Irresponsible Gambling

Today's Daily Telegraph has published a letter that was drafted by (hup hum) the Methodist Church media team :) on behalf of nine signatories.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/5182652/Council-budgets-can-easily-be-trimmed-without-endangering-essential-services.html

(Scroll down the page to the second letter)

This is ahead of tomorrow's debate in the Lords on The Draft Cateogies of Gaming Machine (Amendment) Regulations 2009 regarding raising the stake and prize money for category C and D fruit machines.

Dans Le Monde Du Pape

Anyone who has ever fallen in love with an illusion will have great sympathy with the anonymous young writer in the film, Dans La Ville de Sylvia, as he walks around Strasbourg consumed by the projection of his muse. Because he (the actor Xavier Lafitte) is beautiful, and his fantasy harmful towards no one but himself, the sensitive artist is easily forgiven.

The Pope, however, is not.

Today’s papers are full of reports about how Pope Benedict XVI has announced that condoms are not the answer to Africa’s fight against HIV and Aids.

Speaking to journalists on his flight to Cameroon, the Pontiff said the condition was, "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone; that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems".

I wish it were an illusion that this man’s belief in a misogynistic, homophobic and sadistic God could not affect the lives of so many Christians across the world. According to a report in today’s Guardian, 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are estimated to be infected by the disease. Past BBC reports say that there are 143 million Catholics in Africa.

If I didn’t know there were outreach programmes in Africa spreading the right message about HIV and Aids prevention, including Christian outreach programmes, my despair would be a lot greater.

The final scene in Dans La Ville de Sylvia shows how successful the director, Jose Luis Guerin, has been in transferring the artist's projection on to the viewer. The camera holds still showing a shot of a street in Strasbourg. People walk in and out of the frame and, while Xavier remains out of it, there is a palpable lightness of being. I sat there bracing myself for Xavier’s entrance and for, what by this point has become, the heaviness of his desire.

But he doesn’t come.

The Thought Police

The front pages of The Telegraph and The Guardian today make chilling reading.

Telegraph journalist, Martin Beckford, has unearthed a document passed by the Department of Health last month, which equates NHS staff talking about religion to harassment under disciplinary and grievance procedures.

Alan Travis from The Guardian has relayed a House of Lords report, published today, stating that Britain has constructed one of the most extensive and technologically advanced surveillance systems in the world; a system which risks undermining our basic freedoms.

CCTV is a mixed blessing. It does help to solve and deter crime. However, putting cameras up all over the place chips away at the very freedoms we are trying to protect. The very anxious begin to think that because a lift is not equipped with CCTV, anyone travelling up and down in it is “at risk”. And the sanctimonious come out with the blackmailing line: “If you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” If former Home Secretary and ID cards fan, Charles Clarke, was travelling alone in a lift listening to his I Pod, I doubt he would be the kind of man who would break into a dance. However, some of us might. But if there was a camera there, we might think again. And who would be watching? It all feels a bit creepy.

Martin Beckford’s report in the Telegraph contains a strong quote from Dr Peter Saunders, the general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship. “One of our cherished freedoms is that of freedom of speech, which enables us to have important debates about crucial issues,” Dr Saunders is quoted as saying. “But we’re seeing a culture of thought police emerging.”

There is also a thought-provoking quote from Neil Addison, a Roman Catholic barrister who specialises in religious discrimination cases. “To what extent do you stop ordinary conversation?” he asks. “What they’re doing is saying you cannot even talk about religion and that means a whole area of human experience is cut off.”

We should stand up for our civil liberties and resist George Orwell’s 1984.

Islam and the Future

Since the Mumbai bombings - which the Muslim Council of Britian condemned immediately - "the problem with Islam" debate has resurfaced. Islamic extremist attacks and the growth of Islam in Britain are fears which lead some people to believe Western freedoms will be under threat in the years to come.

What I have been arguing is that we should support moderate Muslims to have a stronger voice in our society so that journalist and commentator, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown isn't the only token liberal Muslim people can point to.

This week there has been some good news. I discovered the Christian Muslim Forum on Sunday. On Thurday morning, I heard Mona Siddiqui, a British Muslim academic, on Radio Four's Thought For The Day. And today I came across Dervla Shannahan Hussain, a gay Muslim convert, on The Guardian's Comment is Free pages.

There has also been stories in the press this week about the Runnymede Trust calling for faith schools to open their admissions to all children in order to break down religious barriers and improve integration.

I hope more good news will follow!