Using Me!

Christmas Greetings and Politics

While browsing for news on Christmas day I found this little ensemble of stories on religious expression over at the BBC.

Of course I’m against all religion on principle but I found it quite upsetting that a government can ban one religion’s activities (publishing bibles with the word Allah in them) because it might upset another religious group. And that’s just the first story.

The Swiss story I find mildly amusing because of how the Swiss are perceived word-wide as this credible, safe, stoic place/people when in fact they are ultra-conservatives. It’s kind of hard to know from any experience or knowledge that I’ve ever been exposed to whether they are just really hard-nosed old-fashioned conservatives or whether that’s a veneer under which lies pretty extreme fascism. I’m not accusing them of the latter I just don’t see how one can discern which they might be from the press they get.

And for the Italian story, together with the mentions of the US and Germany and the implications for the entire EU now that the Human Rights Bill is enshrined into their law through the signing of the Lisbon Treaty, well…

The Italians should put up or shut up. Quite simple. Displaying a Crucifix has NOTHING to do with ‘tradition’ that is not tied to religion. They chose to sign up to Lisbon.

The German law that you can only display religious paraphernalia in a classroom if a parent does NOT object is likewise bullshit. The law is that you shall not discriminate, not that you may discriminate until someone objects.

You can be sure that when I have school-attending children I shall be absolutely certain to ensure their rights under the Human Rights Charter of the Lisbon Treaty are adhered to, including campaigning for the removal of the legal requirement for state-funded schools to provide a ‘broadly Christian’ assembly each day.

I am so glad that the UK does not have a Constitution that people can throw in the faces of the law makers. Of course that brings its own issues up in that it makes it easer to change what may be natural human rights but I think this could be an interesting topic for another post so I’ll stop there.

I wish all of you a really great holiday. Call it what you will… Christmas, Yuletide, Noel, Getting Drunk Time, Saturnia, Winter Solstice or any of many other names.