Tuesday, November 02, 2004 AD
Religious freedom update
Some people have suggested that the controversy over Rocco Buttiglione - a Roman Catholic who has been forced to stand down as Italy's nominee for the new European Commission after his description of homosexuality as a "sin" caused a political furore, with the European Parliament on the verge of rejecting the entire Commission in order to get rid of Mr Buttiglione - means that Christians who hold to biblical teachings on sexuality, as confessed by the church for 2,000 years, are facing exclusion from high political office in Europe.
I had been thinking of posting something along the same lines myself, but in the end I couldn't find a way to do so without sounding a bit hysterical and paranoid. But as the old saying has it, just because you're paranoid, that don't mean they're not out to get you, and in the Times last week, Matthew Parris rather gave the game away when he wrote:
Moore argues that the Buttiglione affair shows how the European Union is increasingly coming to bear not only on the economic issues for which it was originally founded, but also on cultural and moral issues. The aim is not merely to create a free-trade area or to promote cooperation between nations; it is to create a new pan-European culture in which anything contrary to "European values" is excluded.
The new European Constitution (signed on Friday) will entrench a human rights culture whose cardinal points Moore summarises as follows:
I had been thinking of posting something along the same lines myself, but in the end I couldn't find a way to do so without sounding a bit hysterical and paranoid. But as the old saying has it, just because you're paranoid, that don't mean they're not out to get you, and in the Times last week, Matthew Parris rather gave the game away when he wrote:
I say: enough of tolerance. I do not tolerate religious superstition, not when it refuses to tolerate me. Sweep it from the corridors of power. I do not pay my taxes for a Europe which can "tolerate" a hardline Italian mate of Silvio Berlusconi and the Pope who takes to his job as Justice Commissioner the belief that tens of millions of Europeans such as me are sinners because we are gay, or that single mothers are "not very good" — or who adds that women should spend less time working and more time having babies.Parris went on to describe Mr Buttiglione as a "bad apple" who, in view of his stated beliefs, could not be trusted to come out with the right answers on abortion, divorce, contraception or the immigration rights of same-sex partners. He continues:
Kick him out.
Signor Buttiglione claims that he has been the victim of anti-Christian discrimination. This brings us to the ethical battle. I shall take sides, no doubt demonstrating my own unfitness for the role of Justice Commissioner. I think Signor Buttiglione has indeed been the the victim of anti-Christian discrimination, and that such discrimination is now in order.Parris makes it clear that liberal Christians who take a more enlightened view on these issues may be tolerated in the new European order ("there are Christians and Christians"), though it seems that even they will need to be subjected to "special scrutiny". However, within the mainstreams of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism "are to be found core beliefs which now lie right outside the mainstream of modern European thought":
Catholic, evangelical Christian, Orthodox Judaic and Muslim teaching on homosexuality and divorce; much Muslim practice as to the status of women; some Hindu teaching on caste; and Catholic teaching on contraception and abortion are unacceptable and insulting, not only to me but also to the majority of Europeans, and the overwhelming majority of educated Europeans.Charles Moore in the Telegraph responded to Parris' uncharacteristic diatribe (uncharacteristic because, as Moore points out, Parris is "a brilliant writer and usually a thoughtful, humane man").
Moore argues that the Buttiglione affair shows how the European Union is increasingly coming to bear not only on the economic issues for which it was originally founded, but also on cultural and moral issues. The aim is not merely to create a free-trade area or to promote cooperation between nations; it is to create a new pan-European culture in which anything contrary to "European values" is excluded.
The new European Constitution (signed on Friday) will entrench a human rights culture whose cardinal points Moore summarises as follows:
[It] obsesses about wheelchair access but not about abortion, about asbestos but not pornography. [Its proponents] like positive discrimination (the charter explicitly says so), dislike national independence.Some people have complained about the refusal to recognise God in the new European Constitution (though "humanism" gets a lot of positive mentions in the preamble). Charles Moore disagrees:
[A]s a Christian, I feel relief that the judges and officials imposing this rule on us will not be acting in the name of my beliefs. The enemy is in plain view. Some regret that God has been given no place in the European Constitution, but I have a lot of respect for Him, and my guess is that He will be able to get over the disappointment.
