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1 month ago
10
I was struck by a conversation on LBC last week, which followed the news that several Premier League footballers refused to wear armbands representing gay pride.
It went like this.
Caller: “Marriage is to be between one man and one woman… and that is something that’s good and right for our society. And therefore that stands very clearly in juxtaposition to what is being promoted through gay pride and this flag.” She added that she should be “free to say” that this is the “best way to live”.
Harassed presenter: “I agree with you, of course… well, um, it’s a way of living… you have a moral hierarchy, based on your beliefs… I understand…”
What was odd about this is just how uncomfortable the presenter seemed with the caller’s views: his tone belied his words. If so, why did he not feel able to speak up for gay rights? The answer? The caller was religious, the CEO of Christian Concern, an evangelical non-profit organisation. Had the presenter been talking to a non-believer, you might imagine his response would be more vigorous. But he appeared to be caught in a dilemma. Defend one group and risk insulting another.
We prefer not to notice a problem with religion, which is that beliefs often clash with liberal values. The rule of thumb – at least in a progressive democracy – should be that in a pinch the first should give way to the second. Everyone should be free to practise the religion they choose: that is rightly enshrined in law. But if women’s rights, gay rights and free speech are not defended against ancient moral codes and traditional practices, countries grow illiberal rather fast. Fear of upsetting religious types is making us too cautious. We should stand up harder.
We can’t blame a radio presenter for being caught on the hop by an opinionated caller. But people who should be well versed on this sort of thing have been tiptoeing around the issues too. Last week in parliament a Labour MP went so far as to call for blasphemy laws – which would run directly against free speech. Rather than challenge the point, Keir Starmer murmured in vague agreement and then sat down again. Such laws are unlikely to be on the way, but why didn’t the prime minister feel moved to defend such a fundamental democratic principle?
Then again, we don’t hear many arguments facing down religion on principle these days. Strident atheism has long fallen out of fashion in Britain. It’s around two decades since the heyday of “new atheism”, when books by the self-styled “four horsemen” dominated bestseller lists: Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, and Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great. This bombastic group toured talkshows and conferences, claiming that religion should be criticised, countered and defeated by rational argument. But their popularity has waned. Amid rising atheism and dwindling congregations in Britain, it seemed to many that religion was the harmless underdog – no great threat to civilisation. The new atheists, left hectoring confused bishops, seemed to be fighting a war that had long been won.
But consider this. The Church of England employs 20,000 people – it is roughly the size of the BBC. Yet unlike other public or private institutions, this employer is still permitted, by law, to openly discriminate against women, barring them from high-status jobs on the basis of their sex. It was only 10 years ago that women were finally allowed to become bishops after years of agonised hair-tearing from male colleagues. But churches are still perfectly within their rights to refuse applications from female vicars or priests, and they can still reject the authority of female bishops if they choose, getting a “flying” male one to stand in instead.
About 42% of Britons describe themselves as Christian; our second largest denomination is Catholicism. This church lags even further behind when it comes to gender equality. Last week Catholic women were urged to go on strike from church duties to protest against years of stagnation on the issue of whether they can become deacons. Fraught discussions among the clergy have centred on the worry that if women are allowed to be deacons, it is only a matter of time before they will become priests. Imagine.
Both churches, meanwhile, are guilty of flagrant discrimination against gay colleagues. The Catholic church has dictated that men with “deep-rooted homosexual tendencies” cannot be ordained as priests; those with “transitory” gay “leanings” may only become deacons after three years of prayer and chastity. If Church of England clergy want to get a civil partnership, they must first vow not to have sex.
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There’s no way around it: in this country, many places of worship are by their nature hotbeds of prejudice. In any other employer this behaviour would have long been blasted out of existence. But in the shelter of religion, it lingers. Why do we tolerate it?
Does the problem seem too contained to worry about? Perhaps it’s hard to get worked up about the career paths of a few members of the clergy. But the effects of bigotry spread, from clergy to parishioner, and into the community at large. It is disgraceful that Britain’s state church – monarch as its head – still does not allow gay marriage 10 years after it was legalised. When Pope Francis used a gay slur earlier this year, it should have been no surprise to anyone familiar with his faith – its position is that gay sex is sinful.
Is it time for strident atheism to make a comeback? Without robust opposition to keep them in check, troubling views can spread further still. I was fascinated to read a New Republic article entitled “Is the New Atheism Dead?”, published in 2015. It argued that in America the work of secularists was mostly done: on social issues, believers were coming into alignment with everyone else. Just seven years later, as a consequence of the rise of the Christian right, Roe v Wade was overturned.
