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How the Daily Mail got it wrong

By Margaret - Posted on 23 March 2009

Any of our members and supporters who read the Daily Mail may have been alarmed by the article they published on Friday 20 March headed “How cash meant for promoting faith is going to an organisation that campaigns AGAINST Christianity”. It referred to a grant given to the BHA by The Equality and Human Rights Commission. James Chapman, the Daily Mail journalist, could not have got his facts more wrong. The BHA is seeking a correction from the Mail, and has published its own corrections on its website.

If you are a Daily Mail reader and a Humanist (the Mail possibly thinks the two are incompatible, but we know otherwise), perhaps you’ll write to the editor or comment on their website?

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Change to the Mail website
Submitted by Margaret on Tue, 31/03/2009 - 18:17.

The page on the Mail's website referred to above is no longer available. They appear to have been persuaded that they're wrong.

Hanne Stinson's letter
Submitted by Margaret on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 12:03.

Hanne, CEO of the BHA, wrote to the BHA as follows:

"How cash meant for promoting faith is going to an organisation that campaigns AGAINST Christianity" (Mail) misrepresented the British Humanist Association.

Grants from the relevant fund were explicitly forbidden from being used to 'promote faith'. They were intended to help groups representing religion or belief to engage with government.

'Religion or belief' in English law includes non-religious beliefs like Humanism. The non-religious are one in three of the population but we got less than 0.2% of the £13.3 million fund - and we used it to create a network to represent Humanism with local government - not to campaign against Christianity.

The £35,000 grant from the Equality And Human Rights Commission wasn't "to promote secularism" but to increase understanding in local government that laws against 'religion or belief' discrimination cover the non-religious as well.

If some Christians resent losing privileges so that others don't suffer discrimination, that's understandable but it doesn't mean the BHA is campaigning "against Christianity".

Hanne Stinson, British Humanist Association

We assume that the letter was published in full but haven't seen a print copy.

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