Secular Spectacular

by Johan de Haan --

History is hindsight, and generally our collective sense of awareness fails to recognise the significance of simple events until long after they have occurred. In the past week we were witness to such an event, a flicker on the zeitgeist, a blimp of the secular principles of the free world. An event that revealed that for too long our societies, political structures and judiciaries have paid lip-service to one of the fundamental pillar of our modern communities, the separation of state and religion.

The self-confessed religious English simpleton, Gary McFarlane, who shamelessly maintained that his cherry-picked selections of bronze age morality justified discrimination and prejudice against those of a different sexual orientation had sought court approval for his desire to have his conduct as a counselor bound by the primitive belief that amorous love between people of the same sex is immoral. Indeed, this advocate of absurdism had the support of senior Anglican leadership in the form of one former Archbishop of Cantebury, Lord Carey, in perpetuating this dark age effort at manipulating the English Courts. Apart from confirming once more the intellectual incapacity of senior Anglican figures, and the acarpous hypocrisy of an institution willing to endorse the introduction of Sharia law on the one hand, but maintaining a teenage-like sensitivity to anything sexual, events such as these remind us just how much is at stake in the battle between the religious and secular forces in our societies.

The temptation is to forget just how recent this liberation is, and how close the theocratic wrecking ball is in the shadows that remain. The Lord Justice Laws, the presiding appeal judge hearing the matter, was scathing in his rebuke of both the religious men before him and the principles on which their arguments were based, noting that:

“Law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds… cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.”

The importance of the Judge’s stance is something that one can only appreciate when considered in light of what was being requested, namely, the right of the individual to discriminate against others, without cause or reason other than personal faith-based prejudice. To tolerate such mindlessness in the 21st century and to revert to a theocratic serfdom in which the law is at the behest of the church would have been to undo a crucial victory of our moral consciousness. Any admission or concession to such demands would have been a surrender to the very forces that shaped and continue to shape the primitive and backward communities in which the “word of god” is offered even a semblance of credence.

As liberated individuals, in morality and mind, it is tempting to forget the sacrifice and suffering required to erase the Justinian aversion to ungodliness and the Catholic and Protestant fascination with enforcing the doctrines of the faith. Far too often we fail to acknowledge the significance of living at a time and place when skepticism and criticism are considered and accepted, our children are tendered the right to an objective education and our homes are the sheltered bastions of our own hopes and dreams.

The temptation is to forget just how recent this liberation is, and how close the theocratic wrecking ball is in the shadows that remain. Objectively we ought rebel at the fact that the world’s remaining superpower swears allegiance under (a) god, the Queen of England remains the head of an institution that, for purposes of tradition and symbolism, represents the official religious position of her nation and that the national anthems of many nations are little more than religious hymns. The erosion of religious influences from our societies, governments and judiciaries is far from over, on the contrary, it seems that successes once considered secure have been rendered questionable.

The principled stand of Judge Laws in refusing to bow to religious pressure from church fathers and faith based prejudice from the bleating flock of derelict and outdated institutions which have long since overstayed their welcome, must be welcomed. Indeed, we should take heed in its reminder that we ought oppose all attempts to muddy the waters of human society with myth and legend, that in all things reason and objectivity should form the basis for our decisions and above all, that each and every single human being be allowed both the liberty of choice and the shackles and fruits and flow from it. Indeed, it is for this reason that I write and can do no other.

Filed Under: Johan de Haan , Rants