Monthly Archives: March 2009

Peace in our time

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From here

Iran responds to Barack Obama’s video appeal with nuclear pledge

US President Barack Obama’s appeal for a ‘new beginning’ with Iran has been met by a pledge to turn on the country’s nuclear power plant this year.

Mr Obama sent Iran an unprecedented videotaped message offering a fresh start in diplomatic engagement after decades of US hostility to the Islamic Republic.

In an unusually swift reaction to Mr Obama’s overture, Aliakbar Javanfekr, an aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Iran welcomed “the interest of the American government to settle differences”.

But he said that the US government “should realise its previous mistakes and make an effort to amend them”.

Obama’s grovelling overture to Iran reminds of something; now what was it? Oh, yes, this:

[youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmwmuPTa0To]

Except Neville Chamberlain was less naive.

Gay couple sue Christian hotel owners

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From here:

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Gay couple sue Christians for barring them from hotel bed

The Christian owners of a seaside hotel may be prosecuted after refusing to allow a gay couple to stay in a double room.

Peter and Hazelmary Bull are facing an unprecedented court case under controversial new equality laws.

Martyn Hall, who lives with his civil partner Steven Preddy, has lodged a county court claim for up to £5,000 in damages alleging ‘direct discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation’.

Last August, the Bulls received a letter from Stonewall, the gay rights organisation, saying it had received a complaint and warning the hotel it was breaking the law.

The following month Mr Preddy, from Bristol, rang to book a double room for two nights.

Mrs Bull, who took the call, said last night that she had wrongly assumed that he would be staying with his wife before she accepted the booking.

When Mr Preddy and Mr Hall arrived, they were told by the manager, Bernie Quinn, that the hotel could not honour the booking.

The couple told him he was acting illegally before leaving and reporting the incident to police

The Chymorvah Hotel lists its rules:

Here at Chymorvah we have few rules, but please note that as Christians we have a deep regard for marriage (being the union of one man to one woman for life to the exclusion of all others).

Therefore, although we extend to all a warm welcome to our home, our double bedded accommodation is not available to unmarried couples – Thank you.

It’s obvious Messrs Hall and Preddy knew about the hotel rules before making the booking. In which case, they were not really looking for a seaside holiday at all, but were out to make a point by deliberately searching for accommodation where they knew they could challenge Christian principle with vacuous 21st Century secular equality. It is significant that no unmarried heterosexual couple has felt the need to sue the hotel –  probably because there are plenty of other hotels in the area. Not to mention the fact that heterosexual unmarried couples do not feel the need to engage in a crusade to establish the normality of their behaviour.

Anjem Choudary and donkeys

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Occasionally, a sufficiently serious religious news item appears that I find it necessary to eschew irony in order to assess, in a serious and sober way, the exigent theological quodlibet.Add an Image

Today, we are looking at the tendency of man, in this post-Christian era, to be attracted to donkeys. It may not have occurred to you, but it has occurred to the burrophobic, Anjem Choudary:

He said: ‘If a man likes another man, it can happen, but if you go on to fulfil your desire, if it is proved, then there is a punishment to follow. You don’t stone to death unless there are four eyewitnesses. It is a very stringent procedure.

‘There are some people who are attracted to donkeys but that does not mean it is right.’

Anjem Choudary advocates stoning homosexuals caught in the act – but only if they happen to be observed in flagrante by four people; personally, I would simply make the coupling paramours pay for psychiatric counselling for the onlookers to help them cope with the trauma.

What is missing from all this, is the penalty for the donkey lovers.

How do Anglicans and Lutherans share office space?

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The Anglican Church of Canada is proposing to share office space with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada:

Anglicans and Lutherans plan joint gathering, consider sharing office space

Sharing space for national offices in the future would result in a “huge cost saving,” said Archbishop Hiltz. But “this is not something that is simply driven by our current financial circumstances,” he added. “There’s no question that has some impact, but I really think that what’s driving it is the commitment that we made as churches in 2001.”

Possible scenarios for sharing office space haven’t been worked out yet, said Archbishop Hiltz. “A shared office might be that one office moves into the other or together we move into a brand new location and open a new office together. Or certain areas of ministry are centred out of the ELCIC office, and other areas of ministry of centered out of the Anglican office,” he said. “Who knows what could come of this? There could be an ecumenical office that could represent more than Anglicans and Lutherans.”

I am sure that the sweetness and harmony that exists between the Diocese of Niagara and ANiC in sharing parish buildings can be used as an archetype for sharing office space with Lutherans. One could ask for no more than the dissilient magnanimity displayed by the diocesan lawyer in this message of  inclusiveness and tolerance:

“that the Incumbents, Church Wardens and congregants now associated with the ANiC not attend or be present at the properties on Sunday, May 11, 2008 from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and each Sunday thereafter.”

In addition, the lawyer specifically asked us to post this “timely and direct communication” on the Anglican Essentials website, “requesting that members of the three ANiC congregations not attend or be present on the properties from 7:00 a.m. To 10:00 a.m. this Sunday and on subsequent Sundays.”

Lutherans, watch your back.

How much does it cost to be Politically Correct?

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In the case of a head teacher in Woking UK, it cost taxpayers £400,000 to compensate her for the fact that the local education authority allowed a couple of obdurate Muslims to bully her into obsequious tolerance.

But she fought back:Add an Image

A head teacher whose health and career were ruined by false accusations of racism and religious discrimination at a primary school dominated by Muslims has won £400,000 in damages.

Erica Connor was forced into early retirement through stress after governors at New Monument School in Woking turned her into a scapegoat by claiming she was Islamophobic.

But the local education authority failed to help her as its “excessively tolerant” officers were more worried about complaints to the race equality watchdog than her suffering.

The court heard that in 1998 Mrs Connor took over the school – where up to 85 per cent of pupils were Muslim and 90 per cent spoke English as a second language – and test results improved “very considerably” for the first few years.

However in 2003 two new members – Paul Martin, a parent governor, and Mumtaz Saleem, a nominee of the local education authority – joined its governing body and tried to take it over.

The judge, Mr John Leighton-Williams, QC, said: “I am satisfied that they sought to monopolise governors body meetings with a view to imposing their own agenda and were prepared to do so regardless of the interests of the school and anyone who resisted that agenda.”

It’s easy to imagine the reaction that similar tactics by two Christians on the governing body would have provoked.

The Pope must be doing something right

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Because he has managed to upset the UN, Planned Parenthood, the Times, the Telegraph – actually every major newspaper – with his remarks about the ineffectiveness of using condoms to combat Aids.

Is his contention that fidelity and abstinence are the only effective ways to combat Aids true?

Using a condom correctly reduces the risk of contracting Aids by 80%.

So, if we take 100 HIV infected, sexually active people, consistently using condoms correctly, who have sex once a month with a new person, who in turn do the same, at the end of one year we would end up with 100 x 1.2^11 = 743 people infected with HIV. In 10 years, we would have 264,000,000,000. I admit, all the people involved would have to be somewhat energetic and enterprising, and I am using a 100% infection rate for the 20% condom failure possibility, not to mention the fact that we run out of candidates worldwide at 6,706,993,152; but using the Pope’s method, after 10 years we would still have only about 100 people infected with HIV.

To bring it down to a more personal level, with an 80% reduction in the chance of being infected, would you have sex, using a condom, with an HIV infected person?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maBJzJgYjto]

An atheist wants to be de-baptised

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Is this a convincing argument against infant baptism?

An atheist is trying to get himself “de-baptised” from the Church of England because he believes he was accepted into the religion without his consent.
John Hunt, a nurse, is one of a growing number of people around the world who want their former involvement with faith groups to be struck from official records.

Now 56, he was baptised at the parish church of St Jude with St Aidan in Thornton Heath, south London, when he was just a baby.

But as a schoolboy he decided he did not believe in God and stopped going to Sunday school aged 11.

More recently he asked Southwark diocese to remove his name from the baptismal roll, because he believes he was too young to agree to the ceremony taking place.

It is one thing to be removed from a church’s baptismal records, but how does one become de-baptised in the spiritual sense? Join the Anglican Church of Canada, perhaps.

If this catches on in Judaism, it will open up a new industry in re-attachment surgery.