There’s another major flaw in Cardinal O’Brien’s arguments against gay marriage. In his article he says “No Government has the moral authority to dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage.” He seems to believe that there is some immutable definition of marriage that has always been true and that he is bravely defending. Let’s examine… Continue reading What Is Marriage?
Tag: politics
Marriage in the UDHR
In his article arguing against gay marriage, Cardinal Keith O’Brien twice referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, saying that article 16 clearly defined marriage as a relationship between a man and woman. In my response to his article I made the assumption that he, at least, knew what he was talking about here… Continue reading Marriage in the UDHR
We Cannot Afford To Indulge This Madness
By “this madness”, of course, I mean religious leaders talking about what society wants without bothering to ask them. The latest example is this piece in the Telegraph by Cardinal Keith O’Brien. Let’s take a close look at what he says. The Government is this month launching a consultation on same-sex marriage, asking the public… Continue reading We Cannot Afford To Indulge This Madness
Nadine Dorries: Just Say No
Today was the day that parliament had a rather long list of private members bills to debate. Originally there were sixty-four on the list. As this informative post from Kerry McCarthy tells us, they’d normally expect to get through about three of them. The MPs sponsoring the rest of the bills were pretty much wasting… Continue reading Nadine Dorries: Just Say No
Pod Delusion Plug
It’s Friday, which means there’s a new episode of the Pod Delusion out. I’m plugging it because I’m in it. The first report is me talking about Nadine Dorries and her bizarre opinions of humanism. There’s another story about her too as the Pod Delustion’s editor, James O’Malley interviews New Humanist’s Paul Sims about her… Continue reading Pod Delusion Plug
Dorries on Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism. That’s how Wikipedia starts its article on Humanism. Humanists (and I count myself as one) believe… Continue reading Dorries on Humanism
MPs on Twitter
Did you ever make a chance remark that plants a seed of an idea which then grabs hold of you and refuses to let you go until you’ve done something about it? That happened to me on Sunday. I was cleaning up some broken feeds on Planet Westminster when I tweeted: Cleaning up some broken… Continue reading MPs on Twitter
MPs and Facts
When an MP is in a discussion and mentions a fact to back up their argument, it would be nice if you knew that you could trust that fact. Unfortunately that’s often not the case. To pick an example at random, here’s Nadine Dorries from last week’s Any Questions (the link will work for a… Continue reading MPs and Facts
Alternative Vote
Tomorrow the UK will go to the polls to decide whether we want to replace our current “First Past The Post” voting system with the Alternative Vote. Before you go to the polling station, I’d like to take some time to correct some misinformation that seems to have inadvertently been spread by various members of… Continue reading Alternative Vote
Homeopathy Petition Response
A year ago, the House of Commons science and technology committee published the results of its evidence check on homeopathy. The committee’s findings were unequivocal and the report strongly recommended against the NHS continuing to waste money on treatments that did nothing. Soon after that I set up a petition asking the government to implement… Continue reading Homeopathy Petition Response