religion to be true then you'll believe that the culture have got it wrong and that atheism is bad.
quote:
But it's amusing to imagine that Mr Farron conjured up visions of his evangelical friends every time a journalist asked him an awkward question. I wonder if Mrs May thinks about the CofE in similar situations!
I've no idea if he does. It was just an attempt to make sense of his statements.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
First, the premarital heterosexual sexual relationship also being wrong is one of the common 'defences' evangelicals will use. But I also think that not being an especially bad person is missing the point. Because we're talking about act(s) that are considered wrong. Now you may reject the distinction between calling the act bad and the actor but crucially that's the distinction the evos will make. So if you ask an evangelical whether sleeping with your unmarried partner is wrong, they're not going to say "no" on the basis that you're otherwise a good person.
I happen to believe it's sinful. But in a general conversation with non-Christians I wouldn't want to confuse that with a secular understanding of what's 'bad'. I don't see what purpose that would serve.
And TBH, I tend to the view that no one is righteous anyway.
quote:
Not expecting secular people to live up to Christian standards seems to be exactly Farron's position. But that doesn't mean he thinks it's a moral rule that doesn't apply to everyone, merely that it's one that we shouldn't legislate.
My sense is that the 'moral rule' can't apply to everyone, since only those who inhabit the Kingdom are bound by the laws of that Kingdom. I don't have to obey Chinese laws unless I'm actually in China.
quote:
[It's] you, or the culture, that is making a false distinction between spiritual and non-spiritual notions of 'wrong'. There is a distinction, or principle, about where it makes sense to draw the line about where we try to legislate.
Remember that evangelicals believe these things are clear from the Bible and that the Bible is the revealed word of God.
I do understand that some people see the state and the Kingdom of God as ideally coterminous. The ancient Israelites were the Chosen People of God. And since the time of Constantine many Christians have identified with the idea of the 'Christian nation', regardless of whether or not the state makes particular behaviours or beliefs legal or illegal.
But others would argue that the NT gives no encouragement to the 'Christian nation' idea. The notion of a vaguely diffusive, nationalistic concept of 'Christian values', which involves behaving in a certain way but has very little to do with faith isn't something presented by Jesus himself, nor by St. Paul. And various commentators, some of whom are evangelical, have indeed found the notion unhelpful and unbiblical, for a variety of of theological and historical reasons.
quote:
If you believe your religion to be true then you'll believe that the culture have got it wrong and that atheism is bad.
Yet what is primarily 'bad', ISTM, is that our nation is not made up of people who are faithful servants of the Most High God. Our behavior is secondary - unless we believe that people are saved by works rather than by faith. And salvation by works rather than faith (regardless of what behaviour constitutes good works) strikes me as a secularising form of Christianity in the long run, despite being very attractive to many different kinds of Christians today.
Be that as it may, I think evangelicals in British politics need to develop a secular, post-Christendom theology of public service that they can argue in a way that won't upset a theologically illiterate populace. It's difficult. Maybe someone ought to write a book on it. But if it's deemed to be impossible then evangelicals will have to leave politics to other people.
Posted by Paul. (# 37) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I happen to believe it's sinful. But in a general conversation with non-Christians I wouldn't want to confuse that with a secular understanding of what's 'bad'. I don't see what purpose that would serve.
And TBH, I tend to the view that no one is righteous anyway.
I'm still bumping on this idea that you have a separate secular understanding of 'bad'. I'm wondering if this is largely a semantic difference so I'd like to try to clarify.
When you say that there's a separate secular 'bad' do you mean the set of things that are commonly agreed to be bad that are shared regardless of religion? Because that's not what I've been taking it to mean. Coming from the starting point of you thinking Fallon could've cited it as a theological matter as a defence, I assumed that you mean that the idea of 'sin' is somehow different from 'secular bad'. So something could be presented as technically a sin but we could all (christians and non- alike) agree it was 'bad'. I realise this may not be what you meant but it's what I took it to mean.
And since for me 'sin' is really just another word for 'bad' (there are shades of meaning but fundamentally) I responded that I didn't think this would work.
If we're using "secular bad" to mean the category of things generally agreed to be wrong then I probably mostly agree with your statement here - and definitely agree it makes little sense to speak to non-Christians about something being wrong when the basis for its wrongness is something they don't share.
Agree about no-one being righteous.
quote:
quote:
Not expecting secular people to live up to Christian standards seems to be exactly Farron's position. But that doesn't mean he thinks it's a moral rule that doesn't apply to everyone, merely that it's one that we shouldn't legislate.
My sense is that the 'moral rule' can't apply to everyone, since only those who inhabit the Kingdom are bound by the laws of that Kingdom. I don't have to obey Chinese laws unless I'm actually in China.
OK. Back when I believed this, I would have said that since God is ultimately in charge we're all Chinese but we're not all delegated to be police or judges. The concept of the 'Kingdom of God' for me, was something that ultimately applies to everyone but only some currently acknowledge.
quote:
quote:
[It's] you, or the culture, that is making a false distinction between spiritual and non-spiritual notions of 'wrong'. There is a distinction, or principle, about where it makes sense to draw the line about where we try to legislate.
Remember that evangelicals believe these things are clear from the Bible and that the Bible is the revealed word of God.
I do understand that some people see the state and the Kingdom of God as ideally coterminous. <snip>
I haven't been arguing for a Christian state. It's possible to believe "this is the standard by which God wants everyone to live" without adding, "and we need to enforce this by law".
quote:
quote:
If you believe your religion to be true then you'll believe that the culture have got it wrong and that atheism is bad.
Yet what is primarily 'bad', ISTM, is that our nation is not made up of people who are faithful servants of the Most High God. Our behavior is secondary - unless we believe that people are saved by works rather than by faith.
Again I would have agreed with this. I wasn't advocating salvation by works. I was merely saying that when I, in former guise as an evangelical Christian, when I would say, "gay sex is a sin" didn't mean anything fundamentally different from my non-Christian neighbour saying, "cheating on your partner is bad". It's wrong behaviour I thought shouldn't be engaged in. My reasons for thinking it wrong were different (God said so). Whether or not I'd think it wise to say it to non-Christians was different, better first as you imply to convince someone that they need to follow God. Fundamentally though I didn't have a different category of wrong called 'sin' which is 'wrong but OK really if you're not a Christian'.
At least not consciously. I have to be honest and say that I now think that there was some cognitive dissonance. I remember struggling with the idea that the only reason I could see it was wrong was 'God said so' unlike most other sins where I could see the harm being done. That's at least partly why I've ended up where I am now, not an evangelical and probably not a Christian (still believe in God, fuzzy about anything else).
So maybe, in practice, I did have a non-secular bad category, at least for things like gay sex where I had to invoke God to explain why it was wrong, but it never felt like I did. And that's the mindset I'm casting myself into when I'm trying to understand where someone like Farron is coming from.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Svitlana's comments in her past paragraph, if followed through, would produce an odd dichotomy, in that I expect the majority opinion on these boards would be in favour of evangelicals (and indeed all Christians) applying Biblical injunctions to feed and clothe the poor and hungry, apply justice etc in the public sphere but not on (as interpreted by con evos) sexual matters.
[ 22. June 2017, 10:18: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Svitlana's comments in her past paragraph, if followed through, would produce an odd dichotomy, in that I expect the majority opinion on these boards would be in favour of evangelicals (and indeed all Christians) applying Biblical injunctions to feed and clothe the poor and hungry, apply justice etc in the public sphere but not on (as interpreted by con evos) sexual matters.
Yes, but there is quite a library of Christian liberal thinking about this!
The liberal sees that there are certain roles for the state (in creating a stable society) and certain roles for individual choice (in matters of personal morality) and that the state's role is to mitigate for the freedom of the individual (by making sure they have enough to eat etc.) So I think there's actual thought here which allows for the distinction - it's not just that feeding the hungry is popular and banning abortion isn't.
On the left and right it seems to be quite a novel idea that one wouldn't force everyone to do what you think is right by means of the law/state. But really it's an idea with quite a pedigree and I would like it back!
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Giving to the poor =/= taking from the LGBT+
ISTM, Louise and mdjion have encapsulated it best.
A politician with anti-LGBT+ thought and an infective overall record, stated his separation of belief and practice in an unconvincing manner.
It is as simple as that, as much as you might like to bemoan "The Libruls have lost the plot".
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Svitlana's comments in her past paragraph, if followed through, would produce an odd dichotomy, in that I expect the majority opinion on these boards would be in favour of evangelicals (and indeed all Christians) applying Biblical injunctions to feed and clothe the poor and hungry, apply justice etc in the public sphere but not on (as interpreted by con evos) sexual matters.
In certain cases there may be an overlap between approving of something for religious reasons and approving for cultural ones (e.g feeding the poor). In other cases there won't be. So yes, there's may well be a dichotomy. Each Christian's point of dichotomy will be different.
Abortion is a perfect example of how 'reasonable' Christians may make a separation between their faith and the secular context in which we live. AFAIK, few liberal Christians try to make a theological case for the righteousness or holiness of abortion. They present 'a woman's right to choose' in largely secular terms. True, the primacy of the woman's well-being over that of the foetus has a long pedigree, and that probably has a theological justification. But 'well-being' is now such an elastic term that it's probably difficult to make one theological argument fit all possible definitions. It's therefore simpler, ISTM, to see abortion as a secular good, not a spiritual or theological one.
In some cases Christians choose to act or work on behalf of a cause which they see as a secular good, but not necessarily a spiritual one. Farron seems to have actively supported gay rights. It's unclear that he believes LGBT sexual behaviours or SSM to be completely righteous in a religious sense, but he presumably believes there's a secular good to be gained in liberalising the law on these matters. I think that's a reasonable 'dichotomy' myself, although others seem to disagree.
[ 22. June 2017, 20:05: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Abortion is a perfect example of how 'reasonable' Christians may make a separation between their faith and the secular context in which we live. AFAIK, few liberal Christians try to make a theological case for the righteousness or holiness of abortion.
It should be noted that for Protestants, the idea that abortion is unrighteous or unholy is younger than McDonalds' Happy Meal. In 1975 you could be considered a conservative Evangelical and publish things like "Abortion is not murder, because the embryo is not fully human — it is an undeveloped person". The idea that there is a unified Christian position on abortion, even coming at the question as Christians, is a fairly recent fallacy.
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Abortion is a perfect example of how 'reasonable' Christians may make a separation between their faith and the secular context in which we live. AFAIK, few liberal Christians try to make a theological case for the righteousness or holiness of abortion. They present 'a woman's right to choose' in largely secular terms. True, the primacy of the woman's well-being over that of the foetus has a long pedigree, and that probably has a theological justification. But 'well-being' is now such an elastic term that it's probably difficult to make one theological argument fit all possible definitions. It's therefore simpler, ISTM, to see abortion as a secular good, not a spiritual or theological one.
Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, and Episcopal priest, was the former president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, one of the more prominent (and more liberal) Episcopal seminaries in the US.
She has been reviled by the pro-life media (many of the articles about her also criticize her for being in a same-sex marriage) for her argument that the religious left (or at least the part of the religious left that she identifies with) should reclaim the theological argument about abortion and preach that abortion is a blessing.
She is in particular known for the speech quoted here:
http://www.choicematters.org/2009/04/abortion-is-a-blessing/
Here is a video of her speaking to the National Organization for Women:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO9DRY3MDOs
Here also is a story of an interfaith group blessing a clinic where the provision of abortions is central to its mission:
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/10/clergy_group_blesses_cleveland.html
And here is the "Theologies Program" of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, of which many US Mainline Protestant Churches are members, which encourages theologians to make a positive argument about why keeping abortion (and other reproductive services) legal and accessible is imperative from the morality of their religious tradition. Look also under the "Religious Resources" tab for perspectives from different faiths and denominations, as well as prayers from those different traditions for women who choose to have an abortion and for other people involved in abortion and reproductive health:
http://rcrc.org/theologies-program/
Although I know less about the "Religious Institute," it appears to be an effort supported by many liberal denominations to inform religious theology, preaching, ministry with pro-reproductive-and-sexual-rights advocacy. Here is their "Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Abortion as a Moral Decision"
http://religiousinstitute.org/open-letter-to-religious-leaders-on-abortion-as-a-moral-decision/
...which because of its interfaith nature uses pretty broad and vague language, but here is an interesting quote:
“the sanctity of human life is best upheld when we assure that it is not created carelessly.”
There are many churchgoing people in the US with moderately liberal politics who would not call abortion a blessing but would prefer to call it a necessary evil, or at best something morally neutral, but something that it would be good to prevent through increasing access to contraception and through indirect methods like reducing poverty, improving education, empowering women, etc. However, younger religious progressives, especially ones that have been exposed to the politics of modern university campuses, appear to me (though I am no expert) to view defending and providing legal abortion as a holy calling.
Part of this is because, as abortion has become arguably the defining shibboleth of Republican and Democratic politics at the national level (there are exceptions to the rule at the local level, though they are decreasing, especially among Democrats), abortion (together with LGBTQI+ rights) has also become the defining shibboleth of how many (though certainly not all) US Christians in progressive denominations believe they should apply their faith in the political sphere.
Note that I am mostly talking about the more socially liberal of the mainline Protestant denominations, who tend to be represented far beyond their numbers in the media as "the religious left," and less so about progressive Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics, although there are some progressive members of those groups who make similar theological arguments.
Note also that the movement to use religious language to defend the goodness of legal abortion services is highly intertwined with Planned Parenthood in terms of funding, volunteers, and networks of support. In my opinion, this is not because of some great abortion industry conspiracy as the pro-life media would suggest but rather a natural consequence of the polarization I have mentioned in both politics and religion. Planned Parenthood in many parts of the US is often the only easily accessible provider, not only of abortion services, but of all kinds of sexual and reproductive health services - and this is precisely why it lies at the center of not only the political, but also the religious debate over abortion in the US. I have my qualms about Planned Parenthood's founder's ties to Eugenics and about the ethics of PP being paid for transporting aborted fetal tissue to research centers, although this technically is not selling fetal body parts - but, as with many other areas in the US where the "market" (including nonprofit actors like PP) has filled a vacuum where government has declined to be very directly involved, PP is very often if not always what you work with if you are supporting or opposing abortion rights in the US, from a secular or a religious perspective.
Finally (for real this time) note also that I do not necessarily agree that defending and providing legal abortion is either holy or a Christian calling - although I do believe that Christian morality as I understand it requires a society to make abortion legal and accessible in many cases - at least until reproductive technology allows an unborn child to be gestated to birth outside of a mother's body at any stage of pregnancy (insert your allusions to Brave New World here).
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It should be noted that for Protestants, the idea that abortion is unrighteous or unholy is younger than McDonalds' Happy Meal. In 1975 you could be considered a conservative Evangelical and publish things like "Abortion is not murder, because the embryo is not fully human — it is an undeveloped person". The idea that there is a unified Christian position on abortion, even coming at the question as Christians, is a fairly recent fallacy.
A lot of conservative Evangelical Protestantism's movement towards fierce opposition to legal abortion in the US came from the time when leaders of the Evangelical Religious Right realized that Conservative Roman Catholics, who were the main leaders of the anti-abortion movement prior to this point, were natural allies of theirs in their political campaigns for school prayer, against LGBTQI+ rights, against all kinds of sexual liberalism in the culture at large, and against the eroding of traditional gender roles. Religious groups that long had been fiercely anti-Catholic began to see the RCC as a needed partner in opposition to secularism. In later decades, they (and Conservative parts of the RCC) would also come to see the Mormon Church as a powerful and useful ally, despite their much greater theological differences with them (and their continued belief (shared by many here on the Ship) that Mormons are not Christians.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Svitlana, the dichotomy to which I was referring was not the spiritual - secular one but, rather, that the more liberal voices are quite happy for evangelicals to wear their faith on their sleeves in the public square when it comes to social action such as feeding the poor but as soon as the conversation switches to sexual ethics, they're expected to STFU.
Posted by Louise (# 30) on
:
I don't know anyone who's been killed by being poor and being fed (unless you're stuffing them with cream cakes). I certainly do know or know of people who've been killed or badly harmed by conservative religious positions on abortion and same-sex relationships. Savita Halappanavar, for instance, would be alive right now if it wasn't for a state that bought into religiously-promoted 'pro-life' dogma. I am old enough to know people directly harmed by being unable to get safe abortion access pre-1967.
I know a woman just like me, who tried to kill herself as a teenager because she was same-sex attracted, growing up a few years earlier than me, going to the same school with the same teachers and but being faced by the wall of ignorance and cruelty to LGBT youngsters that came from conservative religious sexual beliefs. I see how things have changed for the better in my lifetime precisely because those attitudes have been fought and to large degree overturned.
I'll certainly give you a round of applause and regular donations if you feed the poor, but if you want to push pro life/anti-gay forms of Christianity, you're on your own. You've no right to do that without the people who are harmed by it pushing back and opposing it, and yes, refusing to vote for your man and help him get elected.
It's a bit much to expect people whose lives (or whose friends and relatives lives) are harmed by those attitudes, to be all nice and polite about it and pat folk on the back for it the way they do for feeding the poor! There is a very important difference.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I get all of that but I think there are a lot of con evos who don't. (I accept that 'a lot' is rather vague and anecdotal...)
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
To clarify: Are some people saying here that if a politician is Orthodox Jewish or Muslim (or any faith, for that matter), and says that s/he supports all laws pertaining to gay rights, but believes that gay sex is a sin, they would rule out voting for them precisely because of that religious belief and not because of any other words or actions by that politician?
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
To clarify: Are some people saying here that if a politician is Orthodox Jewish or Muslim (or any faith, for that matter), and says that s/he supports all laws pertaining to gay rights, but believes that gay sex is a sin, they would rule out voting for them precisely because of that religious belief and not because of any other words or actions by that politician?
That is what Tim Farron is claiming happened to him.
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
To clarify: Are some people saying here that if a politician is Orthodox Jewish or Muslim (or any faith, for that matter), and says that s/he supports all laws pertaining to gay rights, but believes that gay sex is a sin, they would rule out voting for them precisely because of that religious belief and not because of any other words or actions by that politician?
That is what Tim Farron is claiming happened to him.
But with Farron there were some past votes (abstentions, etc.) that may have indicated that although he was on the side of gay rights he had some misgivings about throwing his unequivocal political support behind it. Much has been discussed here about voting for a Christian politician who differentiated between his/her political support for gay rights and his/her religious beliefs on the sinfulness of gay sex. There has been some discussion about a Muslim or (I would presume) Orthodox Jewish politician with similar political stances and religious beliefs, but I haven't heard anyone say that they would rule out voting for a politician of any faith, regardless of party or other political positions, regardless of that person's other words or actions, who believed that gay sex was sinful. The long history of (hateful) questioning whether Jewish politicians were really on "our" side, which has also happened more recently with Muslim politicians (especially more traditional Muslim ones), not to mention similar past issues with Catholic (JFK anyone?) and Mormon politicians, has me very concerned that someone would rule out voting for someone because of a religious belief that the majority of the members of a certain religious groups believed was required, especially when that politician does not live out his/her faith in a way that is harmful to anyone (I am not talking about Farron here, but more generally).
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
But with Farron there were some past votes (abstentions, etc.) that may have indicated that although he was on the side of gay rights he had some misgivings about throwing his unequivocal political support behind it.
Well, that's the rub, isn't it? If you're gay (or just someone who cares about how gay people are treated) are you going to support a leader who's support of your rights as a citizen is grudging, half-hearted, and unreliable? You might, if that was the only support on offer, but those days are gone.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
The references above to the existence of theologies of abortion are interesting, so thanks for those.
One thing I've noticed is that American Christian liberalism appears to be much more robust, productive and even more extreme than its British equivalent (to the extent that there is one). As stonespring implies, this must be partly in response to the highly visible, vocal and self-confident evangelicalism that the USA is so famous for.
The paradox for Christian liberalism in the UK is that it too would probably be stronger if evangelicalism were stronger. But intense secularisation has rendered almost all forms of British Christianity irrelevant, and despite fearfulness about the 'rise' of conservative evangelicalism, it really isn't significant enough to create any serious backlash among moderate or liberal Christians.
But despite the weakness of British evangelicalism Tim Farron's religious affiliations did raise fears. In future the solution might be for British politicians like him to abandon the small, mysterious denominations that frighten outsiders, join the CofE (not its evangelical wing) and cultivate a low-key, bland religious image. Mrs May's 'respectable' CofE churchgoing didn't alarm journalists, which meant she didn't have to confront endless questions about 'sin'. Consider Mrs Thatcher, who switched to the CofE from Methodism. Methodists are harmless, but a secularised society doesn't know that.
[ 24. June 2017, 18:30: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
But with Farron there were some past votes (abstentions, etc.) that may have indicated that although he was on the side of gay rights he had some misgivings about throwing his unequivocal political support behind it.
Well, that's the rub, isn't it? If you're gay (or just someone who cares about how gay people are treated) are you going to support a leader who's support of your rights as a citizen is grudging, half-hearted, and unreliable? You might, if that was the only support on offer, but those days are gone.
That is why I said that Tim Farron was different from my hypothetical of a political candidate who, unlike Tim Farron, was unequivocal in his/her support for LGBTQI+ rights, but admitted that s/he believes gay sex is sinful. I asked whether the people here who would not vote for Tim Farron would also rule out voting for this hypothetical candidate. I also asked whether this would also be true if the hypothetical candidate were Muslim or Orthodox Jewish. Assume that the hypothetical candidate aligns with your policy preferences in all other areas. The only reason you would have for ruling out voting for this candidate is that s/he said that s/he believes that gay sex is sinful. If someone would rule out voting for someone simply for that reason, I, a queer man that likes to think of myself as pretty progressive in terms of my politics, would find that to be a pretty bad form of religious discrimination.
And I, personally, WOULD rule out voting for someone if they said they believed that interracial sex was sinful, even if they said it was for religious reasons. If I were voting in the US back in the days when many states had laws against "miscegenation" and several large and prominent religious groups preached that interracial sex was sinful, if a politician said that they opposed miscegenation laws and supported legalized interracial marriage and full rights in society for interracial couples (in addition to full support for racial equality in general), but his/her religious beliefs were that interracial sex was sinful - I think I still would rule out voting for that politician, even if s/he were from a religious minority with a history of being discriminated against for their beliefs.
So what I'm asking is, in these two hypotheticals - an otherwise pro-LGBTQI+ rights politician today who believes gay sex is sinful - who may indeed be from a religious minority like Islam or Orthodox Judaism - and an otherwise pro-racial equality and interracial marriage politician in the past whose religious beliefs were that interracial sex was sinful - would anyone here rule out voting for that politician?
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
In the UK I don't think 'interracial sex' has ever been seriously posited as a theological problem, although it has of course been socially and culturally undesirable. It's never been against the law AFAIK. There have been mixed-race relationships here since at least Tudor times, and many marriages.
Describing interracial sex as 'sinful' would therefore make no more sense to practising Christians and Muslims (who come in all colours in modern Britain), etc., than it would to the generally irreligious majority. And the rate of interracial unions is quite high now. Where it isn't high, e.g. among Asian Muslims and others, this has more to do with religious differences than race. White converts to Islam have little difficulty finding spouses, so I understand.
But the whole political package would be a problem. Virulent racism is unattractive to most voters. Moreover, it's inevitably attached to extreme right wing parties, whose appeal is also limited. Adding a strange, unknown theology to the mix would just make things even worse! So no, I wouldn't vote for such a person!
Having said that, I'm under no illusion that mainstream British politicians are all about racial equality, or that they'd happily marry their children off to Nigerians or Bangladeshis....
With regards to Muslim or Jewish politicians whose beliefs about homosexual sins go against the culture, I wouldn't refuse to vote for them. But I don't think an openly conservative believer would get very high up in our political system. Sadiq Khan wouldn't be the mayor of London if he'd publicly shared the same views about homosexuality as over half of all British Muslims.
However, I once went to hear a Muslim local politician give a talk in which she accepted that although certain sexual relations were haram in Islam that didn't mean she couldn't respect or work with people who had a different view. The university crowd accepted her answer, and she went on to talk about other things. I was very impressed with her.
[ 25. June 2017, 02:10: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
To clarify: Are some people saying here that if a politician is Orthodox Jewish or Muslim (or any faith, for that matter), and says that s/he supports all laws pertaining to gay rights, but believes that gay sex is a sin, they would rule out voting for them precisely because of that religious belief and not because of any other words or actions by that politician?
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
That is what Tim Farron is claiming happened to him.
As others have made clear that account doesn't quite add up for Farron.
But as a general point it's an interesting one - would any of us vote for a politician that had accepted to vote according to our wants or needs but clearly had underlying beliefs that we found problematic.
I think it would come down to trust. If they have these underlying contrary attitudes, can we depend on their support for us irrespective? Circumstances can change, and then what they believe may become relevant. If I trusted that their approach made their supportive stance predictable despite changing circumstances then I might vote for them.
Politicians are claiming to be leaders who will respond to circumstance and challenge. It is their character and belief that we are voting for as well as policy. Leaders can't simply be transferable cut-out figures attached to a policy position.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
When issues like these are spoken about in the context of possible legislation, there's generally a cry for a conscience vote. All well and good, but that's usually accompanied by a complete lack of understanding by many that a person's conscience will normally coincide with their religious views. Farron seems to have gone that extra step of saying that my religious views and conscience are against this, but I shall still vote in favour because I believe that to be the wish of a majority of the population at large. That's a good approach.
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Farron seems to have gone that extra step of saying that my religious views and conscience are against this, but I shall still vote in favour because I believe that to be the wish of a majority of the population at large. That's a good approach.
I think it's more than just majoritarianism. He believes that people should have the freedom in as many areas to act by their own conscience not that of the government. Croesos' post demonstrates that there has been a sea change in liberalism here; from that classical liberal view which values freedom, to a sort of progressivism that says you must personally be able to applaud every type of progress. I think we will be the worse for the loss of the original tradition because it does mean that minority views have no space, not even private space.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
But what about Louise's point, where a view expressed, even if not acted on, can cause actual harm?
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Farron seems to have gone that extra step of saying that my religious views and conscience are against this, but I shall still vote in favour because I believe that to be the wish of a majority of the population at large. That's a good approach.
I think it's more than just majoritarianism. He believes that people should have the freedom in as many areas to act by their own conscience not that of the government. Croesos' post demonstrates that there has been a sea change in liberalism here; from that classical liberal view which values freedom, to a sort of progressivism that says you must personally be able to applaud every type of progress. I think we will be the worse for the loss of the original tradition because it does mean that minority views have no space, not even private space.
Much of that is what I was trying, obviously clumsily, to say.
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But what about Louise's point, where a view expressed, even if not acted on, can cause actual harm?
Are we really willing to ban even privately holding views which may cause actual harm if expressed? It's pretty draconian. I'm not sure I'm even willing to countenance banning their expression, never mind the private commitment to them.
Wasn't the problem in the examples Louise gave precisely that those moral views had become institutionalised?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I'm not gay so not sure I'm best qualified to answer that question ie: institutionalisation of such views is/ was the only problem with them? I would suspect thought that there is more to it than that: eg:I can envisage the following scenario: 'benign' Party A tells 'malign' Party B that he agrees with Party B's stance on a certain issue even though he (Party A) personally do anything to 'implement' that stance. Party B however is quite able and willing to implement that stance and, having had it reinforced rather than challenged by Party A, proceeds to do so.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
If Farron's view we're privately held, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
The case against Farron has been presented with a great deal more balance than the faux persecution one you two are attempting to present.
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If Farron's view we're privately held, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I think you mean were.
quote:
The case against Farron has been presented with a great deal more balance than the faux persecution one you two are attempting to present.
I'm not trying to make a case that anyone is being "persecuted." Rather saying that I fear this marks the end of a certain type of politics that contributed something positive. Some people actually believe in pluralism; shocking but true.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Are we really willing to ban even privately holding views which may cause actual harm if expressed?
Which isn't what's being discussed. "Privately holding views" is a very different question from "entitled to hold a position of political leadership".
Riffing off of stonespring's earlier post about racial discrimination I'm reminded of how a lot of Segregationists would claim to accept the legal right of black people to vote while crafting laws that were facially neutral on the question of race (e.g. literacy test, poll taxes, etc.) which somehow managed to consistently disenfranchise the black vote.
I can't speak to Mr. Farron specifically, but in general good faith trust in politicians should be earned, not assumed based on politically expedient public statements. Given the choice, why not choose leaders whose support of your legal rights is unequivocal?
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I can't speak to Mr. Farron specifically, but in general good faith trust in politicians should be earned, not assumed based on politically expedient public statements. Given the choice, why not choose leaders whose support of your legal rights is unequivocal?
Speaking of Mr. Farron specifically, the chair of the Lib Dem LGBT group did think he had supported LGBT rights unequivocally.
Read Here
But on your more general question, it's an interesting one, and like Matt, not being LGBT I find it difficult to answer. I can see others would feel that way.
Nevertheless, I can also see it as praiseworthy that someone protects my rights without agreeing with my moral behaviour. It's not a direct parallel I know, but I am much more likely to vote for an atheist candidate who is deeply committed to free speech like Nick Clegg than one who I have, on the face of it, some shared beliefs, but I don't believe is committed to freedom at all like Theresa May. That someone who disagrees with me is willing to protect my rights - I think it's a good thing. YMMV.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I'm not trying to make a case that anyone is being "persecuted." Rather saying that I fear this marks the end of a certain type of politics that contributed something positive. Some people actually believe in pluralism; shocking but true.
Political parties take positions. They're for certain things and against certain other things. A phony "pluralism" that insists anything is acceptable is just a formless, pointless mush. If someone votes against extending discrimination protection to cover sexual orientation people are allowed to take that into account when judging their sincerity about supporting the equal rights of homosexuals. "Pluralism" does not entitle anyone to a position of political leadership.
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I'm not trying to make a case that anyone is being "persecuted." Rather saying that I fear this marks the end of a certain type of politics that contributed something positive. Some people actually believe in pluralism; shocking but true.
Political parties take positions. They're for certain things and against certain other things. A phony "pluralism" that insists anything is acceptable is just a formless, pointless mush. If someone votes against extending discrimination protection to cover sexual orientation people are allowed to take that into account when judging their sincerity about supporting the equal rights of homosexuals. "Pluralism" does not entitle anyone to a position of political leadership.
Who is talking about entitlement to leadership?
Rather, someone should not be ousted from their position of leadership whilst they have always voted in favour of their party's policies, because of personal views they may or may not hold. Particularly a liberal party. A party committed to pluralism should be committed to that.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
"Pluralism" does not entitle anyone to a position of political leadership.
Who is talking about entitlement to leadership?
Rather, someone should not be ousted from their position of leadership whilst they have always voted in favour of their party's policies, because of personal views they may or may not hold.
You're talking about entitlement to leadership. How someone is entitled to retain a position of political leadership regardless of their views or actions.
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
A party committed to pluralism should be committed to that.
Ah, the old 'your commitment to pluralism means you have to endorse my opposition to pluralism' dodge. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
[ 26. June 2017, 14:29: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
"Pluralism" does not entitle anyone to a position of political leadership.
Who is talking about entitlement to leadership?
Rather, someone should not be ousted from their position of leadership whilst they have always voted in favour of their party's policies, because of personal views they may or may not hold.
You're talking about entitlement to leadership. How someone is entitled to retain a position of political leadership regardless of their views or actions.
I'm not sure you know what entitled means. Clearly he was not entitled to the leadership; he had to stand in an election and be voted into the position.
He had a right to be judged in terms of how he implemented his party's policies despite his personal views. Particularly he had a right to be judged in line with the principles for which his party purported to stand.
I guess you could use the word entitled here, but it wouldn't really be a normal usage.
quote:
Ah, the old 'your commitment to pluralism means you have to endorse my opposition to pluralism' dodge.
Sorry. Can't parse this or see its relevance.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
He had a right to be judged in terms of how he implemented his party's policies despite his personal views. Particularly he had a right to be judged in line with the principles for which his party purported to stand.
And the public have a right to determine whether they believe that behaviour was merely expedient or will remain consistent.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Riffing off of stonespring's earlier post about racial discrimination I'm reminded of how a lot of Segregationists would claim to accept the legal right of black people to vote while crafting laws that were facially neutral on the question of race (e.g. literacy test, poll taxes, etc.) which somehow managed to consistently disenfranchise the black vote.
I can't speak to Mr. Farron specifically, but in general good faith trust in politicians should be earned, not assumed based on politically expedient public statements. Given the choice, why not choose leaders whose support of your legal rights is unequivocal?
But thinking that something is a sin in religious terms can be quite separate from thinking that something should be illegal.
Adultery, in my religious belief system, is a sin. But that doesn't mean I'd make adultery illegal if I were PM. Atheism is also a sin in that belief system, yet I wouldn't ban atheism, or somehow try to disenfranchise atheists!
Politicians in (so-called) democracies exist in social and cultural contexts that they're expected to reflect in some way. In times of rapid change it must be difficult for them to get with the programme. Some will try to turn back the tide, but that's usually a lost cause, unless the society itself is already engaged in that struggle.
That being the case, in a society and culture as secular as mine (Britain) I can't see any sign that a British politician who had illiberal personal beliefs about sexual behaviour would get enough support to impose them on the population at large. Conservative God-botherers may be our modern bogeymen but their numbers here are tiny, and they have no silent majority behind them; the silent majority don't even call themselves Christians anymore.
The USA has a much larger and more vocal evangelical presence so I suppose liberals have to be more alert there. But American religiosity seems to lead to another problem for politicians; rather than religion being a burden for them, they seem to pretend to be more religious than they are. And then when they win office they don't turn America into a fundamentalist dystopia. Secularisation continues apace, as it does in the UK.
[ 26. June 2017, 20:02: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Riffing off of stonespring's earlier post about racial discrimination I'm reminded of how a lot of Segregationists would claim to accept the legal right of black people to vote while crafting laws that were facially neutral on the question of race (e.g. literacy test, poll taxes, etc.) which somehow managed to consistently disenfranchise the black vote.
I can't speak to Mr. Farron specifically, but in general good faith trust in politicians should be earned, not assumed based on politically expedient public statements. Given the choice, why not choose leaders whose support of your legal rights is unequivocal?
But thinking that something is a sin in religious terms can be quite separate from thinking that something should be illegal.
Adultery, in my religious belief system, is a sin. But that doesn't mean I'd make adultery illegal if I were PM. Atheism is also a sin in that belief system, yet I wouldn't ban atheism, or somehow try to disenfranchise atheists!
Yes, but you can also understand why adulterers and atheists might wonder whether your (hypothetical) publicly expressed contempt for them means that you'll be less zealous in defending their rights. There's a huge gap between "I won't actively do anything to harm those people" and "I will actively support those people as fellow citizens/subjects with full rights".
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Conservative God-botherers may be our modern bogeymen but their numbers here are tiny, and they have no silent majority behind them; the silent majority don't even call themselves Christians anymore.
You can't be a "silent majority" if you're making a bunch of religious declarations.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The USA has a much larger and more vocal evangelical presence so I suppose liberals have to be more alert there. But American religiosity seems to lead to another problem for politicians; rather than religion being a burden for them, they seem to pretend to be more religious than they are. And then when they win office they don't turn America into a fundamentalist dystopia. Secularisation continues apace, as it does in the UK.
This would be more convincing if the current crop of American politicians weren't trying to enforce a "Muslim ban".
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
In terms of the questions I asked, I repeat that my hypothetical "totally pro-gay-rights politically but personally has a religious belief that gay sex is sinful" candidate is not Tim Farron, despite the topic of this thread, so the particulars of his case do not apply to my question of whether anyone here would rule out voting for that hypothetical candidate (even if every policy position of that candidate aligned with yours).
I think I disagree with Louise that a religious belief in the sinfulness in gay sex is so harmful that we should choose only political leaders that reject it, regardless of their actual policies. But I do believe that a religious belief in the superiority of one race or in racial segregation should disqualify a politician from my vote (aside from, say, a belief from a Jewish politician that Jews should only marry Jews - which, given the possibility of conversion, is not really a belief in racial segregation anyway, and has nothing to do with political policy regardless). And although I would not rule out voting for a politician that opposed women's ordination in his/her faith community, I would also rule out voting for a (ostensibly male) politician who politically supported women's rights but stated a religious belief that women should remain at home to raise children whenever possible or that women should not run for political office. And anyone who has a religious belief that LGBT+ people should be criminally punished for expressing their sexual orientation/gender identity in a society that is overwhelmingly or completely of their faith group, but assents to LGBT+ rights laws in a religiously diverse society, would not receive my vote, because the belief in the sinfulness of gay sex and the belief in the criminalization of homosexuality in any hypothetical society are very different things in my mind.
Part of the reason I am having this discussion is to help unpack why I, as a gay white affluent half-Latino US male who has never experienced much discrimination in his life, not even from personal interaction with clergy and others in the RCC (in my sheltered bubble, I admit), think this way. I suspect it has a lot to do with sexual orientation, although being something that a person cannot change, is something that a person can choose to not act on sexually for religious reasons, just as someone who had a brief and tragic marriage at a naive age early in life may choose to never remarry for religious reasons. Race and gender-assigned-at-birth (despite advances in trans rights) are much more inflexible in terms of a person's ability to escape the effects of the identity imposed upon them by society (no matter whether or not they embrace that identity), because of the phenotypic expression of those traits in one's appearance (rather than behavior) - and, in the case of race, because it is linked to ancestry, which, like appearance, is difficult to escape the effects of in terms of society's prejudices, unjust though they may be. So yes, I am saying that sex is different, although sexual orientation is about much more than sex, I know.
As unlikely as my hypothetical case may sound, there are many politicians who personally are pro-gay rights and vote accordingly, but do not want to risk a) being cast out of their religious communities completely (even if their voting record, as in the case of many RC politicians, has already impaired their communion with their religious community), b) deal with doubt on religious issues like the rest of us and therefore are uncomfortable taking a public theological stance at odds with their religious group, or c) do not want to alienate, not only people from their religious group who may vote for them, but the network of people of the same faith that they work with frequently, not just friends and family but also community leaders that it is important to maintain ties with as part of their job as a politician (especially here in the US).
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Adulterers and atheists might wonder whether your (hypothetical) publicly expressed contempt for them means that you'll be less zealous in defending their rights. There's a huge gap between "I won't actively do anything to harm those people" and "I will actively support those people as fellow citizens/subjects with full rights".
By that logic, I shouldn't vote Labour at the moment because Corbyn is an atheist, and is therefore publicly contemptuous of religious people, and can't be depended on to 'actively' support their religious rights.
Fortunately, I don't take that view!
quote:
You can't be a "silent majority" if you're making a bunch of religious declarations.
The religious conservatives in this case are the vocal minority. It's the irreligious who are currently the 'silent majority'.
But if the silent majority were Christians they would still be 'silent'. It's their political leaders who would be speaking on their behalf
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The USA has a much larger and more vocal evangelical presence so I suppose liberals have to be more alert there. But American religiosity seems to lead to another problem for politicians; rather than religion being a burden for them, they seem to pretend to be more religious than they are. And then when they win office they don't turn America into a fundamentalist dystopia. Secularisation continues apace, as it does in the UK.
This would be more convincing if the current crop of American politicians weren't trying to enforce a "Muslim ban". [/B][/QUOTE]
True. But by banning the Muslims they're keeping the USA a bit less religious. So there's always a silver lining, isn't there??
And Trump adores the Saudis, so he clearly doesn't see all Muslims as unworthy of his love!
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
[ 26. June 2017, 23:20: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
But by banning the Muslims they're keeping the USA a bit less religious.
But it isn't, necessarily. Because the ban only cares about their name, colour and country of origin. It doesn't take into account Muslims In Name Only, ex-Muslims or non-Muslims with suspicious sounding names.
quote:
And Trump adores the Saudis, so he clearly doesn't see all Muslims as unworthy of his love!
He likes money. I doubt he truly gives a shit about religion at all. The countries on the list are ones with which he does no business and excludes those with a track record of supporting terrorists, but also supply oil.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
:
I think any country willing to put up massive billboards in praise of him could probably wrap Trump around their little finger.¹
---
¹ Guardian
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
By that logic, I shouldn't vote Labour at the moment because Corbyn is an atheist, and is therefore publicly contemptuous of religious people
I don't think you can call it logic that leaps from "is an atheist" to "is therefore publicly contemptuous". You could say "in public disagreement with" but I don't see where you infer contempt.
If you had seen evidence with which to infer contempt then it would be perfectly reasonable to count that as a reason not to vote Corbyn.
And if you did count it as a reason not to vote Corbyn I wouldn't consider that anti-pluralistic or intolerant on your part, rather a reaction to Corbyn's (hypothetical) anti-pluralism and intolerance.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
It was Croesos who introduced the idea of public contempt, not myself.
I'm not sure why believing that adultery or atheism are sins means treating adulterers or atheists with contempt. I don't think it does, but if one insists that to disagree with someone is to be contemptuous towards them, then presumably that also holds for atheists in their treatment of religious people.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
Maybe Croesos is wrong about equating labelling as sin with contempt, but I don't see that you bring that out by linking disagreement with contempt. You would need to argue that calling something sin is the same as disagreeing and carries no greater weight. In which case I'm not sure why we would have the concept sin if it simply meant something we disagreed with.
The argument that we are all sinners isn't terribly helpful since there must be some reason for singling out particular groups and labelling them that way.
[ 27. June 2017, 14:02: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And if you did count it as a reason not to vote Corbyn I wouldn't consider that anti-pluralistic or intolerant on your part, rather a reaction to Corbyn's (hypothetical) anti-pluralism and intolerance.
I think I would count it as such if it became something like a defining reason over and above his policy positions.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
mdijon
I agree that we should take contempt out of the equation.
What you seem to be saying, however, is that Christians, by virtue of their belief in sin, are unsuited to public office in secularised countries, because they're always contemptuous of someone. I'm not sure what can be done about the problem of sin, since our theologians are unlikely to abolish sin any time soon!
I'm beginning to agree that Christians should leave party politics to the rest of the population. Muslims could be better suited to it, since their religion doesn't seem to produce such anxieties about what an individual should or shouldn't believe. Perhaps Muslims in public life also work harder on their PR; it's hard to imagine a Muslim LibDem candidate being as flustered and awkward about their faith as Farron was.
Christians may be better suited to political activism.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I'm fine with Christians in public office, I think though that once they have made public pronouncements on what they believe to be sinful it is very hard to put the genie back in the bottle and say it isn't relevant to them.
I also think that labelling sin has a different force to disagreement. To many the word sin will be linked to evil, hell and the devil.
It's hard to think of an equivalent secular label, but it doesn't seem to me that disagreement is a good equivalent.
I'm a Christian, I disagree with people who oppose mandatory labelling of trans-fats in food, but I don't describe their opposition as sinful. On the other hand I would describe corrupt deals between politicians and the press as sinful.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And if you did count it as a reason not to vote Corbyn I wouldn't consider that anti-pluralistic or intolerant on your part, rather a reaction to Corbyn's (hypothetical) anti-pluralism and intolerance.
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I think I would count it as such if it became something like a defining reason over and above his policy positions.
That would perhaps be overvaluing it but not intolerant if the word is to have a narrow and political meaning - or I'll describe your intolerance of my intolerance of Corbyn as intolerant and we'll swirl around in vicious circle of meta-intolerance.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I'm fine with Christians in public office, I think though that once they have made public pronouncements on what they believe to be sinful it is very hard to put the genie back in the bottle and say it isn't relevant to them.
In this case, however, the Christian concerned had no wish to make public pronouncements about what was 'sinful'; it was the media who insisted that he do so.
I thought it quite odd, and rather distasteful, that secular organisations were so keen to establish what Farron saw as God's will. The fantasist in me wondered if the Holy Spirit was getting to them; why else would they care? It's not as if the man was planning to establish a theocracy.
I wonder if it was all basically about generating viewing figures/sales/advertising revenue, etc. A dose of controversy about religion gets people going, and it's far more newsworthy than listening to the leader of a slightly boring minor party talk about a manifesto it'll never get to implement. Sex and sin? Far more interesting!
Mrs May's views about sex and sin might've been pretty fascinating as well (and equally irrelevant) if journalists hadn't felt obliged to ask her about more serious things.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The fantasist in me wondered if the Holy Spirit was getting to them; why else would they care? It's not as if the man was planning to establish a theocracy.
I can imagine that a gay person who is used to marginalization and contempt might want to know what a proposed political leader thinks of them. And as I say, the word sin carries some heavy connotations.
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And if you did count it as a reason not to vote Corbyn I wouldn't consider that anti-pluralistic or intolerant on your part, rather a reaction to Corbyn's (hypothetical) anti-pluralism and intolerance.
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I think I would count it as such if it became something like a defining reason over and above his policy positions.
That would perhaps be overvaluing it but not intolerant if the word is to have a narrow and political meaning - or I'll describe your intolerance of my intolerance of Corbyn as intolerant and we'll swirl around in vicious circle of meta-intolerance.
Well yes, intolerance by itself is not really that useful a term. I think that's why pluralism is also a useful term: which to me means seeing as a positive value that people with different views and presuppositions to me have voices in the system. This is particularly easy to value, ISTM, if there are certain areas where someone is willing to pipe down about their views in order to respect my rights, but I still get the positive impact of their different worldview.
For example, a Con-Lib Dem coalition with Tim Farron as DPM would have been much better for most people in mainland Britain than a DUP deal committed as he was to social justice etc, and would also have had no negative effect on gay rights as I understand it.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The fantasist in me wondered if the Holy Spirit was getting to them; why else would they care? It's not as if the man was planning to establish a theocracy.
I can imagine that a gay person who is used to marginalization and contempt might want to know what a proposed political leader thinks of them. And as I say, the word sin carries some heavy connotations.
But what if a political leader respects them and their rights as human beings? Why would that not take priority over a religious concept that most British people probably don't even believe in? Sin has no place in a post-Christian political world, so it's very strange that journalists should be so obsessed with it.
As I say, one solution is for Christians whose religious beliefs don't align neatly with the moral values of their culture to do their civic duty away from party politics. Or else, in true political style, be economical with the truth when asked irrelevant questions.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Sin has no place in a post-Christian political world, so it's very strange that journalists should be so obsessed with it.
It is the ideas behind the concept and associated attitudes which are the obsession.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Or else, in true political style, be economical with the truth when asked irrelevant questions.
Absolutely my preferred choice. And more convincing if being generous (liberal even) with the explanation as to why the question is irrelevant.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
'Generous' yes, but 'astute' would be better! Easier said than done, but these are supposed to be highly intelligent people.
It should be straightforward these days to show if someone has 'contemptuous' attitudes. Look at what they do, look at how they relate to people. But asking them to reveal their innermost religious beliefs is unBritish. And expecting them to do it in a soundbite is daft.
[ 28. June 2017, 11:25: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I pretty much agree with that. But that said it isn't the job of a free press to shy away from curve balls, and I don't think Farron handled it very well.
His resignation speech which implied that he really did think gay sex was a sin after all was especially misjudged.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The fantasist in me wondered if the Holy Spirit was getting to them; why else would they care? It's not as if the man was planning to establish a theocracy.
I can imagine that a gay person who is used to marginalization and contempt might want to know what a proposed political leader thinks of them. And as I say, the word sin carries some heavy connotations.
But what if a political leader respects them and their rights as human beings?
That's a pretty big "what if" to simply stipulate, especially given that "it's sinful" has historically been the justification for most restrictions on the rights of gay people, plus the U.K. (and U.S.) are only a few years removed from what you refer to as "a theocracy". I mean, if you're going to claim that religiously motivated restrictions on the rights of gay people constitutes "theocracy" then non-theocratic government is a fairly recent development.
There are all kinds of 'what ifs' we could hypothesize, such as "what if a politician's faith includes the belief in the natural inferiority of certain races of people but he also asserts he respects their rights as human beings?" It's not that we believe the combination is impossible so much as the first assertion casts a whole lot of historically well-founded doubt on the second. A certain amount of healthy skepticism is warranted, particularly if you're a member of the purportedly 'inferior' race(s).
[ 28. June 2017, 19:22: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
I'm not a white person. I don't care what any individual thinks about the 'taint' of my skin colour, or the curse of Ham, or whatever, so long as they allow me to live my life, and don't obstruct my ability to do the best I can with the abilities I have.
If they do cause me problems, then I'll have to fight them, or refuse to vote for them, etc., as required. But I have no interest in policing someone else's thoughts, or interrogating them on their relationship with God.
The USA is different from the UK, however, and people may have more cause for concern there. In the UK, Christianity and its 'sins' are quietly fizzling away (although it might not seem like it down in London), and I don't think there's much chance of gay-hating, racial supremacist armies of angry evangelicals taking over our political parties and destroying the country.
Mind you, England still has a state church that hasn't got with the post-sin programme. I await with interest to see at what point the country realises that this is an anachronistic and politically dangerous state of affairs.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I don't care what any individual thinks about the 'taint' of my skin colour, or the curse of Ham, or whatever, so long as they allow me to live my life, and don't obstruct my ability to do the best I can with the abilities I have.
So while you personally might take that stance I'm sure you can imagine how one could feel a little odd looking at someone and wondering if they believe you to be inferior, and particularly if they are a political leader. And how one might wonder about their commitment to your rights if they can't believe you are an equal human being.
(BTW on any given morning there's always a first to be had with SoF. I don't think I've ever met a non-white Svitlana before).
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
In my mind, the greatest religious conservative beloved of even the counter-cultural, radical left was C. Everett Koop, Reagan's Surgeon General. Someone who kept his church and state separate.
From the link:
'Koop, an opponent of abortion, resisted pressure from the Reagan administration in 1987 to prepare a report stating that abortion was psychologically harmful to women. He said it was not a public health issue but a moral one.'
'Writing for The New Yorker, Michael Specter said, "I don’t think I have ever met anyone for whom I had more respect... In this era, during which progress, facts, and science are under unrelenting siege, it is thrilling to remember that even ideologues can love the truth.'
[ 29. June 2017, 15:40: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
While you personally might take that stance I'm sure you can imagine how one could feel a little odd looking at someone and wondering if they believe you to be inferior, and particularly if they are a political leader. And how one might wonder about their commitment to your rights if they can't believe you are an equal human being.
I suppose I can understand it if the basic position is that Christians tend to see themselves as superior to other people. The very marginality and aberrancy of Christianity no doubt creates and reinforces this suspicion in our society. That being so, modern people will obviously be quite nervous of Christians who seek public office - or of certain kinds of Christians.
Moreover, we seem very keen to identify with our leaders these days. Anything that makes them seem distant or 'other' is a PR problem. Both Corbyn and May have faced this challenge. Farron faced it in a religious context, but I think his status as a leader of the third political also othered him. Sadly, he also had the misfortune to emit an insufficiently commanding vibe. Some commentators found him too boyish, too drippy.
However, since we're now looking at Vince Cable, I see, he wasn't always unequivocally pro-SSM, although he did vote in favour of it. He abstained from voting on whether or not registrars should be able to opt out of conducting such marriages.
Googling reveals very little about Cable's religious beliefs, although some websites say he's Jewish. Jewish politicians in the UK seem to identify successfully as either liberal or non-religious, so he should be able to avoid questions about 'sin'.
[ 29. June 2017, 20:12: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
In my mind, the greatest religious conservative beloved of even the counter-cultural, radical left was C. Everett Koop, Reagan's Surgeon General. Someone who kept his church and state separate.
I thought of him reading about Farron as well. Koop was a dude. I wonder how he would fair now. In fact it didn't end very well for him then - grudging respect from the Left but hardly anything approaching warm support and expelled for treachery by the Right.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
While you personally might take that stance I'm sure you can imagine how one could feel a little odd looking at someone and wondering if they believe you to be inferior, and particularly if they are a political leader. And how one might wonder about their commitment to your rights if they can't believe you are an equal human being.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I suppose I can understand it if the basic position is that Christians tend to see themselves as superior to other people.
I read as a non sequitur. You had said you wouldn't mind an individual looking down on your skin colour provided they supported your rights. My response is that even if you personally think that I'm sure you can understand others feeling a bit odd about it and doubting a political leader's commitment.
I don't understand how you get from there to talking about Christians being seen as looking down on people.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
You had said you wouldn't mind an individual looking down on your skin colour provided they supported your rights. My response is that even if you personally think that I'm sure you can understand others feeling a bit odd about it and doubting a political leader's commitment.
I don't understand how you get from there to talking about Christians being seen as looking down on people.
Looking down on people means seeing them as inferior. In the popular mind, Christians routinely see other people as inferior. That being so, I can understand non-religious people feeling odd about Christian leaders whose faith seems to be too visible - and connecting religion with sexual morality is something that many modern people find especially distasteful. People hate feeling judged for their sexual behaviour, and won't trust the 'commitment' of someone who appears to be disapproving, no matter what their actual behaviour may be.
But my perspective is that politicians are creatures of their upbringing, like everyone else. IMO racism and classism are so commonplace that waiting to find a politician who believes unambiguously that a dark-skinned person is equal to themselves, or that the rights of the poor are as important as the rights of the rich, would mean waiting a long time. Myself, I just vote and hope they'll do some good.
Moreover, you can't necessarily trust what people tell you about their beliefs anyway (and self-praise is no recommendation). Even good actions can't be completely trusted; many abolitionists didn't see black people as equal to themselves.
Maybe I'm rather cynical. I don't have particularly high expectations of leaders. But others are free to take a different view.
[ 30. June 2017, 13:17: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
But my perspective is that politicians are creatures of their upbringing, like everyone else. IMO racism and classism are so commonplace that waiting to find a politician who believes unambiguously that a dark-skinned person is equal to themselves, or that the rights of the poor are as important as the rights of the rich, would mean waiting a long time.
Jeremy Corbyn? Tim Farron? Caroline Lucas?
I think there were a few choices on offer, I don't think it was a rarity at all. For all her failings on the rights of the poor, I don't see any reason to suspect Theresa May of racism.
[ 30. June 2017, 14:06: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
Racism isn't always obvious, though. Even well-meaning people can have some odd ideas.
But as I say, it doesn't really matter to me what they think about that. The world is as it is, and there are other issues that are more urgent.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
The difference between Racism and Anti-LGBT+ is that laws and standards for Racism are well established. LGBT+ rights, not so much. If a bakery said no darkies, they'd be on charges. If they say no queers, there is a debate.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
I agree that the two things are different, in several ways.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
I'm listening
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
I'm agreeing with you! You've just said that the two things are different.
On an obvious level, one difference is that people of colour aren't able to 'hide' in a society where everyone else is white. People who identify as LGBT+ may be able to hide in a 'straight' world.
I suppose someone somewhere has compared the curse of Ham and sexual morality in the Bible, but I'm not sure how interesting or relevant that would be for this thread.
Similarities between the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement are often highlighted in discussions like these. I'm not so convinced. From the outside, gay rights seems to be a less conflicted movement. The American civil rights movement has a number of critics among African Americans, not least because in many respects African American communities are worse off now than they were then. And that has little to do with the attitudes of horrible redneck evangelicals.
But this is nothing to do with Tim Farron.
[ 30. June 2017, 19:37: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
My bad. I had thought the 'several ways' was a qualification, instead of a continuance. Apologies.
Just some quick notes. The LGBT+ movement isn't as homogenous as might appear. Not everyone contained within that alphabet understands or accepts each other. Nor is acceptance of the same from outside equal.
It is much better in this now than it has been previously, but not unconflicted.
The similarities and contrasts of the different civil rights issues can be instructive.
Yes, one can hide one's sexuality. But one shouldn't have to.
Returning to Tim Farron, he illustrates this problem.
I don't care if any given person accepts anyone's sexuality if they respect the right to be equally treated by the law and society as a whole.
IMO, Farron didn't adequately assure his commitment to this outlook.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
Analogy I just thought of: what if someone thinks male circumcision is wrong?
I don't think it would necessarily be fair to describe that person as anti-Semitic. On the other hand, I could understand if Jews were reluctant to vote for them.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
If that is supposed to be an analogy for LGBT+ rights, it fails miserably.
ETA: As, apparently, do my attempts at spelling.
[ 01. July 2017, 14:45: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Analogy I just thought of: what if someone thinks male circumcision is wrong?
I don't think it would necessarily be fair to describe that person as anti-Semitic. On the other hand, I could understand if Jews were reluctant to vote for them.
Unless he decided to pass a law making it illegal.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If that is supposed to be an analogy for LGBT+ rights, it fails miserably.
ETA: As, apparently, do my attempts at spelling.
I thought we were discussing the situation in which Mr Farron personally believes that gay sex is sinful but does not intend to legislate for it and has no objection to gay people as such.
The 'classical liberal' part of me agrees with Leprechaun that his private views shouldn't matter unless he intends to legislate for them. But the circumcision analogy suggests that it would be reasonable for people who would be affected to be wary.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Analogy I just thought of: what if someone thinks male circumcision is wrong?
I don't think it would necessarily be fair to describe that person as anti-Semitic. On the other hand, I could understand if Jews were reluctant to vote for them.
Unless he decided to pass a law making it illegal.
Which would not, I submit, inherently make him anti-Semitic.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
An analogy would be if one believed circumcision was sinful (i.e. wrong on a theological basis rather than worrying about health effects on secular grounds). Such a position would raise other questions - like why one believed that, does it imply something inherently sinful about Jews, does one regard people who are circumcised as evil etc.
I think describing circumcision as sinful in a TV interview would be a bad move for a politician seeking election.
On the other hand one could perhaps get away with something along the lines "I personally wouldn't circumcise my child and I do have some concerns about the medical justification for it, but the practice has cultural and religious justification for many and I don't believe we should interfere".
[ 02. July 2017, 09:24: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on
:
I read today that Theresa May has asked the Church of England to think again about the question of gay marriage and this raises issues for me. When the C of E failed to vote in favour of women bishops in 2012, David Cameron, as PM, warned it to sort the matter out, as a priority, or parliament might have to intervene. Because of the C of E's position as a state church, parliament may indeed have this power. Mrs May is a committed member of the C of E and therefore she's likely to be sympathetic to it, but could a future PM with less sympathy force the C of E to conduct gay marriages?
The appalling way in which gay people were treated 50 years ago has led, quite rightly, to pushes for equality and freedom which all fair minded people would support. But does a point ever come that the pendulum of freedom swings so far in another direction that it then restricts someone else's freedom and becomes oppressive? It doesn't much matter with the C of E because it embraces every social fad going in an attempt to stay relevant, while its numbers are in freefall, so it will surely be a push over to get it to make this change. But what about the Catholic Church for example? It's still growing worldwide, even as a percentage of world population, so it has no need to be relevant to modern British values.
Though Catholic countries such as Ireland and Malta have voted strongly to make gay marriage legal, which few, Catholic or Protestant Christians like Tim Farron would disagree with, the Catholic Church isn't going to permit same sex marriage, ever. So should the state have the right to force it on them? Or on Muslim communities? If so, we would be starting a new era of religious persecution. Don't forget that many of the idols and regimes so loved by Jeremy Corbyn and his pals have been guilty of serious religious oppression.
So my point would be: does the state have the right to force compliance with equality to the point that it damages the freedoms of people whose faith won't allow for that? Is that exchanging one form of oppression for another?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I think there is a basic problem with establishment. It is hard for the CofE to resist this or any other issue that is being pushed onto it by the government.
I support marriage equality. But I also believe in freedom of religion, I don't think the government should be able to put pressure on anyone to do anything.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Because of the C of E's position as a state church, parliament may indeed have this power. Mrs May is a committed member of the C of E and therefore she's likely to be sympathetic to it, but could a future PM with less sympathy force the C of E to conduct gay marriages?
Forcing people to be Christlike is a bit contradictory, isn't it.
Disestablish and let the old girl die quietly if she cannot keep up with Jesus. Preserve her final resting place though, churches are lovely structures and historical.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
I read today that Theresa May has asked the Church of England to think again about the question of gay marriage and this raises issues for me. When the C of E failed to vote in favour of women bishops in 2012, David Cameron, as PM, warned it to sort the matter out, as a priority, or parliament might have to intervene. Because of the C of E's position as a state church, parliament may indeed have this power. Mrs May is a committed member of the C of E and therefore she's likely to be sympathetic to it, but could a future PM with less sympathy force the C of E to conduct gay marriages?
I'm a bit of an outsider on this, but my understanding is that the justification for the Church of England as a state church is to provide a church for any English subject who wants a church. It seems a bit problematic start adding qualifiers, so that the Church of Straight England exists to provide a church for any straight English subject who wants a church.
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
But what about the Catholic Church for example? It's still growing worldwide, even as a percentage of world population, so it has no need to be relevant to modern British values.
Though Catholic countries such as Ireland and Malta have voted strongly to make gay marriage legal, which few, Catholic or Protestant Christians like Tim Farron would disagree with, the Catholic Church isn't going to permit same sex marriage, ever. So should the state have the right to force it on them?
The Catholic Church is on familiar ground here, having long refused to marry certain couples who have an otherwise legal right to marry in the eyes of the state. I'll worry about the Catholic Church being forced to marry same-sex couples if they're ever forced to marry the previously divorced. Of course, things are a bit different when you're an official arm of the state.
Posted by Louise (# 30) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'll worry about the Catholic Church being forced to marry same-sex couples if they're ever forced to marry the previously divorced. Of course, things are a bit different when you're an official arm of the state.
Yes exactly. I sometimes wonder if a bad conscience about the extent of the church's persecution of others fuels these persecution fantasies - surely someone must want to do to us what we've been doing to them...
Corbyn doesn't share platforms with religious fascists like Hamas and Hezbollah because he supports religious compulsion but because he has some terrible un-nuanced ideas about anti-imperialism. Anti-American/anti American ally = Good. Pro Russian - also used to be good. The idea that his 1970s-style love of anti-imperialist 'liberation ' movements will lead to potential Catholic persecution is completely off-the-wall. Jezza is just an old fashioned anti-Imperialist lefty. Unless the Vatican offers to host US nuclear missiles, or the Pope pops over to bless Trident, I doubt you'll be having any problems with him.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm a bit of an outsider on this, but my understanding is that the justification for the Church of England as a state church is to provide a church for any English subject who wants a church.
I think the main justification is that it saves the bother of having to disestablish it.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm a bit of an outsider on this, but my understanding is that the justification for the Church of England as a state church is to provide a church for any English subject who wants a church. It seems a bit problematic start adding qualifiers, so that the Church of Straight England exists to provide a church for any straight English subject who wants a church.
OK but is it reasonable to have the state insist that a church provides every English subject with it?
It maybe makes sense when the majority of the population identify with the church and the religion, but surely makes little sense when it is so engrained into the state that it can be told what to do.
And what would be next? Mosques, temples and synagogues with state determined theology - on the basis that Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and others ought to have a religious body they can go to with state approved practices?
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think there is a basic problem with establishment. It is hard for the CofE to resist this or any other issue that is being pushed onto it by the government.
I support marriage equality. But I also believe in freedom of religion, I don't think the government should be able to put pressure on anyone to do anything.
A more likely outcome is that, eventually, it gets left to the discretion of the individual clergy. Which is what happened with divorce. The government liberalised the divorce laws, first the church refused to conduct second marriages, then it was made the decision of Diocesan bishops and finally the decision was passed on to the parochial clergy. You can get remarried in the C of E, but your vicar can refuse if conscience points him in that direction. I suspect that no-one will be obliged to conduct a gay marriage if they really don't want to.
I suspect the real problem will come up when someone decides that a position of not appointing gay marrieds to posts comes up against human rights law. The issue with not having women bishops was that you had effective sexual discrimination as the official policy of the Established Church, which may have encouraged Dave to raise an eyebrow and say: "nice quasi-independence from the state you have here, shame if anything happened to it". I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened in the future.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
A more likely outcome is that, eventually, it gets left to the discretion of the individual clergy. Which is what happened with divorce.
I'm not sure it is so clear cut as that. I suspect the state would be very pleased to insist that the state church marries everyone as if it were a register office. I don't think it is very hard to imagine a scenario where pressure is put to make that so - and I understand there are discussions happening in Downing Street at the moment between clergy and government about how to make it happen.
quote:
The government liberalised the divorce laws, first the church refused to conduct second marriages, then it was made the decision of Diocesan bishops and finally the decision was passed on to the parochial clergy. You can get remarried in the C of E, but your vicar can refuse if conscience points him in that direction. I suspect that no-one will be obliged to conduct a gay marriage if they really don't want to.
I suppose the strange thing in this debate is that only England has an established church (at least in the sense that the CofE is) and so the state only has pressure it can bear onto the church in England. Which seems to be to say that the state wants the church to conform to civil marriage laws and expectations - but only in England. If you are gay and want to marry in a church wherever you live in Scotland (and who knows exactly what would happen to the Church in Wales..) puh, nothing we can do. Of course the whole thing is an even greater divide in Northern Ireland.
Which just smacks of the state trying to force the CofE to do what it wants because it has the powers to try to make it so. Of course, it doesn't help that the CofE is so deep into the establishment as to be indistinguishable from the government at times (as I saw for the first time during the recent state opening of parliament - a truly eye-opening event which seemed to be put on under the auspices of the monarch and the Archbishop of Canterbury).
quote:
I suspect the real problem will come up when someone decides that a position of not appointing gay marrieds to posts comes up against human rights law. The issue with not having women bishops was that you had effective sexual discrimination as the official policy of the Established Church, which may have encouraged Dave to raise an eyebrow and say: "nice quasi-independence from the state you have here, shame if anything happened to it". I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened in the future.
I think this would be incredibly destructive and an obvious sign of government inference with religion.
You or I don't have to like it (and obviously if you or I are part of whatever religious group we can try to change it), but how can human rights law insist that x religion cannot have rules about who becomes leaders? What next, insisting that Mosques have to appoint women, that Jews have to appoint the uncircumcised etc? Simply not going to work.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Because of the C of E's position as a state church, parliament may indeed have this power. Mrs May is a committed member of the C of E and therefore she's likely to be sympathetic to it, but could a future PM with less sympathy force the C of E to conduct gay marriages?
Forcing people to be Christlike is a bit contradictory, isn't it.
Disestablish and let the old girl die quietly if she cannot keep up with Jesus. Preserve her final resting place though, churches are lovely structures and historical.
Whether or not Christ would have conducted SSMs is an interesting question, but I don't think the state is all that concerned about theology.
I do tend to feel that the CofE should be disestablished, though. It'll probably take something like this to do it, because no one seems bothered otherwise.
Alternatively, if the state offers to support the state church financially, as happens in Scandinavia, then the CofE will no longer need the evangelicals' money. The CofE will be free to perform SSMs, as the state expects, and the evangelicals will leave. There will be fewer people in the Church, but the Church will be closer to the values of the English people at large.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
:
Originally posted by Mr Cheesy:
quote:
I'm not sure it is so clear cut as that. I suspect the state would be very pleased to insist that the state church marries everyone as if it were a register office. I don't think it is very hard to imagine a scenario where pressure is put to make that so - and I understand there are discussions happening in Downing Street at the moment between clergy and government about how to make it happen.
I find this unlikely. I don't think that I know a single clergy-person who would be prepared to conduct weddings in any circumstance whatsoever. I, for example, am fairly liberal in these matters but I would go to the stake before I solemnised a marriage between two persons whose relationship had caused the end of their previous marriage. The House of Bishops wouldn't accept it and frankly, why would the government bother. C of E weddings are losing market share at the moment to agreeable venues where the registrar will let you write your own vows. There is also the small matter of Mrs May's priorities and Parliamentary majority. I don't think that the Parliamentary arithmetic stacks up and it's hard to see someone who is quite invested in her Anglicanism picking a massive fight with the C of E.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
There will be fewer people in the Church, but the Church will be closer to the values of the English people at large.
And will have lost any evangelistic "cutting edge" and Christian distinctiveness.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm a bit of an outsider on this, but my understanding is that the justification for the Church of England as a state church is to provide a church for any English subject who wants a church. It seems a bit problematic start adding qualifiers, so that the Church of Straight England exists to provide a church for any straight English subject who wants a church.
OK but is it reasonable to have the state insist that a church provides every English subject with it?
Reasonable or not, that's the decision that was made. That decision can be revisited but, as Ricardus points out, it would be a lot of bother.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And what would be next? Mosques, temples and synagogues with state determined theology - on the basis that Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and others ought to have a religious body they can go to with state approved practices?
The state has not decided that "Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and others" should have their own official state religious bodies. Or rather, it seems to have decided that the state religious body provided to all English subjects will be the Church of England. The fact that this does not fit the religious preference of all English subjects, while acknowledged, was not considered an important enough point to provide alternatives. Or, put another way, if you're English and want an alternative to the Church of England, you can't rely on the state to provide it.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Reasonable or not, that's the decision that was made. That decision can be revisited but, as Ricardus points out, it would be a lot of bother.
Well, the point I was making is that there isn't really a principled reason why the Church of England exists.
Various post hoc justifications can be advanced, of course, but the main reason why it exists, apart from Henry VIII's odd ideas about marriage, is because in the Olden Days it was perfectly normal for the King to appoint Bishops and generally interfere with the running of the Church, and nobody has ever got round to decoupling the two.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Various post hoc justifications can be advanced, of course, but the main reason why it exists, apart from Henry VIII's odd ideas about marriage, is because in the Olden Days it was perfectly normal for the King to appoint Bishops and generally interfere with the running of the Church, and nobody has ever got round to decoupling the two.
No, no. That was just amazingly coincidental. They were really always going to Protest and seperate. Henry also had the exact same idea and reasons but hid it behind his murdeous mate switching.
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
I suspect the real problem will come up when someone decides that a position of not appointing gay marrieds to posts comes up against human rights law. The issue with not having women bishops was that you had effective sexual discrimination as the official policy of the Established Church, which may have encouraged Dave to raise an eyebrow and say: "nice quasi-independence from the state you have here, shame if anything happened to it". I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened in the future.
This is what worries me most, and I repeat the analogy of the pendulum. If equality in marriage for gays becomes such a god, then any organisation which opposes it, be it church, mosque or synagogue may find itself on the wrong side of the law. Then the pendulum of freedom for gays becomes the pendulum of oppression for religious groups which disagree with the modern god. There's a great case for disestablishment. Establishment has served our country well, IMO, but it's an anachronism. Nowadays there are more Catholic Sunday worshippers than Anglican. Yet Anglican bishops sit in the legislature. I've read in the past that the Prince of Wales is a disestablishmentarian. When the Queen goes to her rest it will happen.
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Reasonable or not, that's the decision that was made. That decision can be revisited but, as Ricardus points out, it would be a lot of bother.
Well, the point I was making is that there isn't really a principled reason why the Church of England exists.
Various post hoc justifications can be advanced, of course, but the main reason why it exists, apart from Henry VIII's odd ideas about marriage, is because in the Olden Days it was perfectly normal for the King to appoint Bishops and generally interfere with the running of the Church, and nobody has ever got round to decoupling the two.
I would argue that the acceptance of Lutheranism by various German rulers and by the kings of Denmark and Sweden was just as much about Crown control of the Church and seizing monastic property as it was about theology. And there often was a transitional period of those countries being nominally Catholic before that country's Church was officially reformed.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
If equality in marriage for gays becomes such a god, then any organisation which opposes it, be it church, mosque or synagogue may find itself on the wrong side of the law. Then the pendulum of freedom for gays becomes the pendulum of oppression for religious groups which disagree with the modern god.
This isn't a fucked up, prejudicial and inaccurate thing to say, nope.
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
I would argue that the acceptance of Lutheranism by various German rulers and by the kings of Denmark and Sweden was just as much about Crown control of the Church and seizing monastic property as it was about theology. And there often was a transitional period of those countries being nominally Catholic before that country's Church was officially reformed.
If it didn't benefit the powerful, it wouldn't have happened. Or at least not without revolution as well.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
I think the question of the authority of the secular power over the Church was largely orthogonal to the various Reformation controversies.
The King of France was in a standoff with the Pope about the rights of the Papacy in France. There is some fairly vicious anti-Papal satire in Rabelais, which leads the uninitiated to think Rabelais was a Protestant, when in reality he was just siding with the King. In Spain Ferdinand and Isabella seem to have had enormous power over the Church (one reason why the Spanish Inquisition was so much nastier than the Roman Inquisition was that the reyes católicos were a lot nastier than the Pope). IOW, you could want secular control over the Church without any sympathy towards Protestant ideas.
Henry VIII seems to have adopted bits of Reformation theology as and when it suited him and as and when he thought it might buy him favour with the Germans. But I think the Church of England's current form owes more to Edward VI, under whom the Book of Common Prayer was written, and Elizabeth I, who re-established the Church after Mary Tudor had abolished it.
[ 22. July 2017, 08:47: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
There will be fewer people in the Church, but the Church will be closer to the values of the English people at large.
And will have lost any evangelistic "cutting edge" and Christian distinctiveness.
Would you say this is the case with the Lutheran Churches in Scandinavia? Maybe so. Yet they have higher rates of church weddings, baptisms, conformations and funerals than England does.
The question is whether the CofE wants to represent a diffusive Christianity with a cultural significance for large numbers of people, or become an evangelistic institution whose impact will reach relatively few.
At the moment the Church wants to do both, but I sense that at some point in the future it's going to have to choose.
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on
:
In most European countries the King controlled the church,irrespective of whether the outward form of Christianity was Catholicism or other.
Although I cannot give figures the state (or non- state controlled)Lutheran church in the Scandinavian lands has few rivals, such as the various non-Conformists in England. Virtually everyone pays the church tax and if using the church for 'rites of passsge' it will normally be the 'established' Lutheran church.
One of the few exceptions to royal (or state) control of the Church was Scotland,which the Kings left in 1603. They tried with varying degrees of success and failure to control the Scottish Church from England,leading indirectly to the English civil war,as well as later to the various dissenting bodies,to the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 and the change from Established Church to National Church in the early years of the 20th century.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
I suspect the real problem will come up when someone decides that a position of not appointing gay marrieds to posts comes up against human rights law. The issue with not having women bishops was that you had effective sexual discrimination as the official policy of the Established Church, which may have encouraged Dave to raise an eyebrow and say: "nice quasi-independence from the state you have here, shame if anything happened to it". I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened in the future.
This is what worries me most, and I repeat the analogy of the pendulum. If equality in marriage for gays becomes such a god, then any organisation which opposes it, be it church, mosque or synagogue may find itself on the wrong side of the law. Then the pendulum of freedom for gays becomes the pendulum of oppression for religious groups which disagree with the modern god. There's a great case for disestablishment. Establishment has served our country well, IMO, but it's an anachronism. Nowadays there are more Catholic Sunday worshippers than Anglican. Yet Anglican bishops sit in the legislature. I've read in the past that the Prince of Wales is a disestablishmentarian. When the Queen goes to her rest it will happen.
I suspect it won't happen like that. What I think will happen is that someone will bring a case pointing out that the CofE allows gays in civil partnerships to be ordained so why not gay marrieds? When divorce was delegated to the parishes we were all warned that whatever our views we needed to have a consistent policy, otherwise we could end up being taken to court. I suspect the C of E's position may be vulnerable on this front in a way that your local Synagogue, Mosque, Catholic Church, Kingdom Hall and so forth are not. Contra Boris Johnson it is not always a good idea to try to have one's cake and eat it.
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
Although I cannot give figures the state (or non- state controlled)Lutheran church in the Scandinavian lands has few rivals, such as the various non-Conformists in England. Virtually everyone pays the church tax and if using the church for 'rites of passsge' it will normally be the 'established' Lutheran church.
Actually there are figures for Norway. The percentage that belong to the Church of Norway is 71.5% down from about 78% in 2010. The Catholics are about 2.8% (from church tax records) of the population (mostly immigrants) though there was the scandal of a couple of years ago of the Catholic church signing people up as Catholic without their knowledge. Humanists are about 1.7% of the population and the Humanist confirmation rite is quite popular even among non-Humanists. Those unaffiliated seem to be about 16% (note, in contrast to Germany, paying the church tax doesn't increase your tax bill, if you aren't affiliated it goes to the general coffers). Muslims are about 2.8% of the population.
Other Protestants are a bit scarce.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
So it seems that all those cynics who thought Mr Farron was telling porky pies when he said he didn't believe gay sex is a sin were in fact correct.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
"There are some who just can't comprehend that somebody can have really strong convictions and be a Bible-believing Christian on the one hand and at the same time really passionately believing in people's rights to make their own choices, which essentially is what liberalism is.".
Those some don't matter to William Rees-Mogg.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
So it seems that all those cynics who thought Mr Farron was telling porky pies when he said he didn't believe gay sex is a sin were in fact correct.
O. M. G. A politician lying? Say it ain't so.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Yeah but this is an English conservative evangelical one.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
:
Much as Tim Farron annoys me, and fundamentally as I disagree with him, I think he deserves some credit for looking at his own behaviour during the campaign - deciding it wasn't' good enough, and resigning.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
It's still not clear to me what he does think from that interview.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
"There are some who just can't comprehend that somebody can have really strong convictions and be a Bible-believing Christian on the one hand and at the same time really passionately believing in people's rights to make their own choices, which essentially is what liberalism is.".
You know, I can understand people's scepticism, given how hard the majority, or at least the noisiest part, of "Bible-believing Christians" have, time and time again, resisted legislative attempts to actually allow people to make their own choices. Now it's perfectly plausible (and only fair without evidence to the contrary to assume) that Tim Farron indeed is not of this kidney, but one can rather understand how people might just assume that someone who labels themselves that way is not going to be an ally for LGBT+ rights.
Posted by RdrEmCofE (# 17511) on
:
Can anyone remember when consenting homosexual relationships became legal and no longer a criminal offense?
Which parties supported the change in the law and which tried to vote it down?
And where does the idea that morality can be controlled by law come from? Not Jesus Christ surely. Wasn't he crucified by The Law Enforcers?
[ 10. January 2018, 23:14: Message edited by: RdrEmCofE ]
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
One can rather understand how people might just assume that someone who labels themselves that way is not going to be an ally for LGBT+ rights.
In our soundbite culture you can understand it, yes, but I read that he actually had a record of working for LGBT rights.
The problem wasn't so much what he'd had done or would do, but what he believed. If actions had been the issue then the public (or the media) would've been interested in uncovering all the other things he believed that might have led to the loss of rights, or bad policies, etc., but they weren't.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
One can rather understand how people might just assume that someone who labels themselves that way is not going to be an ally for LGBT+ rights.
In our soundbite culture you can understand it, yes, but I read that he actually had a record of working for LGBT rights.
Mixed bag, from a quick google. Voted for equal marriage but wanted lots of conscience get-outs and protections for people who would deny LGBTI+ people rights.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It's still not clear to me what he does think from that interview.
It seems fairly clear to me - he thinks that gay sex is a sin (and by extension seems to think that all right-thinking Christians should think the same) but his liberal values mean that people in society should be allowed to do things he doesn't agree with.
Rather than castigating the man, it'd be good if people could embrace the conservatives who are good enough to state this rather than putting them into the same pile as the most rabid of their compatriots.
But then on a whole bunch of other things he is dead wrong. He's buying into this rubbish that says conservative Christians are somehow discriminated against - when the reality is that he got himself into this mess on his own.
If he had said that had personal opinions but that didn't mean that somehow people who thought differently should be treated unequally, then the electorate could have accepted or rejected his honesty. But wriggling around to try to phrase something in an acceptable soundbite was his own undoing.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It's still not clear to me what he does think from that interview.
It seems fairly clear to me - he thinks that gay sex is a sin (and by extension seems to think that all right-thinking Christians should think the same)
I agree that is probably what he wanted his Christian Radio audience to think, and may well be what he thinkgs, and it's certainly how the BBC article is slanting its coverage, but I don't think it's exactly what he said, is it?
I get the feeling that he's still equivocating in the hope that he can always wriggle out of what he said when faced with another, different constituency.
Full disclosure: I have an aunt who attends the same church as Farron. Apparently he is appreciated as an MP.
[ 11. January 2018, 08:08: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I agree that is probably what he wanted his Christian Radio audience to think, and may well be what he thinkgs, and it's certainly how the BBC article is slanting its coverage, but I don't think it's exactly what he said, is it?
Well I watched the whole interview - I've summarised it, but I'd be curious to see how else you could interpret it. Interview here
quote:
I get the feeling that he's still equivocating in the hope that he can always wriggle out of what he said when faced with another, different constituency.
Really? I can't see that there is any way back from this.
I suspect meetings he has with gay rights campaigners in the future might be interesting - although I suspect he'd say that he's clarified his personal beliefs but that as a Liberal Democrat he's committed to extending freedom for everyone, including those who do things that he doesn't agree with.
quote:
Full disclosure: I have an aunt who attends the same church as Farron. Apparently he is appreciated as an MP.
I've heard generally that he is considered to be fairly straight speaking. But then AFAIU his constituency is pretty mixed, so I don't think he is going to win much credit if the purpose of this interview was to speak directly to conservative Christian voters.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I watched the whole interview - I've summarised it, but I'd be curious to see how else you could interpret it.
From the BBC excerpt I watched, he said he was sorry he'd said it, but didn't make an assertion: "I believe gay sex to be a sin". Did he?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
From the BBC excerpt I watched, he said he was sorry he'd said it, but didn't make an assertion: "I believe gay sex to be a sin". Did he?
Well he was asked about that. His answer was complicated.
First he said that everyone was a sinner (in different ways). Then he said that the problem with the language meant that saying something that other people did was sinful meant that it sounded like there was something uniquely bad about them. And he said that there wasn't normally space in the media to discuss the theology of sin.
Then he said that he felt torn between his personal belief and the party that he represented when the media had got hold of the thread of this idea (largely, he said, because they found it interesting rather than malice) and kept tugging on it. And then he said that he'd felt forced to say something that he didn't believe - including this - in order to get this issue off the table so that he could talk about his party's platform at the election.
So I don't think he said that "gay sex is a sin" in as many words, but he certainly said that his statement that it wasn't was wrong - implication that him saying gay sex wasn't a sin was incorrect because he believes that it is.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
Agreed. It is implicit, not explicit, though.
Perhaps someone should direct him to a few DH threads...
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
OK, well I think he was fairly clear that he thought that he'd said that he though gay sex was a sin.
[ 11. January 2018, 08:41: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
To me he sounds a lot like where I was a while back:
he thinks gay sex is a sin but that it's not a particularly notorious one, everyone has sinned in some way, the concern is not to go around branding people sinners but to address their issues.
I can also see how using this sort of terminology was bound to get him into trouble sooner or later.
Put another way, I think there's a degree of cognitive dissonance between his instinctive beliefs and his political actions that he has not himself resolved.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
How does a homophobe call themselves a liberal?
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
By not realising they're a homophobe?
By considering themselves as a sinner to exactly the same degree as anyone else they consider to be a sinner?
By believing that sinfulness does not disqualify sinners of any kind from benefiting from rights or entitle them to be discriminated against?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
So this man would have as unequivocally vigorously pursued LGBT+ rights as C. Everett Koop, Reagan's Surgeon General did? Would he have championed women's reproductive rights too? Whilst opposing abortion? Again, as Koop did? Who would not oppose those rights on non-scientific grounds.
[ 11. January 2018, 09:12: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
I've no idea. But I do think that launching "homophobe" as an opening salvo is likelier to entrench people in their positions than to get them thinking.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Indeed. Here? Isn't that what he was? I was. Farron fell in to temptation as Koop and Rees-Mogg do not.
I still have reservations about sexual relations, with regard to promiscuity for a start. However one is preferentially wired creates antipathy for certain configurations. Which reminds me of my favourite gay anecdote. I'm emotionally, existentially conflicted on abortion. And will always defend the right to both.
Blair fiercely separated his public politics and faith. Not graciously admittedly. Unlike Rees-Mogg. I'd like to know how the latter would handle leading the Tory party with regard to women's reproductive and LGBT+ rights, but I imagine he would speak with conviction for the party and abstain in voting. I don't see a problem with that?
I was at a certain totally inclusive church in Waterloo one Sunday evening, after services, there was a video running which ironically showed a kitten as symbolic of emotional fluffiness in response to more serious issues. A gay guy said in the perfect conversational silence, "Ooh no. I don't like pussy.".
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
And this is supposed to prove what, exactly?
The fact is that we live in a community where others do things we find abominable. And no doubt we do things we find abominable.
A liberal surely ultimately wants the most freedom for the most people. He wants people to be free to do the thing he finds abominable, because he recognises that in trying to control what other people do and think, he runs the risk of the reverse happening when the wind changes.
Farron might be a horrible homophobe, but if he is then the issue isn't so much how that is an issue with relation to his Evangelical Christianity as much as how it is a contradiction with his stated liberal values.
According to his own definition, he thinks the person who engages in gay sex is not more or less sinful than the person who refuses to accept Jesus as redeemer.
The fact that he thinks Hindus and Muslims sin by rejecting Jesus does not make him an anti-Hindu or islamophobe - if by his actions he shows that he is going to stand up for equal rights of worship for non-Christians.
Calling someone who has a position about sex being sinful a homophobe devalues the term.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
OK. What would the LGBT+ community call it? That's an open question. I don't think it does devalue it. Traditional, magisterial and conservative Christianity is homophobic surely? It fears homosexuality. And declaring, even privately, anyone a sinner for not sinning in any meaningful way, is hostile. Phobic. No?
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
Not according to the French Court of Cassation.
In a ruling handed down just a couple of days ago in a case concerning former minister Christine Boutin, conservative Catholic and darling of the con-evos for her ultraconservative positions, it overturned a ruling for incitement to hatred on the grounds of quoting Leviticus 18:22: quote:
«le propos incriminé, s’il est outrageant, ne contient néanmoins pas, même sous une forme implicite, d’appel ou d’exhortation à la haine ou à la violence à l’égard des personnes homosexuelles»
The declaration in question may be insulting, but does not call for or encourage violence against homosexuals, or do so by implication.
I don't like Christine Boutin one bit but I think the court is right on both free speech and public order grounds.
I have got in trouble on here before for referring to "the LGBT+ community" as it has rightly been pointed out to me that do so is to consider individuals as a uniform whole. That said, I don't think it would be right for any such community to dictate the boundaries of the term "homophobia".
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
posted by RdrEmCofE quote:
Can anyone remember when consenting homosexual relationships became legal and no longer a criminal offense?
In England & Wales the 1967 Sexual Offences Act of 1967 legalised homosexual acts in private between consenting males aged 21 and over.
The act specifically didn't cover the armed forces or the merchant navy.
Scotland has its own legal system and homosexuality was legalised there in February 1981. Similarly, Northern Ireland legalised in 1982.
Lesbianism (or rather lesbian relationships) have never been against the law in the UK: this is widely attributed to Queen Victoria who, when presented with legislation on homosexual acts, refused to believe there would be same-sex sexual relationships between women. Whether or not that is apocryphal I don't know, but the fact remains that gay women have never been the subject of official sanction.
Although the recommendation was that the age of consent should be the same as for heterosexual sex, this wasn't the case until two changes: in 1994 the Conservative government reduced the age to 18 after an amendment from one of its ministers (Edwina Currie) to lower it to 16 met resistance. The change to 16 came in under the Labour government in 2000 but they had to use two Parliament Acts to do it (effectively it means that the government can't be gainsaid) and that act equalised the age in Scotland and Northern Ireland as well.
quote:
Which parties supported the change in the law and which tried to vote it down?
The Bill put before Parliament was not a government bill, and votes on it were not along party lines but taken as "free" votes. In essence the proposal to change the law cut across party lines - so, for example, the MP responsible for introducing the 2nd Reading to the Commons was the conservative MP for Lancaster, while many who spoke in favour of it were Labour MPs.
quote:
And where does the idea that morality can be controlled by law come from? Not Jesus Christ surely. Wasn't he crucified by The Law Enforcers?
The Ten Commandments! For what else is Thou shalt not commit adultery if not a statute about morality?
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
"There are some who just can't comprehend that somebody can have really strong convictions and be a Bible-believing Christian on the one hand and at the same time really passionately believing in people's rights to make their own choices, which essentially is what liberalism is.".
You know, I can understand people's scepticism, given how hard the majority, or at least the noisiest part, of "Bible-believing Christians" have, time and time again, resisted legislative attempts to actually allow people to make their own choices. Now it's perfectly plausible (and only fair without evidence to the contrary to assume) that Tim Farron indeed is not of this kidney, but one can rather understand how people might just assume that someone who labels themselves that way is not going to be an ally for LGBT+ rights.
I have some, but limited, sympathy for Tim Farron on this. First because I've not seen anything to suggest he's quite as principled as made out, and second because he's entirely correct about the difficulties of expressing a principled position in a media environment dominated by sound-bites and an expectation that complex issues can be distilled into short Tweets.
On the first point, "There are some who just can't comprehend that somebody can have really strong convictions and be a Bible-believing Christian on the one hand and at the same time really passionately believing in people's rights to make their own choices, which essentially is what liberalism is" sounds fantastic to me. I get that he has a personal conviction, based on his reading of the Bible and the teaching of his church, that homosexual acts are sinful; I happen to disagree that being "Bible believing" automatically brings one to that conclusion. His statements about everyone being a sinner, not focusing on particular sins etc are right on. He's also right that the word "sin" is unlikely to be interpreted in a way different to his usage by a theologically illiterate populace (with theological illiteracy extending into large parts of the church). I also accept that as a Liberal then he's on solid ground stating that his personal convictions shouldn't inform public policy and legislation.
The problem I have is that I don't think he's consistent. By attempting to include a whole host of exceptions into same sex marriage legislation he attempted to allow for discrimination under some circumstances. Of course, it's a tight rope - as a Liberal should he be restricting the rights of some churches to refuse to conduct same sex weddings? Is that not also imposing something on others?
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
quote:
And where does the idea that morality can be controlled by law come from? Not Jesus Christ surely. Wasn't he crucified by The Law Enforcers?
The Ten Commandments! For what else is Thou shalt not commit adultery if not a statute about morality?
A statute about inheritance, and ensuring a clear line of succession?
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
No, it doesn't wash that it is to do with inheritance or a clear line of succession for the simple reason that Jewishness passes down the maternal line.
Now while adultery may make it difficult to know who has fathered a child the very nature of pregnancy and birth makes it very clear who is the mother.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
No, it doesn't wash that it is to do with inheritance or a clear line of succession for the simple reason that Jewishness passes down the maternal line.
Then why did Jesus tell a parable about two sons, one of whom goes to his father demanding his share of the inheritance? Or, why did Jacob steal his brothers birthright? Israel (the people) is named after a man. The Jewish claim is to be the children of Abraham, not Sarah. It's all patriarchal, property and name passing from father to sons.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
My apologies to the LGBT+ community if I should just be saying gay.
Alan. Farron said what he said, that you find fantastic, and I agree it's fine separation of 'church' and state; Sadiq Khan manages it, after the event. Why couldn't he say it at the time or some other more robust implicitly faithful response? That's a rhetorical question. He hadn't been coached right.
There's still the issue that 'church' that is hostile to LGBT+ inclusion for reasons of conscience and/or faith is hostile. And fair game.
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
No, it doesn't wash that it is to do with inheritance or a clear line of succession for the simple reason that Jewishness passes down the maternal line.
The last few chapters of Judges, dealing with the was between the tribe of Benjamin and the other tribes, is clear that back then the belonging to whatever tribe was down the paternal line, at leas so far as which tribe you belonged to. The passing down the maternal line looks like a modern development.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The fact is that we live in a community where others do things we find abominable. And no doubt we do things we find abominable.
A liberal surely ultimately wants the most freedom for the most people. He wants people to be free to do the thing he finds abominable, because he recognises that in trying to control what other people do and think, he runs the risk of the reverse happening when the wind changes.
Farron might be a horrible homophobe, but if he is then the issue isn't so much how that is an issue with relation to his Evangelical Christianity as much as how it is a contradiction with his stated liberal values.
As I've noted earlier, the question isn't whether Tim Farron is entitled to hold certain views privately, it's whether he's entitled to hold a position of political leadership and whether his devotion to the rights of others is strongly committed, half-hearted, or outright insincere.
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
No, it doesn't wash that it is to do with inheritance or a clear line of succession for the simple reason that Jewishness passes down the maternal line.
Then why did Jesus tell a parable about two sons, one of whom goes to his father demanding his share of the inheritance? Or, why did Jacob steal his brothers birthright? Israel (the people) is named after a man. The Jewish claim is to be the children of Abraham, not Sarah. It's all patriarchal, property and name passing from father to sons.
Tracing Judaism through the maternal line is a relatively modern (and in Judaism "relatively modern" means "since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE") phenomenon. A simple read of those Old Testament lists of lineages is enough to confirm this.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
The fact that he felt compelled to lie about what he truly believes, to deny it - it's not a 'mistake' - would indicate, in the same mirror, insincerity about devotion to the rights of others.
Posted by RdrEmCofE (# 17511) on
:
Surely it is possible for a politician to hold strong religious views regarding his own conduct, yet not be seeking to impose those same views on others in the form of legislation or repeal of statutes?
I think this was another case of media journalists manipulating exposure on the subject of THEIR choice, in order to score cheap political points or sabotage a political message by attacking the person delivering it and diverting attention to irrelevant side issues.
An effective but underhanded, deceitful, scurrilous ploy, damaging to truth and democracy. We saw a lot of it on the Brexit campaign.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Nobody asked him to step in to the arena. He should have been better prepared.
Might this be Purgatorial?
[ 11. January 2018, 16:28: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RdrEmCofE:
Surely it is possible for a politician to hold strong religious views regarding his own conduct, yet not be seeking to impose those same views on others in the form of legislation or repeal of statutes?
It's theoretically possible, but it should be noted that there's a vast gulf between "not be seeking to impose those same views on others in the form of legislation or repeal of statutes" and "zealously protecting the rights and dignity of others". If a political party is ostensibly zealous about the rights of gay citizens, having a leader whose support is historically tepid and mostly consists of platitudes rather than actions, that would seem to be problematic. As I stated earlier:
quote:
If you're gay (or just someone who cares about how gay people are treated) are you going to support a leader who's support of your rights as a citizen is grudging, half-hearted, and unreliable? You might, if that was the only support on offer, but those days are gone.
Given that in the article Ricardus linked to Farron basically "admitted his answers had been motivated, partly, by political expediency" (a quote from the article, not a direct quote from Farron himself) I don't think its wrong conclude Farron would, if the situation presented itself, be similarly "expedient" about curtailing the rights of homosexuals. Not because it's something he particularly wants, but because it's a bargaining chip he doesn't particularly care about.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
One can rather understand how people might just assume that someone who labels themselves that way is not going to be an ally for LGBT+ rights.
In our soundbite culture you can understand it, yes, but I read that he actually had a record of working for LGBT rights.
Mixed bag, from a quick google. Voted for equal marriage but wanted lots of conscience get-outs and protections for people who would deny LGBTI+ people rights.
Well, the CofE itself has a 'get-out'. Is it suitable for any member of that denomination to lead a political party?
Mrs May and Mr Cameron are Anglicans who both approve of SSM, but it could be argued that their adherence to a huge institution (much larger than the one to which Mr Farron belongs) that denies LGBT+ people rights is undesirable at the very least.
I imagine that many people have left the CofE because of its official stance. Others would say that the CofE's stance is good reason for it to be disestablished. If our Anglican politicians don't argue publicly against the CofE does that make their commitment to LGBT+ rights suspect?
It seems unfair to make Mr Farron carry the blame for religious attitudes that we allow powerful institutions to hold. (But it does seem that the Lib Dems' purpose is to be punished for views that exist in high places elsewhere!)
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
He lied. It's fair.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
In our soundbite culture you can understand it, yes, but I read that he actually had a record of working for LGBT rights.
How do you square that with his vote against extending anti-discrimination law to cover sexual orientation? That would seem like are record of working against LGBT rights.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RdrEmCofE:
Surely it is possible for a politician to hold strong religious views regarding his own conduct, yet not be seeking to impose those same views on others in the form of legislation or repeal of statutes?
Yes, I think it is. As it happens, I am a straight man with politics that are basically Liberal and theology which is fairly conservative. It took me a long time to come round to the idea of SSM and I know that many of my Baptist colleagues still don't hold with it (yes, I appreciate that many here will disagree with their view - I'm just stating "how things are").
However there is, I think, a difference between saying something in a church context and promulgating a public policy. For this reason I believe it is perfectly possible for a conservative Christian to assert that the Bible teaches a "traditionalist" position as far as sexuality and marriage are concerned while [i]at the same time/i] strongly favouring and even promoting a very different position among the population at last.
By the way, I am not one of those people who say that "we should keep religion out of politics". On the one hand our faith must shape our viewpoints (which can indeed lead to tensions, as we may see with the new Minister for Women); on the other hand, religious voices should certainly be heard, among many others, by the Government of a secular society.
I sense that the media prefer a more simplistic approach. And - from what I've read about Tim's interventions - he answered their questions in ways which have ultimately proved unhelpful.
[ 12. January 2018, 14:18: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
How do you square that with his vote against extending anti-discrimination law to cover sexual orientation? That would seem like are record of working against LGBT rights.
Looks that way ... but has his thinking perhaps changed since then? It was more than 10 years ago and there has been quite a sea-change of opinions within the churches during that time.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
How do you square that with his vote against extending anti-discrimination law to cover sexual orientation? That would seem like are record of working against LGBT rights.
Looks that way ... but has his thinking perhaps changed since then? It was more than 10 years ago and there has been quite a sea-change of opinions within the churches during that time.
First off, I'm not sure how compatible SvitlanaV2's assertion of Mr. Farron having a "record of working for LGBT rights" is with justifications along the lines of "it was more than 10 years ago". Either his history is relevant or it isn't. For my part I'm more concerned with actual actions than cheap rhetoric that can easily be adjusted if there's "a sea-change of opinions".
Political parties exist to enact agendas. If we accept that the Liberal Democrats are in favor of protecting the rights of homosexuals against discrimination it would seem prudent for them to be led by someone who is actually interested in that goal. The best that can be said for Mr. Farron is that his statements on the matter are ambivalent and his voting record dubious. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to the leadership of a political party.
[ 12. January 2018, 15:15: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
In our soundbite culture you can understand it, yes, but I read that he actually had a record of working for LGBT rights.
How do you square that with his vote against extending anti-discrimination law to cover sexual orientation? That would seem like are record of working against LGBT rights.
He seems to have had a varied voting record, but the link says that 'on the whole' he's voted for gay rights.
However, the issue of LGBT+ rights is now so broad that almost anyone could fall on the 'wrong' side with respect to some aspect of the issue. Mrs May doesn't come off as an unvarnished champion of total equality in her voting record.
I think Mr Farron's essential personal problem was lacking the cunning to be a party leader. You have to know which way the wind is blowing, and look as if you're part of the changing landscape. Who knows or cares what's really happening in your soul if you're able to sell the public your commitment to liberation, etc.? He seemed to think he had a get-out clause on this, which is pretty odd.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I think Mr Farron's essential personal problem was lacking the cunning to be a party leader. You have to know which way the wind is blowing, and look as if you're part of the changing landscape. Who knows or cares what's really happening in your soul if you're able to sell the public your commitment to liberation, etc.?
You're right - but what a sad comment, which seems to imply that a person of conviction and integrity cannot be a party leader. No wonder the great British public have lost faith in politicians.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Another fine false dichotomy you've gotten yourselves into.
Farron LIED. I don't see May or Corbyn doing that. Koop didn't.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
You can be a person of conviction and integrity (that's why Corbyn appeals to so many). What you can't be is a swivel-eyed fundie pretending to be a liberal, which is what Farron looks like (key word here being "looks", I'm sure it's more complex than that). Conviction counts for little if your convictions cause revulsion in much of the population, and the section that might agree with you think you're a wishy-washy backslider.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
I agree about Corbyn. But whether people will actually vote for him is another matter. Probably depends more on how much mess the Tories make.
The 'commitment and integrity' of 'fundy' politicians is obviously of no use in British secular society - unless they can keep it under cover and convincingly present a more palatable image. Note that Mr Blair didn't join the RCC until after he left office!
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I agree about Corbyn. But whether people will actually vote for him is another matter.
He already got more votes than any Labour leader since 1997. You can obviously come up with as many reasons as you like for that, and for why it wasn't enough.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I agree about Corbyn. But whether people will actually vote for him is another matter.
He already got more votes than any Labour leader since 1997.
But wasn't that among party members? The question is whether "his" Labour can get enough votes from the entire population - which must include winning back seats in Scotland.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
No, BT, that's the general election votes. Corbyn got 12.8 million votes. The last time Labour surpassed that was in 1997 when Blair got 13.5 million. The vote share was higher than it had been since 2001 (when turnout was very low). Prior to that the last time Labour did that well was under Harold Wilson over 50 years ago. It wasn't enough to win, but I think we can put to bed the notion that Corbyn and his policies don't appeal beyond Labour party members.
© Ship of Fools 2016
UBB.classicTM
6.5.0