UK
Secularists and Gays Demand Marginalization of Christians
LifeSiteNews ^ | 4/4/07 | Hilary White
Posted on 04/04/2007 4:25:29 PM PDT
Terry Sanderson, head of the National Secularist Society, has produced an
editorial calling Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor’s
assertions that public expression of religious belief is under attack in
The Cardinal gave a lecture March 28, in which he warned that the secularizing
trend will marginalize Christians. He said that religious freedom is more than
the freedom to worship, “It is the freedom to serve the common good according
to the convictions of our faith. It seems to me we are being asked to accept a
different version of our democracy, one in which diversity and equality are
held to be at odds with religion.”
Sanderson accused the
Sanderson writes, “The Catholic Church has happily
allied itself with just about every totalitarian regime that has emerged over
the centuries in
The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) has issued a press release
saying that the Catholic Church is “not fit” to run schools. The statement
comes as a response to a House of Commons Select Committee report claiming that
Catholic schools are not doing enough to counter “homophobic bullying”.
George Broadhead, secretary of GALHA said, “We’ve
seen homophobia in Catholic circles rising at a terrifying rate over the past
few months. The Pope is almost hysterical on the topic and the British Catholic
hierarchy is constantly agitating to retard gay rights.”
“For the sake of these children…should be protected
from the promotion of bigotry in schools, the Catholic Church should be
stripped of its educational establishments.”
A 2004 report from the UK Department of Health defines “heterosexism” as “the
presumption that everyone is heterosexual.”
The report goes on to give examples: “The assumption that a male pupil will
have, or be looking for, a girlfriend; or that a female parent, when talking
about her partner, is referring to a male.”
Another report from the same year by the Department of
Education and Skills, talks about, “the importance of addressing schools’
predominantly ‘heteronormative’ cultures, which
cajole, persuade or force pupils to conform to particular heterosexual
identities and behaviours.”
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/mar/07030504.html