The Right to Say “No”

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FormerlyGay has picked up on a news story in California:

California’s highest court on Monday barred doctors from invoking their religious beliefs as a reason to deny treatment to gays and lesbians, ruling that state law prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination extends to the medical profession.

The ruling was unanimous and a succinct 18 pages, a contrast to the state Supreme Court’s 4-3 schism in May legalizing gay marriage.

Justice Joyce Kennard wrote in the ruling that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state’s law, which "imposes on business establishments certain antidiscrimination obligations."

In the lawsuit that led to the ruling, Guadalupe Benitez, 36, of Oceanside said that the doctors treated her with fertility drugs and instructed her how to inseminate herself at home but told her their beliefs prevented them from inseminating her. One of the doctors referred her to another fertility specialist without moral objections and Benitez has since given birth to three children.

Nevertheless, Benitez in 2001 sued the Vista-based North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group. She and her lawyers successfully argued that a state law prohibiting businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation applies to doctors.

FormerlyGay had this to say:

Now look. I’m fat and I’m disabled and I was once gay. If that’s not the trifecta of discrimination, I don’t know what is. In terms of mental anguish for someone refusing to treat you themselves and referring you to another provider who will provide those services free and clear — frankly, you got off rather well. There are other people who would provide you poor service, if any, and there are others who would make sure you were as uncomfortable as possible. That they told you to move along is sad and ignorant, defnitely not a Christ-like example, but the results could have been so very much worse.

However. And this is a big freakin’ caveat:

What if it’s not just insemination services the next time? What if it’s breast cancer? A virus? HIV? What if it’s a disease where days and hours make a difference between life and death? There is a “morning after” pill available from pharmacists if you think that you have been accidentally exposed to the HIV virus that makes contracting the disease less likely. If a pharmacist declines to issue you those medications because they don’t approve of your “lifestyle,” that moral judgment they make could have a direct and disastrous impact on your health!

Hmmmm. Here’s my response:

Can I offer another perspective? Here in the UK legislation has been passed that forces adoption agencies to treat same-sex couples identically to other couples, not permitting them to not offer children for adoption because of religious beliefs. The Roman Catholic adoption agencies offered to refer any same-sex couples that came to them to other agencies, but the Government wouldn’t have any of it. The result is that most of the RC adoption agencies are going to shut down rather than violate their consciences.

Surely such a decision (to refer a client to someone else when there is a clash with your conscience AND the condition is not requiring immediate action) is different to denying emergency medical treatment? I also can’t see the similarity between this and treating cancer, HIV etc, because in each case the treatment of the illness doesn’t in any way support directly an unholy lifestyle?

I’m the first to pull conservatives up for behaviour that is blatantly homophobic, but in this case I think the point you are trying to make is stretched slightly.

It’s a subject that I’ve written on before and I’m still divided on what I actually think. I’m opposed to discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, but I’m also in favour of those with traditional religious beliefs being allowed to hold them in conscience.

What do you think?

Austria - How would *you* vote?

Here’s an interesting exercise, especially for my more conservative (politically or theologically) friends. Wahlkabine has a questionaire that you can fill in to work out which party you would vote for in the Austrian elections. Click on the link and then click the huge "Starten" button. Don’t worry if your German isn’t up to scratch, I’ve translated the questions for you below. In the questionaire you can tick whether you agree, disagree or aren’t bothered about a question, and also how important you think it is.

My results were as follows:

BZÖ	9
FPÖ	-15
ÖVP	-24
SPÖ	-38
Greens	-51
Communists	-79
Liberals	-86

Remember, the BZÖ and the FPÖ are the two "right-wing" parties. Does that result confirm your worse suspicions about me, or come as some surprise (i.e. you know that I’m kinda moderate and that therefore the fact that my views are similar to these two parties is interesting)?

I’d be interested if you took the questionaire and then posted your results below, with an indication of how you normally vote in your own homeland elections. My suspicion is that many conservatives are going to be surprised at how moderate the two "right-wing" Austrian parties actually are.

Over to you.

1. Should taxes go up for the wealthy to help fight poverty in Austria?
2. Should new fathers receive one month’s fully paid paternity leave?
3. Should criminals without Austrian nationality be deported after they’ve served their sentence?
4. Should the Austrian Army (currently conscript based) become a volunteer only force?
5. Should student course fees be abolished?
6. Should everybody receive a basic income from the state?
7. Should important decisions about the EU (Turkish entry, Lisbon treaty etc) by submitted to a referendum, even if the rest of the EU don’t have one?
8. Should schooling aged 10-14 be made comprehensive (currently 10-14 year olds are streamed into the equivalent of grammar schools and secondary moderns)?
9. Should the names of Sex offenders be available in a publicly accessible register?
10. Should Austria tighten the criteria (health, family situation, skills) for asylum and immigration claims?
11. Should the traffic problems on Austrian roads be eased by a higher tax on lorries (Austria has a large amount of intra-European traffic passing through it’s borders)?
12. Should art which is socially controversial receive any state promotion or support?
13. Should the consumption of soft drugs (Hash / Cannabis etc) be made criminal and prosecuted (currently Austrian police turn a blind eye to the consumption, but not the selling, of Cannabis)?
14. Should the number of seats in Parliament be reduced to save money (Austria uses the d’Hondt List System)?
15. Should those with higher incomes pay more into the National Health Insurance system, over and above the current maximum limit?
16. Should Austria spend public money to get information about “tax refugees” (those Austrians who move their money around to avoid paying tax)?
17. Should CCTV in public areas (rail and bus stations, public buildings) be even further increased than in recent years?
18. Should there be a general smoking ban in restaurants and cafes?
19. Should Austria introduce boot camps / borstals for young criminals?
20. Should Austria spend more money on foreign development aid?
21. Should long-term unemployed be made to work for non-profit organisations?
22. Should children born in Austria automatically receive Austrian citizenship (at present they don’t unless their parents are Austrian)?
23. Should the state pension start age be automatically increased in line with an overall aging population, in order to ensure long-term financial viability?
24. Should abortion be made available on the State Health Insurance (currently abortions in Austria have to be paid for privately)?
25. Should same-sex couples be allowed to adopt children?
26. Should private car owners be helped by decreasing duty on petrol?

Why ultimately I’m supporting McCain

Here are the two Presidential candidates from the Rick Warren Debate.

Case closed.

H/T - Play Political

Carey the Calvinist

Seriously.

No, not this one

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This one

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Want some proof?

I blame the clone

Austria Votes

Forget the ongoing story here in the UK over how long our beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown can last (and he’s facing not just another by-election defeat but potential electoral meltdown), or the interminable campaign in the USA. The real psephological action is going to happen in Austria.

For two years Austria has been run by a Grand Coalition of the Social Democrats and the People’s Party. The Social Democrats (SPÖ) are politically where Labour was under John Smith in the post-1992 period before his unfortunate death. They have a new party leader and they’re offering all kinds of goodies like child-care access for all, increased pensions and lower taxes. The People’s Party (ÖVP) are more conservative (roughly where where Cameron’s Conservatives in the UK are at the moment, though a touch more ConservativeHome than the more progressive parts of the party). For example, one of their policies for the election is that all immigrants must take German lessons and prove some proficiency in the language before being accepted as citizens.

Part of the reason for these policies is the resurgence of the Right in Austria after quite a few years in the doldrums. The main right wing party is the FPÖ, the Freedom Party, who stand on a platform of liberal economics and an emphasis on Austria’s Catholic and cultural heritage. Although reviled by some for being perceived as anti-foreigner (they are opposed to deeper integration with the EU), in truth when you look at their party manifesto it isn’t very different to the platform of the Conservatives at the 2005 UK General Election.

The other right wing party is the BZÖ (Alliance for the Future of Austria), which is led by Jörg Haider. Where does one start with this chap? Loved by some, loathed by others, he is the most famous Austrian politician outside of the country. Currently Governor of Carinthia, he once led the FPÖ to become the second largest party in the country, breaking the post-war system of Proporz that had split all jobs in the country between the ÖVP and SPÖ. However, the FPÖ split apart in an internal spat over direction, and Haider left with others to form the new party.

It would be wrong to assume that right-wing politics in Austria is neo-nazi. While there are certainly elements of that kind of thinking in the FPÖ and the BZÖ, the parties are best described as populist rather than national socialist. It’s also a mistake to assume that they are racist or anti-foreigner. A case in point - when a handyman’s family in my grandmother’s home town in central Austria (they were Bosnian refugees from Sarajevo) were threatened with deportation in the late 1990s, including a son who had been born in Austria and had the thickest Styrian accent, the only local politicians who supported him were the FPÖ who argued that since he had his own business and paid tax, he was contributing to Austrian society. The two main parties weren’t interested in helping.

And of course there’s the question over whether Haider is secretly gay [DE]…

There is the possibility that the two right wing parties may patch up their differences and get back together. If that were so then they could again be a powerful third alternative to the main two parties. Add to the mix the Greens and you have a healthy scrap about to happen.

What would I vote? Politically I’m somewhere between the ÖVP and the BZÖ (who increasingly come across as a much nicer version of the FPÖ), but realistically I’m in the ÖVP camp. While there are some aspects of the BZÖ program I’m quite comfortable with, there are other parts that I simply can’t support, from their opposition to a smoking ban (which of course is totally in line with their liberal credentials) and their complete mis-handling of their former leader being found guilty of perjury in an assault case. Sadly though, the ÖVP website is useless when it comes to providing banners etc….

And as to who will win? Well the current opinion polls are indicating that both the main parties will do badly and that the FPÖ and the Greens will do much better than last time round. There’s even the outside chance of the FPÖ coming in second place in front of the Social Democrats, though it’s almost certain that there will be a new coalition government in October. most likely either ÖVP/Greens/FPÖ or ÖVP/Greens/BZÖ.

Stay tuned!!!!

This explains a lot…

All the work of Patrick Moberg.

How to make your child a gay activist

Eve Tushnet has my kind of tongue-in-cheek style…

2. Let your kid think your love is conditional. Again, you don’t even have to say this out loud. Many kids just assume, unless they’re told differently, that they’ll only be loved if they do what you want.

Best of all, your child will guess that God’s love is conditional too.

…

6. The only good gay is an ex-gay! For minors, why not try ex-gay camp? Send your kid to a remote location, where he’ll enjoy outdoorsy, macho, sweaty activities with other virile, same-sex attracted boys. That’ll cure him! (The best camps don’t let the kids listen to anything but Contemporary Christian music–none of this fairycake Mozart business.)

If you can’t find a good camp, at least try counseling. Your daughter can still learn to be a Real Woman–with dresses and everything! (Jesus likes it when girls wear dresses.) Be sure your kid understands that if she doesn’t become heterosexual, she has no chance of being chaste.

…

9. Most importantly, don’t pray. Don’t pray for your kid. Don’t pray for yourself. Don’t pray that you can model Christ’s love to your child. Don’t pray that your child will be a source of grace and blessing for others (including his boyfriend or her girlfriend–definitely don’t pray for God to bless those awful people!). If you absolutely must pray, just pray that your child will realize exactly how wrong he is and exactly how right you are.

That’s what Someone would want.

Go and read, and inwardly digest the whole thing. It’s clever and it’s right.

New Commenting System

I’ve introduced a new commenting system, Disqus, to allow threaded comments. It should slowly become active on all posts, firstly where there are no previous comments (so as not to mess wth the old system) and then picking up old comments and converting them to the new system.

Please feel free to comment below to test it out.

Update : It’s not very good. Have un-installed….

Scooby-Dooby-lu-jah

An example of how some don’t get it

David Virtue’s latest offering:

St. Rowan’s Letter to Canterbury
A Satirical Essay

1. Rowan called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and our brother Sodomites. I say this because our brother Sosthenes died of HIV/AIDS last year. We spread his ashes over the Mediterranean, which promptly caused a health hazard in Cyprus and the authorities paid us a call. Therefore, I am writing to you in exile.

So many offensive stereotypes in so few words.

Bzzzzzzzt. Thank you for playing.

What is marriage about?

Over at the Covenant website, Nathan Humphrey has reposted an essay on Sacraments and Innovation. In it, as he explores whether a gay union can be blessed, he makes the following comments:

I would argue that marriage is valuable to the Church only insofar as it edifies the couple (and any children the couple is blessed with through birth or adoption) and the wider community of the Church itself (and not just the local community of faith in which the couple lives out their marriage). Further, marriage, like all the sacraments, is a contingent value; that is, in heaven “sacraments shall cease.” As Jesus says, “In heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels…”

…

Without edification, marriage makes no sense; there is nothing intrinsic about it that compels the Church to conform its institutions to those of the wider society, which is passing away and at the end of the ages, after all.

As I’ve written before, I want to suggest that this is an inadequate understanding of the purpose of marriage. Surely Paul in Ephesians 5 points us to the fact that marriage between a man and woman signifies the union of Christ and the Church. That then is the sense of marriage, that it is not just about the two who are married but that it points (and has been designed to point) to a far greater spiritual reality.

Simply saying that marriage is validated by edification of those married (and others) is a highly anthropomorphic perspective. Taking Ephesians 5 as the central point of marriage presents the institution as a much more theocentric phenomenon and that is, in my opinion, a far better starting point for good theology.

To summarise, the BCP Marriage Service explicitly draws from Ephesians 5 and in doing so distinguishes between husband and wife in their unique roles in signifying the union of Christ and the Church. The sexual imagery is deliberate and points to a higher truth beyond the married couple. It is an understanding of sexual activity that has dictated the Church’s response to all other forms of copulation and was still part of the guiding theology in the 1990s revision of the Marriage Service.

In case you missed it

Just to recap

August 12th 09:33 London Time - Reuben Johannes Hugh Ould announces that he’s ready to intervene in South Ossetia
August 12th 10:00 London Time - Russia announces a ceasefire

Coincidence? We didn’t think so either…

Reuben is his father?s son

 

‘Nuff said!

Help me test some new functionality