Now crisps. What next?

In an episode worthy of the best Monty Python sketch, a group calling itself “Protect the Pope” has intimidated Pret a Manger so much that they’ve withdrawn a range of crisps for sale.

Funnily enough, I thought I was living in a democracy in the UK, not some form of medieval theocracy. Courtesy of The Independent:

The sandwich chain Pret A Manger has caved into religious protests and withdrawn its new Virgin Mary crisps. The own-brand variety was pulled from the shelves after a campaign led by the Catholic organisation Protect the Pope. Catholics had complained the name was offensive because of the reference to Christ’s mother, despite it also being the common name for the non-alcoholic version of the Bloody Mary cocktail.

They’re even flavoured the same as a Bloody Mary and there was no religious iconography on the packaging (that’s “pictures”, for you poorly educated scared religious zealots). Will “Protect the Pope” now visit every bar in the UK protesting every time they encounter “Virgin Mary” on the cocktail list?

Here’s a thought, guys. Instead of kicking up a fuss about packets of crisps in your efforts to “Protect the Pope”, how about reflecting on the massive child abuse committed by the very same religion you’re trying to foist on the rest of us. It’s not the pope that needs protecting, it’s the children exposed to the hate-filled nonsense you’re peddling.

Here’s another thought. You can certainly be offended at what a business like Pret does. What you don’t understand is that you don’t have the right to force your ideals on the rest of society. Take all that pent-up frustration that we’re not living in a fundamentalist state and do something useful with it. Something that might go so way to make up for the untold hurt and suffering your clergy inflicted on children all over the world.

I’m sure if you weren’t so selective in your interpretation of the bible, you might find a few passages about turning the other cheek, helping the poor and needy and so on.

An utter nonsense

I’m sorry to say even the BBC jumped on the bandwagon today and trumpeted “British Airways   discriminated against Christian”. To me, it demonstrates that they – and most other media outlets – missed the main lesson shared in Strasbourg today – it’s not acceptable to use your own religious belief as an excuse for discriminating against others.

Forget the BA employee and her medieval attachment to a religious icon. Let her wear her cross. She’s a distraction, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s focus on the other cases heard at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg today.

They included someone who refused to conduct civil partnership ceremonies for gay couples and a counsellor who refused to counsel gay couples. Both of these people lost their cases, upholding the law that makes illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Let’s celebrate this common sense decision and challenge the belief that Christians are somehow discriminated against in this country. There is absolute freedom of religion, but there is no freedom to use your archaic beliefs to restrict the rights of others.

Isn’t it interesting though, that with all the chaos and disaster in this world, even in this country, it’s the fact that two people of the same gender want to express their love for one another that has the religious so up in arms.

He must resign

The scandal of clerical child abuse in Ireland has shown the Catholic Church up for what it really is – a self-serving organisation that views its own laws and members as being above the laws of the countries in which it operates. The fact that bishops, archbishops and cardinals actively hid instances of child abuse from the authorities in Ireland for most of the 20th Century, moving paedophiles from parish to parish illustrates the contempt they have for civil law and the wellbeing of the children in their care. The reputation of the Catholic church was their prime concern, canon law taking precedence over the law of the State.

You’ve been a very naughty boy…

I had to remind myself what year it was the other day. I’m not losing my mental faculties, but was slightly worried that I’d either been plunged back into the dark ages or had somehow missed some sort of fundamentalist religious coup. Why? Well, it would appear that one Cherie Blair was taking religious belief into account when sentencing a man for a violent crime. That is, she spared him a jail sentence because he believed in god:

The former prime minister’s wife, who sits as a judge as Cherie Booth QC, told Shamso Miah that she would suspend his prison sentence because he was a “religious man”.

Miah, a devout Muslim, had been convicted of breaking a man’s jaw with two punches after a dispute in a bank queue in East Ham, London. The 25-year-old had gone to the bank from a local mosque.

Miss Booth, who has made no secret of her strong Roman Catholic faith, appeared to indicate that she was taking into account Miah’s religious beliefs as she opted for a lenient sentence.

“I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before,” she told him at Inner London Crown Court.

“You caused a mild fracture to the jaw of a member of the public standing in a queue at Lloyds Bank. You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour.”

This is wrong on any number of levels. Firstly, religion (or more accurately, professed religious belief) should have no bearing in a trial that does not have matters of religious belief at its very core (e.g. a religiously-motivated hate crime, religious discrimination claim etc.). This man, muslim or not, was guilty of a violent physical attack on another person and should have felt the full force of the law. Cherie Booth decided she knew better and spared him prison time because he was a “religious person”.

Secondly, as an atheist, should I be worried that the converse will also be true in future court cases? Will a lack of religious belief condemn me to a harsher punishment? Should I decide to stoop to Miah’s level and knock six bells out of someone on the street, will I automatically go to jail because I don’t go to a church/mosque/temple?

Finally, and most worryingly, is this evidence of a new trend of legal decision-makers projecting their own religious beliefs into the sentencing process? Will co-religionists go easier on convicted criminals because they believe in the same imaginary friend? Will they use the same “you should have known better” argument as Booth?

Shouldn’t this logic work in reverse if they really believe in what they profess? That is, as a convicted violent criminal, a religious man who claims to know right from wrong, you should know better and as a result I’m sending you to jail.

The bottom line: in a secular society, citizens should stand equal before the law, irrespective of where they thing we all came from and where we’re going to.

I’m happy to learn that the National Secular Society has made an official complaint to the Office for Judicial Complaints. I don’t anticipate Cherie Booth making any form of apology – I’m not even sure it’s possible without adversely impacting the conviction in this case. But I also don’t think we should sit silently while religion’s influence is felt in secular offices such as the court room.