Biased Broadcasting Corporation scorns Christian license fee payers

This morning's discussion on BBC Radio Scotland's Morning Call was on whether or not the TV licence fee was worth it. After having heard yet another instance of biased reporting on Radio Scotland's Newsdrive this afternoon, Calton would have to say no, the licence fee is not worth it. (Not that he pays it, the eyrie thankfully not being on TV Licensing's database and him not having a TV anyway.) In a item about a proposed conscience clause for Northern Ireland's equality legislation, both presenter Laura Maxwell and interviewee Eamonn Mallie were clearly opposed to any attempt to accommodate strongly-held religious beliefs within NI's equality law and no other viewpoint was put across. Mallie is entitled to air his views but he should have been balanced by another interviewee who supported the clause. Maxwell, as newsreader, was not entitled to air her personal views. Newsdrive should not be a vehicle for presenters to put forward their personal opinions. They are there to present the news in a balanced, non-biased way, bearing in mind that they are being funded by over 90% of households via the TV licence and not all of those households agree with their trendy-lefty PC views. Mallie should have been challenged on the very slanted and inaccurate way he presented the story. Instead of doing this, Maxwell was only too happy to support him in his biased report which was, quite frankly, bigoted against Christians. The sooner supporting the BBC financially becomes a choice for viewers and listeners, the better.

Police Scotland - making it up as they go along?

It seems that Police Scotland have unilaterally decided that the Bible is illegal, or, at least, the Gospel of John, which is what a street preacher was quoting from when he was arrested in Perth on Wednesday. Actually, it seems that officers were making up laws on the hoof as, according to preacher Josh Williamson, they first of all complained that he was too loud, then told him that the noise level was not an issue but someone had made a complaint and then, finally, that the content of his message was illegal before arresting him for breach of the peace. They also arrested another man who protested against Williamson's arrest on the grounds that it was a denial of free speech. Now, as Calton understands it, the Police are meant to uphold the law, not invent it. Preaching the gospel is not a criminal offence in Scotland. Williamson was not using amplifiers and was willing to tone his voice down to an acceptable volume if asked to do so. Unfortunately it seems that the Police were determined to stop Williamson preaching and were grasping at any excuse to do so. We still have freedom of speech in this country but only if the Police do not take the law into their own hands. Calton is in total agreement with Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of Christian Legal Centre, who has said of this latest arrest that “Freedom of speech is a precious freedom that we must uphold. This injustice must be tackled to halt the chilling effect already felt by many Christians. The threat to freedom of speech is a concern for wider society, not just for Christians. ... It’s evident that police all over the UK need clear guidance on this matter. ... It’s up to police chiefs to take a lead and issue guidelines so that this stops happening.” Calton also wonders if Williamson would have been arrested had he been preaching from the Koran.

PC gone mad at Strathclyde HQ

Interesting that in all the hand-wringing, analyses and excuses no-one is mentioning the fact that over half the voters in Eastleigh chose candidates who are opposed to same-sex marriage. Ditto the EU. Perhaps if Conservative candidate Maria Hutchings had been able to be more vocal about her Euro-scepticism and support for traditional marriage she might not have been pushed into third place by UKIP. Unfortunately it is all too easy for Cameron to dismiss this as a 'protest vote' and a typical mid-term by-election result. Calton is wondering what his excuse will be in 2015.

In another, related, vein, it has come to Calton's attention that the Crazy Rev has been sacked as Chaplain to Strathclyde Police for expressing support for traditional marriage on his personal blog. What on earth did the Force expect? He's a Minister of the Gospel for God's sake! This is political correctness gone mad with a vengeance. Are they also going to sack all the Roman Catholic chaplains? And the Moslem ones, if they have any? Does the spiritual health and comfort of Roman Catholic or Evangelical Christian or Moslem coppers not matter any more? And whatever happened to freedom of speech? This is a very worrying development, especially for bloggers. Where will it end?

A double-edged sword

Given that Pope Benedict XVI is an enthusiastic promoter of the 'new evangelism', by which the Roman Catholic Church aims to bring straying sheep back into its fold, and, given that one of the fattest of those sheep is the Church of England, the fact that David Cameron recently gave the Pope a copy of the Authorised (King James) Version of the Bible is particularly apposite, as Archbishop Cranmer has already noted. Calton agrees with His Grace that Cameron probably didn't realise the significance of the gift but someone, somewhere obviously wanted to send a 'hands off our church' message to His Holiness (who seems to be described as 'that man of sin' if Calton reads the introduction to his copy of the AV aright). What is clear, is that the translators of the AV considered it of first importance that the people of Great Britain should have a translation of God's Holy Truth in their own language and they looked to King James VI & I to support and protect them in this endeavour. Now, Cameron is hell-bent on introducing legislation which will cause those who believe in all of God's Holy Truth, as expressed in the Bible, to be discriminated against and criminalised. He seems to have forgotten one of the other descriptions of God's Word - 'sharper than any double-edged sword'.

Unassisted suicide

The Church of Scotland is doing a good job of committing suicide without any assistance as it tears itself apart over, first of all, gay ministers, and now, Margo MacDonald's resuscitated end-of-life bill. Calton has already made his views known concerning the latter. Is it too much to ask that the nation's church stands up and speaks with one voice for the weak and vulnerable, not to mention the 6th commandment? Who will take their place if they abdicate that responsibility? Yet again, the argument for assisted suicide seems to be based on feelings rather than rational thought. Margo has said that this is not a moral issue. Has the word 'moral' been redefined recently? Calton would not be surprised, given that our politicians have decided to redefine 'marriage'. Even the Chambers 21st Century Dictionary is not safe from their Orwellian tendencies.

It wis the SNP

If St Margaret's adoption agency was the only one in Scotland, there might be a case for removing its charitable status unless it was willing to provide a service for all types of potential adopters. As it is, the Roman Catholic organisation does valuable work in placing needy children with families and should not have its charitable status withdrawn, in Calton's opinion. Couples or individuals turned down by the agency can always go elsewhere to adopt. They have choice. The charity exists primarily to help vulnerable children, not gay or unmarried couples, and if they decide that heterosexual married couples are likely to provide the best home for the children they seek to place, that should be respected. Other adoption agencies may take a different view. That's called diversity. Unfortunately, what we have at present is more like equality fascism and there's no point in the likes of Mike Russell wringing his hands over St Margaret's when his party are busy promoting same-sex marriage which, if passed at Holyrood, will usher in even greater intolerance towards the Roman Catholic Church than we have at present. The SNP crossed the road to pick a fight with the Roman Catholics. They can't now say "ah didnae mean it, it wisnae me".

An unconstitutional bill

Sovereignty and self-determination - one way or another they are filling the news these days. Unfortunately some of our politicians don't seem to have grasped the meaning of the words. Cameron has been forced into a referendum promise on the EU because many people feel that we have given away too much sovereignty to Europe. Alex Salmond wants self-determination for Scotland, only to hand it to Brussels instead of London. As Calton understands it, the reason why we don't allow our Monarch to be a Roman Catholic is because Roman Catholics are subject to the Pope, who is not only the Head of the Roman Catholic Church but is also the Head of the Vatican State. If our Monarch was Roman Catholic, it would put our Sovereignty under the rule of the Vatican. (And the Head of the Church of England under the Pope.) So Cameron wants to repatriate powers from Brussels only to potentially hand them to Rome at some future date by abolishing the ban on successors to the throne marrying Roman Catholics. Saying that any children from such a union will not be brought up as Roman Catholics is a nonsense because any decent Roman Catholic will want to educate their children in the Roman Catholic faith. Calton is all for changing the rules of succession to stop girls being ousted by younger brothers but any other change needs to be properly scrutinised, not rushed through parliament without debate, as Cameron and Clegg are now doing. Otherwise the constitutional consequences could be profound. (For more on those consequences read this article by Cranmer.)


PS. Calton often thinks that it would be no bad thing if the Church of England was disestablished, but there's no point in doing so just to replace it with the Church of Rome.

It's a bit rich Dave

It's a bit rich for David Cameron to say that people "shouldn't suffer discrimination due to religious beliefs" after Nadia Eweida won her case at the European Court of Human Rights. This is the man whose government did not support Eweida and three other Christians when they claimed that the government failed to protect their human rights. This is the man whose decision to go ahead with same-sex marriage legislation will cause many Christians, and those of other faiths, to be discriminated against in the workplace, when they try to adopt or foster children, when they object to their children being taught that homosexual marriage is equal to heterosexual marriage. This is the man on whose watch Christians have been demoted or sacked because they do not agree with same-sex marriage and street preachers have been arrested for simply quoting from the Bible. Cameron plays the 'Christian' card when it suits him but Calton, for one, isn't buying it. Handsome is as handsome does Dave.

Calton's New Year Homily

If you accept an offer of employment from a company, you need to abide by the conditions of employment imposed by that company. If you don't like them, you are free to find another job. If you want to join a political party, you need to subscribe to the beliefs of that particular party. Otherwise, don't join. If your interest is knitting, don't join the local motorcycle gang and expect them to abandon their bikes in favour of knitting needles. We all understand that. So why do people who don't accept the Bible's teaching on homosexuality join organisations which are based on the teachings of the Bible? No-one is forcing them to do so - they have a choice. There's nothing to stop them forming their own organisations based on their own beliefs. Perhaps Calton is being simplistic but it seems to him that if you don't like the rules of the group, find another group or start your own. If everyone adopted that philosophy, the Church of England would not be in its current ridiculous position vis-a-vis homosexual Bishops. Alternatively, if the CofE were not so hell-bent on maintaining unity, it would have split long ago and both sides could now be concentrating on other more important things. There's a limit to how diverse an organisation can be before it loses its fundamental cohesiveness and/or its raison d'etre. It is maybe presumptuous of Calton to pontificate on the problems of the CofE since he is not a member of that, or indeed any, church, however, if he was able to give advice to His Grace, who has temporarily taken over the reins at Lambeth Palace, it would be to acknowledge the fault lines which already exist and pave the way for an amicable split. Because this is one of the few instances where divorce really is better than continued bickering.

Better never than late

It's good to see that Barclays and Coutts have decided to withdraw sponsorship from the Stonewall awards next year unless the 'Bigot' award is dropped however it beggars belief that they did not know what they were sponsoring this year given that Nationwide, one of last year's sponsors, withdrew after getting serious flak over their involvement. Their move today smacks of damage limitation in the face of a media storm. Stonewall do good work in preventing bullying of homosexuals, however, when they use the term 'bigot' to try and censure the speech of those who don't agree with them, they become the bully. Unfortunately for them, they picked the wrong target in Cardinal O'Brien. Nobody, Calton least of all, would have objected if they'd picked whoever said that gay people should be shot dead but the Cardinal's comments on gay marriage are not in the same category. His comments may be offensive to homosexuals but many people are deeply unhappy with the idea of marriage being redefined and feel that the Cardinal speaks for them. In labelling him a bigot, Stonewall also labels them bigots. Such name-calling only widens the gulf between the two sides of the debate and the fact that Ruth Davidson got booed for objecting to the 'Bigot' award at the Stonewall event reveals the petty nature of some of Stonewall's supporters. Stonewall would do well to dissociate itself from such people.

An almighty stushie

There is an unholy row going on over in Glasgow at the moment over the ownership of St George's Tron Kirk. Glasgow Presbytery has decided to replace the current vibrant congregation which ministers to the needs of that part of the city centre with another "vibrant congregation ... ministering to the needs of that part of the city centre", the difference being that the current lot don't agree with the Church of Scotland's stance on practising homosexual clergy whereas the proposed replacement bunch would presumably toe the CofS line. Where the new congregation is going to come from, in these days of dwindling church attendance, doesn't seem to figure in the Presbytery's calculations. Nor do they seem to realise that, by grabbing the building and all the congregation's finances, they are sending out a signal to all parishioners everywhere that it's not worth putting money into your local church because it is liable to be appropriated and you could well find yourself out in the cold if you don't agree with the Kirk in all matters, temporal and spiritual. Calton suspects that we will see a lot more old churches being converted into pubs, clubs and carpet warehouses in the next few years as the Church of Scotland self-destructs.

SNP suffering from selective deafness

Calton has a lot of sympathy for Cardinal Keith O' Brien, who has decided to stop talking directly to the Scottish Government over the issue of same-sex marriage. The latter have completely ignored all the postcards sent in by individual Roman Catholics in response to their consultation, ostensibly because they all say the same thing but in reality because they don't say what the Scottish Government wants to hear. If people take the time and effort to sign a postcard, put a stamp on it and post it why should that not count? Not everyone has access to the internet or is computer literate. Many people are not comfortable with filling in an online form. Why is their contribution to the consultation worth less because it was done in an old-fashioned way? It seems that the Government is discriminating against older people, since it is they who are less likely to respond using the internet. The Government is also discriminating against those who didn't feel confident about putting their views into their own words and so used the pre-printed postcards which their church provided for them. If you include all the postcards, the majority of those responding to the Scottish Government's consultation on same-sex marriage were against it. The SNP are now going against the wishes of that majority because they have a majority in the Scottish Parliament and they think they can do as they please. They should remember who put them there.

Open season on Christians at the BBC

Libby Purves is entitled to her opinions on assisted suicide and other matters and she is entitled to air them on Radio Scotland. What she is not entitled to do is label as 'bigots' those who happen to disagree with her. Such ignorant and inflammatory language does nothing to further reasoned and rational debate and Calton is surprised that Kaye Adams let Dr Purves get away with it unchallenged. Maybe he shouldn't be, given that Kaye very quickly stepped in to shut up a caller who was making remarks which might have been offensive to homosexuals recently but let the following caller indulge in an extended rant against Christians without any attempt to curtail him. Yet another example of the open season on Christians at the Biased Broadcasting Corporation, where some are clearly more equal than others when it comes to being protected against offence.

Dawkins - deluded into believing he is God?

It seems a bit rich of Richard Dawkins to accuse the Wee Frees and their fellow Christians, on the one hand, of blind panic regarding his invite to the Faclan Hebridean Book Festival and yet, on the other hand, to turn down an invite to debate with one of them, saying that it would not look good on his CV. What is he afraid of? That his atheist beliefs will not stand up to the scrutiny of a public debate? As a defender of free speech, Calton has no problem with Dawkins being invited to the faith-themed festival but he can't expect to go and promote atheism in one of the last bastions of Scottish Presbyterianism without being challenged, any more than the Presbies can impose their brand of Calvinism on the rest of us unchallenged. That's the nature of democracy. Or has Dawkins not so much done away with God, as become a god himself?

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.