Baroness Warsi and "militant secularisation"

Undesired Walrus said:
Widdecombe? Other than being known as the John Sergeant of the last Strictly, I don't think she's really known for anything else.
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Well, she's known for taking on Christopher Hitchins and Stephen Fry in the Intelligence Squared debate on catholicism and failing dismally:



There are five parts, this is the first.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Widdecombe? Other than being known as the John Sergeant of the last Strictly, I don't think she's really known for anything else.
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Are you serious?

Everybody I know knows about her highly public conversion to a hyper-traditional form of Catholicism.
 
She's also known amongst 14 year old schoolchildren for being the subject of the old 'If you were offered 1 million pounds would you sleep with ... would you?' question.

Seriously though, she is barely an influential figure.
 
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geni said:
Who cares? If they want to chant "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" before every meeting that's their business.
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If they want to do it before the meeting, that's fine. Doing it as part of the meeting is the point at issue. Those who don't want to partake must either sit through the mumbo-jumbo or else hang around outside like naughty schoolchildren, still paying attention so they know when the prayers have finished, and then still run the risk of being recorded as arriving late because they were not present for the start of the meeting.
 
zooterkin said:
If they want to do it before the meeting, that's fine. Doing it as part of the meeting is the point at issue. Those who don't want to partake must either sit through the mumbo-jumbo or else hang around outside like naughty schoolchildren, still paying attention so they know when the prayers have finished, and then still run the risk of being recorded as arriving late because they were not present for the start of the meeting.
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We are paying them to attend meetings. I'd prefer that they worked at the meetings and didn't expect me to pay for what should be their personal prayer time at a business meeting.

In my job I travelled around the UK for meetings. I'd have been really hacked off if my boss stopped for prayers every time we met instead of just getting on with it. Why should a council be any different?
 
joolz said:
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

I like the King James version's reference to 'closet' :D
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The closet's the only place I pray to god, but only after a particularly bothersome phaal :eek:
 
geni said:
Why? You don't have to watch them in the council hall if you don't want to.
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Because they draw their remuneration from the taxpayer and no-one should be paid by the taxpayer to pray.

People should talk to their invisible friends on their own time.
 
zooterkin said:
The issue was raised by Clive Bone, who was a council member at the time.
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If you can't put up with your fellow council members doing things that irritate you you are probably not cut out to be a councilor.
 
3point14 said:
Because they draw their remuneration from the taxpayer and no-one should be paid by the taxpayer to pray.
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They aren't. Councillors get expenses. They are hardly required to turn up to meetings which is why you get the odd councillor living in spain.

People should talk to their invisible friends on their own time.
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It is their own time. They are there as elected representatives not as goverment employees. There is an important difference. If you are not going to respect it we could just abolish them and replace them with civil servants.
 
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geni said:
If you can't put up with your fellow council members doing things that irritate you you are probably not cut out to be a councilor.
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I guess that rules all the ones who wanted to pray, too, since they were upset by the court's decision...
 
zooterkin said:
But the person who brought the case to court was.
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So? There is a difference between being upset by what people are saying in the chamber and being upset when people bring in outside agencies in an attempt to enforce their will upon the chamber.
 
geni said:
They aren't. Councillors get expenses. They are hardly required to turn up to meetings which is why you get the odd councillor living in spain.



It is their own time. They are there as elected representatives not as goverment employees. There is an important difference. If you are not going to respect it we could just abolish them and replace them with civil servants.
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Who's paying for the venue they're doing it in?
 
geni said:
So? There is a difference between being upset by what people are saying in the chamber and being upset when people bring in outside agencies in an attempt to enforce their will upon the chamber.
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Oh, so it is OK to get upset by what other council members are doing, depending on what it is? Who gets to decide what things are allowed to irritate you?
 
zooterkin said:
It the time of all the councillors attending the meeting. The ones who do not believe in whichever god is being prayed to should not have to waste their time at ratepayers expense.
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Err wasting their time at a tax payer's expense is a given; it is a council meeting. We accept that allowing them to be less than entirely efficient is a reasonable price to pay in order to have local democracy. Allowing councils freedom of action is far more important than worrying about the feelings of the odd councillor who is offended by Mjölnir. And if it costs the ratepayers a few pounds thats democracy for you. If you don't like it you are free to campain for the abolition of local goverment or councillors who exclusively conduct their meetings by IRC.
 
zooterkin said:
Oh, so it is OK to get upset by what other council members are doing, depending on what it is? Who gets to decide what things are allowed to irritate you?
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My understanding is that at this point it is accepted that there is a difference between speech and lawsuits.
 
3point14 said:
Who's paying for the venue they're doing it in?
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I'm failing to see any relevance. Well unless you are going to propose that we abandon local representative democracy and go either for direct democracy or abolish the whole thing entirely.
 
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