You may recall a case from a few weeks ago, in which a girl named Lydia Playfoot took her school to the High Court. The school had not allowed her to wear a chastity ring, which she argued was a representation of her religion. Over at the Ministry of Truth, the prolific Unity has pointed out that the girl’s father, and the people who assisted in her Human Rights claim, also run the UK franchise of the Silver Ring Thing (via DK). The court case doubles as a fantastic publicity campaign for the chastity course, which makes money selling the rings and merchandise to those who take the pledge.
This revelation chimes in with the unease many people felt over the Playfoot case, as with the Shabina Begum case two years ago. The idea persists that Lydia was “put up to it” by her father, just as the influence of the hard-line Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir was cited in the Begum case. Personally, I don’t think such “influence” captures the full story in either case – both Lydia Playfoot and Shabina Begum clearly hold strong beliefs and do not seem to be anyone’s puppet.
Nevertheless, I think both cases grate on the consciousness for the same reason, which is that the symbols (ring and Jilbab) evoke a religious imposition of chastity. This in turn is linked to ideas of male ownership of women, and the use of religion to impose control over women. As Mark Morford writes in his discussion of ‘Purity Balls’, this is a distasteful concept in itself, but also one that leads to a “wanton sexual stupidity” that is dangerous and miserable (via Tygerland).
This concern was not the basis on which both Playfoot and Begum eventually lost their cases. Instead, the cases centred around how the expression of their faith impacted on other people. The rights and wrongs of their personal convictions were not questioned, nor was the sincerity of their convictions. Perhaps they should…
Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish has been running a discussion on the genital mutilation of children for religious reasons. While FGM is obviously much worse, Sullivan points out that MGM is still a ‘scarring’ to which the child cannot possibly consent. ‘Consent’ is an interesting word here, since it unites sex and religion once more.
Many countries around the world, including the UK, have an Age of Consent law. By stipulating the age at which one can legally be said to have given consent to sexual relations, it effectively says that children under that age are not capable of making such an important decision for themselves. However, I do not believe such laws exist for the adoption of a religion. This is in many ways odd. Choosing a faith (or none) is arguably a more important decision for a person, than whether to have sex or not. Most religious people cite their faith as the most important thing about them. They would surely be the first to agree that it outweighs the very human choice over whether to indulge in intercourse or not on any given evening.
Its a conundrum for the religionists, who are happy to use the language of choice, responsibility and rights when it comes to promoting their faith, yet deny similar choices can exist for sex and sexuality. I say that if a fourteen year old is old enough to make a decision about their God, then they are also ready to make a decision about sex! Alternatively, if a fourteen year old cannot make a responsible decision about sex, then they cannot possibly make a responsible decision about God. Note how children like Lydia Playfoot are only deemed capbable of making a responsible choice when they choose chastity. In that case, is it any kind of choice at all? Should it be respected in human rights law?
My suggestion is to broaden the definition of the ‘Age of Consent’ to include a consent to religion too. By this rationale, children could still, of course, wear religious symbols in school… but below the age of consent, they would not be deemed, in a legal context, to have chosen to wear those things for themselves. Rather, they have been dressed by their parents. If religionists wish to assimilate young members into their Church, and use their ‘choices’ as the basis of a campaign… then they have to allow those young members the choice to have sex too. Alternatively, if they cannot stomach such a permissive idea, then the religious choices of school-children can no longer be the basis of a Rights campaign in the courts.
Either way, The ‘Age of Consent’ will remain a law designed to protect youngsters from the predatory influence of adults.
Author: Robert (Page 263 of 328)
One thing I have witnessed “first hand” is the anxiety – nay, terror – induced by the shocking MTAS system for appointing junior doctors. Various aspects of the mis-management continue to be discussed in the blogs and in newspapers, including the dumbing-down of the profession and the fact that some people are having to take on lower grade positions.
So, while I can concede that there are dozens of political groups that I could campaign for, I’ve lent my support to the junior doctors at Remedy Scotland by setting up a campaign blog for them. They have quite a focused campaign, with an achievable reform agenda, in a single policy area, so I am hoping that it can be quite incisive. Since so many people in Scotland will be affeced, a fairly disparate group of people will need to be mobilised. I am planning to utilise the full arsenal of Web 2.0 technologies to help spread the message. Expect blog buttons and such things very soon.
Do please visit the site and sign the petition. There is also a protest march planned for mid-July, in Glasgow.
“I have witnessed first-hand” has unfortunately become a terrible political cliche recently, much overused in the leadership campaigns we have seen in the past couple of years. Its a rhetorical device the speaker uses to imply that he knows the mind of whatever group of people he is talking to, or about, and therefore they are important to him.
Its an odd turn of phrase, because most acts of governing deal in things that cannot be witnessed first hand. The skill is not to sympathise with some terrible event that you have seen personally (that’s easy), but to use your imagination to put yourself inside the head of someone you have not met. Otherwise, it becomes an exercise in crass popularism, with policy being formed and resources allocated to whichever story of difficulty happens to reach the politician first.
I actually get very annoyed with people who dismiss an argument with “you don’t know what its like.” Being in the majority (politically speaking) of pretty much every group you care to think of, I’m an easy target and the ad hominem rolls off the tongue. It is an annoying verbal trick, because its actually not true. When we use the word like, we are talking about similies. Arguably, the whole point of language is to use similies to try and convey what is going on in our own heads, by likening the feelings we experience to something more universal. So I while I don’t know what it is to be black, or disabled, or gay, or a woman (say), I can at least know what its like… because people can describe it to me. Within a society that has a shared language and experiences, this should be fairly easy. It is a little more difficult when you cross societal or language barriers, but there are always people who bridge the divide, who can articulate what it is like to be them. So not being of a particular group should not necessarily be a barrier to engaging with that group.
What this is not, however, is an argument for maintaining the status quo in our representative bodies, where women and ethnic minorities are woefully under-represented. When seeking to understand how someone different from you actually thinks, the key task is to listen, which politicians don’t. Further, they tend to have their own agendas. In such situations, only diversity in our representation can lead to a diversity of views.
Update
On a not-quite-related point, the International Herald Tribune has an interesting article on the new uses of the word ‘like’.
Now I know why its called the Grauniad. Today’s front page heralds the new Labour Party leadership with a photo of the happy couple.
A victorious Harriet Harman joins Gordon Blair on stage in Manchester.
With all this talk about Tony Blair taking on some role as a Middle-East envoy for the US, no-one seems to have remembered that he will still be a Labour MP after he steps down as Prime Minister on Wednesday. He won’t be able to go galavanting off to Palestine if Gordon Brown’s whips’ office needs him for a crucial division on housing reform.
The only way he will be able to take George Bush up on his offer is if he resigns as an MP, forcing a by-election… or if Prime Minister Brown calls an early election. Perhaps Tony knows something we don’t…