5 Minutes with the Pope

I've been meaning to do a blog on the Pope UK visit for some time now, but this article in the New Humanist has finally inspired me to get around to it. So, if I had five minutes with the Pope, this is what I would like to say:

Pope Benedict, may I assume, for a second, that there is no God -- the primary justification for your actions and your position of authority. If this is the case, you have made women second class citizens and homosexuals outcasts for no reason. You have helped to spread HIV/AIDS by condemning condoms on the basis of a myth. And people in your organisation (and, if many reports are to be believed, you yourself) have covered up child molesters to protect the reputation of a lie. Given these countless millions who have suffered or have been killed, how is it that you can be regarded as a figure of moral authority, and how can you say, with the complete confidence that it would require, that you have acted justly?

I believe that this is the closest I can come to expressing my disgust at the actions of the Catholic Church, but I will never be able to put into words the horror and sadness that I feel, knowing that there are millions of people who hold this hateful, bigoted, misogynistic homophobe in the highest regard possible.

The Real Bigotgate

Hello all,

The big news of yesterday is that Conservative MP Philippa Stroud used to run prayer sessions to cure people of their homosexuality, claiming that "demons" were possessing them. Naturally this is news that offended a great many people, and before long #PhilippaStroud was trending in the UK.

Actually, the truth of this story is even worse. The church has, shall we say, highly questionable views on the role of women in marriage, all of which the electorate deserve to know about. Any church that preaches:

“A church where Biblical family life is highly valued, where husband and wife embrace male servant leadership and joyful female submission, where godly parenting is taught and practised and where the special value of singleness and its unique opportunities are affirmed”

should be questioned, and its influence on an MP challenged. As Bartley points out, an MP subservient to her husband in all things may not even be voting under her own viewpoint, but under her husbands. This somewhat trumps "Vote Clegg, Get Brown/Cameron", I would argue.

Of course, they also have a right to know about the positive sides, such as their work for charity, but I would imagine Ms Stroud has already covered that in her own leafleting.

The truth remains that Ms Stroud's views on homosexuality and feminism do not match the views of most people living in Great Britain today; A nation whose proudest claim should be its tolerance of all cultures that do not infringe on the happiness of others.

And yet... Shamefully, the worst part of this big news is that it is NOT BIG NEWS! A search for Philippa Stroud on the BBC News Website produces little beyond a Woman's Hour clip from last October. I recognise the institution's stance with regards to impartiality (and, let's face it, none of us were expecting to read this story in the Mail or Sun), but it was happy to publish the controversy surrounding the smear stories of Nick Clegg, and I fail to see why this story should receive special treatment.

Perhaps we can draw one positive from this story. Due to the comparative lack of coverage in the mainstream media, people have been tweeting, Facebooking and blogging about this story just to get it out there, and, by all accounts, it seems to be working. Social media is bypassing barons like Murdoch, and this can only be a good thing.