Politics

This is from Terry Sanderson’s editorial on the NSS’s Newsline, the weekly e-news from the National Secular Society. To read more, go to the NSS website. To get Newsline in your inbox, sign up on the NSS site.

Every person in Britain who values the secular nature of our society will be alarmed and, indeed, frightened, by a publication this week from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR). Entitled Faith in the Nation, it is a collection of essays by “senior faith leaders” which begins with a foreword by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Mr Brown, like most of the other contributors, invokes the census figures as his starting point, which enables him to assert: “One message comes across clearly and consistently: that religious belief will continue to be an important component of our shared British identity as it evolves, and that British society can and does draw strength from its diverse faith communities.” This is the first of many lies and dissemblings in this book.

The One Law for All campaign against Sharia law in Britain is to be launched at the House of Lords on International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2008 from 4:00 to 5:00pm.

What’s this about, d’you think?

Critics say it is wrong for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to give taxpayers' money to a controversial organisation whose stance would be found objectionable by many members of the public. Neil Addison, a Roman Catholic barrister who specialises in religious discrimination, said: "It's a bit like paying the Taliban to lecture on women's rights.”

This is from The Telegraph. I can imagine Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, encouraged by Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent for The Telegraph, hopping up and down, incandescent with rage, at the news that the BHA will get a grant from the Equality and Human Rights Commission for a series of four events about the place of religion in public life. Good grief! What’ll these uppity atheists want next? Complete equality? A totally secular society?

Obama will be President of the US. Although he’s a Christian (an essential qualification, as things stand – no chance of an atheist President, yet), he’s a liberal Christian. Maybe his attitude might be more like that of former President Jimmy Carter, who said, "I was very meticulous in completely separating my religious faith from any element of politics or governance in the White House. I believed in what Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers, said that we should build a wall between Church and state. I worship a prince of peace, not a prince of pre-emptive war."

Religion plays a huge role in US politics. If you didn't watch Channel 4's 'True Stories: Jesus Politics' on 28 October, you have 22 days left to view it online on the Channel 4 website (you'll need broadband and Windows Media Player). The Republican Right has the strongest links to evangelical Christianity - you'd be forgiven for thinking that, as far as George Bush is concerned, God is an American and votes Republican.

Staff pay and conditions could be under threat at an Ipswich school if a decision is finalised to turn it into a church-run academy.

As revealed in The Evening Star, students at Holywells High spoke out against the possibility of the running of their school being handed over to the Church of England in September.

The students' concerns are now shared by trade unions, who today revealed their opposition to academies' abilities to operate outside the parliamentary approved School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document.

In Slate Magazine, Christopher Hitchens (author of ‘God is Not Great’) attacks the Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, for her ignorance, which she regards as a virtue, and her religious fanaticism.

Note: GOP means ‘Grand Old Party’, or the Republican Party.

If you order ‘God is Not Great’ via the Amazon link on this website, we get commission.

I tuned in to tonight’s BBC Panorama programme [27 October] late, just in time to hear reporter Simon Boazman explain how the government plans to collect information on children. He asked his own daughter some of the questions that are included in a questionaire to test something or other. Did she go to church? What religion was she? Did she believe in God? I’ll watch the programme again to check (you can see it online for the next week using the BBC’s i-player), but my mind was boggling.