Calton's Easter Message

Calton thinks that the secularist lady Clare on Radio Scotland's Call Kaye program yesterday was at least 30 years out of date with her call to have the influence of religion taken out of schools and the state. You have only to look at the number of people in Scotland's supermarkets, garden centres and DIY stores on Sunday morning and compare it with the number of people in church to realise that Scotland is already a secular state, with more people worshipping the Easter Bunny which lays the chocolate eggs than worshipping the risen Christ. These days, ministers of religion are severely circumscribed in what they can say if invited to school assemblies in state schools and the festivals associated with other religions are celebrated in the classroom in addition to Christmas and Easter. No-one is forcing anyone to believe in any God, however it seems that even the mention of religion is enough to get the secularlists up-in-arms. They are the ones who are intolerant because they will not tolerate anything other than their own secularism, which is becoming increasingly, and worryingly, militant. They also ignore the influence which christianity has had in our history. A nation which forgets where it has come from and what has shaped it is a sorry nation indeed. What we should be aiming for is not a secular society but a tolerant one, where people of all faiths and none are free to live and worship as they wish and wear the symbols of their faith openly and without fear.