Religion in the Public Sphere

Although strictly speaking I should be working right now - why break the habit of a lifetime? I'd much rather write about secularism. It's been a while and certain people (I'm looking at you, Baroness Warsi) are just pissing me off, big time.

Take the recent case of Bideford town council. The council was summoning its members to attend meetings which included as part of their business Christian prayers. In law, councillors must attend meetings to which they are formally summoned; the council has no right to allow them to absent themselves from the formal part of the meeting.

A judge has now found that they had no good reason under a 1972 act to have prayers at all, but that they were not discriminatory, were the law to be changed, if non-Christian councillors were allowed to leave the meeting or otherwise not take part in prayers.

This is bollocks. To quote the judge's own findings:

76. I do not accept Mr Dingemans’ argument that the requirements of a pluralist state meant that preventing prayers in a Council meeting breached Article 9. Pluralism does not mean that one religion is entitled to manifest itself on such occasions.

The point is that one religion is manifesting itself here. Non-Christians are being discriminated against not because of their being forced, or otherwise, to attend the meeting, but because Christianity is being discriminated for, and being privileged above other beliefs in council.

Christians are free to pray silently, or have noisy prayers before the meeting; but they should not unfairly favour, or give the impression of unfairly favouring, one religion above others by giving it, and it alone, representation in formal council business.


This is surely common sense. You should not privilege or give advantage to one belief, religion, or view, political or personal, in the structure of a meeting, when it is not universally held. Giving the privilege of inclusion to one religion, to the exclusion of others, is akin to giving the privilege of inclusion to the internationale while not giving equal space to other political songs.

Of course, all religious and politically partisan views cannot be given equal time in the formal structure of meetings, as this would necessitate the inclusion of all of them, no matter how spurious or minority. Christian prayer, Muslim prayer, Bahai prayer, Buddhist meditation (?), Pastafarian ritual consumption of guidance-noodles, ad absurdum.

You're free not to take part in these rituals - but they take up valuable time, and if they're not compulsary, why are they even part of the bloody meeting?? What is their purpose?

No; the only correct, fair, and practical solution is to make the public sphere NEUTRAL. That is not atheistic, but free from ideology that is not provably relevant to the business at hand.

A pluralistic society requires that all partisan views be given equal billing, by giving them no billing. Religion or lack thereof is contentious and irrelevant to the business of government. Government is concerned with rational argument, and has no business in legislating on the grounds of personal belief.

Obviously this is slightly simplistic. Certain partisan views (for instance, those who believe in democracy over nazism, and monarchists over republicans) are already favoured in our political system. But these are things on which choices must be made, democratically, and representatively, if we are not to be mired in indecision.

 Religion does not fall into this category, but into the category of personal conscience: disagree with abortion? Choose not to have one. Law extends only to those things that affect persons other than the self, and in all other things personal choice remains.


This is why Baroness Warsi is wrong. She may be a Muslim arguing for the priveleging of Christianity, but that does not make her any less a traitor to fairness and human rights. Non-Christians have as much a right to feel this is their country as Christians.

She wrote that examples of a "militant secularisation" taking hold of society could be seen in a number of things - "when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; when states won't fund faith schools; and where religion is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere".

She also compared the intolerance of religion with totalitarian regimes, which she said were "denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities".

This is just disingenuous - or stupid.  You can't fund faith schools because that is the privelege of one faith over others, where to be fair NONE must be positively discriminated for. To have a school which teaches children a certain belief - be it atheism, Christianity, or white supremacy - is beyond the scope of government, and outside of its portfolio.

These are personal views, and should be treated as such, not encouraged or discouraged by the state, which (unless it is to become a theocratic dictatorship) has ONLY the responsibility over people's actions, not their private thoughts and beliefs, or vocal expression of said beliefs.

Religion is divisive, and unnecessary to the realm of government. It is the realm of discussion, contemplation, argument, but not of legislation or officialdom. Yet non-inclusion from the realm of government in no way disadvantages, discourages or bans the beliefs (or many of the actions) of any religion. To claim otherwise is misleading, idiotic, or evil. Go and shout your religion from the rooftops for all I care, but keep it the hell out of democratic government.

Now if only I could write a thousand words of my dissertation so easily...