One Guy's Viewpoint

More Equal Animals

Here are a few quotes from the recent article "A Slow-Burn Bonfire of Liberties" by Mike Steyn.

The official "defining moment" of the campaign (the column was a few days before the British election) was Gordon Brown’s unguarded post-photo-op dismissal of Gillian Duffy as a "bigoted woman." Mrs. Duffy, a plain-spoken working-class granny and lifelong Labour voter, had made the mistake of asking Mr. Brown, her party leader, a very mild question about immigrants from eastern Europe. He got back in his car and wrote her off, forgetting he was still miked. So she’s a "bigot." He’s not. That’s why he makes all the decisions for her, and she just makes the best of them. What part of that don’t you understand?

The other day, upholding the sacking of a black Christian for declining to provide "sex therapy lessons" to gay couples, Lord Justice Laws ruled that "law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds is irrational, divisive, capricious, arbitrary." Actually it’s the law of Lord Justice Laws that is increasingly "irrational, divisive, capricious, arbitrary." Or as George Orwell, in Animal Farm, formulated it: all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others (emphasis mine). In the land of Laws, a gay is more equal than a Christian. A Muslim is more equal than anybody. A black man is more equal than a white man, unless the white man is gay and the black man a Christian. An eco-zealot is more equal than an Anglican. Not long before Lord Justice Laws’ decision on the "irrationality" of legal protection for Christianity, Tim Nicholson, a "Head of Sustainability" fired for questioning his property management group’s environmental policies, sued for wrongful dismissal under "Employment Equality (Religion And Beliefs) Regulations." He wound up with the best part of one hundred thousand pounds after Mr. Justice Burton ruled that Mr. Nicholson’s faith in anthropogenic global warming was a "philosophical belief" on a par with religion. So the Employment Equality (Religion And Beliefs) Law protects belief in apocalyptic "climate change" but not in Jesus.

As for Muslims, in December Tohseef Shah sprayed the words "KILL GORDON BROWN," "OSAMA IS ON HIS WAY" and "ISLAM WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD" on the war memorial at Burton-upon-Trent. But the Crown Prosecution Service decided his words were not "religiously motivated." Phew! Thank goodness for that, eh? So a week or so back he walked out of court a free man, except for £500 in compensation to the municipal council for cleaning off his non-religiously motivated "ISLAM WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD" graffito.

(O)nce you establish the principle that the state has the right to police ideas, sooner or later one of yours will catch their eye.

posted by Burt @ 6:07 PM