Bloomdido Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Melanie Phillips writing for the Mail says that; "The protection of religious conscience is a fundamental principle of a liberal and free society" and that "freedom of conscience is supposedly a right for all, including minorities." She defends the rights of christians not to counsel gay couples or preside over civil ceremonies and for preachers to say to gays that their 'gayness' is a sin punishable by eternal damnation. Are all religions to be allowed this 'conscience' or is it just the christian one? What would happen if Lord Justice Laws had come down on the side of the christians and not common secular sense? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Christians already have all of those rights. They have complete liberty to withdraw from any job or position which would contradict them. I'm not sure what exactly she is wanting to protect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melthebell Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 not the singer melanie then?? thats what i thought with the thread title lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomdido Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 Christians already have all of those rights. They have complete liberty to withdraw from any job or position which would contradict them. I'm not sure what exactly she is wanting to protect. They don't have those rights any more. The Relate counsellor got the sack and the homophobic preacher got arrested and charged. The nurse 'must have my cross outside my unifirm' woman lost her appeal and the Hackney woman who wouldn't preside over gay ceremonies lost her appeal too. Thats Seculars 4 - Christian bigots 0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomdido Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 not the singer melanie then?? thats what i thought with the thread title lol Candles in the Rain? I loved that song. Went to a festival a couple of years ago to see her on the strength of that one song (and some bloke called Jethro Tull) and the weather and organisation was so bad, we left after an hour. I paid £70 to hear a few songs by Fairport Convention and Hazel O'Connor accompanied by a harpist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Candles in the Rain? I loved that song. Went to a festival a couple of years ago to see her on the strength of that one song (and some bloke called Jethro Tull) and the weather and organisation was so bad, we left after an hour. I paid £70 to hear a few songs by Fairport Convention and Hazel O'Connor accompanied by a harpist. You are now officially on my ignore list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melthebell Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 (and some bloke called Jethro Tull) was he stood on 1 leg? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milquetoast1 Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Lord Justice Laws is right, and Melanie Phillips is wrong. A couple of passages from what he said. There is an important distinction to be drawn between the law's protection of the right to hold and express a belief and the law's protection of that belief's substance or content. The common law and ECHR Article 9 offer vigorous protection of the Christian's right (and every other person's right) to hold and express his or her beliefs. And so they should. By contrast they do not, and should not, offer any protection whatever of the substance or content of those beliefs on the ground only that they are based on religious precepts. These are twin conditions of a free society. Absolutely. Anybody is free to believe in fairies, and the law will protect that belief. But if you accept employment as a gardener don't expect the courts to protect you when you refuse to weed a flowerbed that you believe hosts a thriving colony of elves. We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens; and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic. The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law; but the State, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself. Well said sir. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomdido Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 You are now officially on my ignore list. Oops. They had one decent album, Heavy Horses. I never heard anything else that impressed me that much but I could see how groundbreaking they were. I bought some of the later stuff that was recorded in his in-house studio and it was pretty naff. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 They don't have those rights any more. The Relate counsellor got the sack...The nurse 'must have my cross outside my unifirm' woman lost her appeal and the Hackney woman who wouldn't preside over gay ceremonies lost her appeal too. They do indeed still have those rights. They could have chosen to do a job that did not require them to go against their beliefs; they were not forced into one that did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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