Theocracy in Scotland
Jeezis, these people are scary. They’re getting their way.
Peter Kearney, the director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, made his comments after the sacking of SFA referees’ chief Hugh Dallas over allegations he sent an offensive e-mail about the Pope during his recent visit to Scotland.
Mr Kearney warned: “Let no-one be in any doubt, with this shameful episode, Catholics in Scotland have drawn a line in the sand.
Yes, they have! They’ve drawn a line that says “you may not send an ‘offensive’ email about the pope, and if you do, we will get you pushed out of your job.”
That’s quite a line. Hugh Dallas didn’t work for the church, or even for a “faith” school. He had a fully secular job – yet Catholic rage about a failure to respect their horrible pope got him forced out of that job. I find that simply terrifying. What business can it possibly be of theirs what some guy says in an email, and where do they get the power to force him out of his job?!
Peter Kearney certainly thinks he has every right to tell all of Scotland what to do and how quickly.
“The bigotry, the bile, the sectarian undercurrents and innuendos must end. Such hateful attitudes have had their day. They poison the well of community life. They must be excised and cast out once and for all.”
Mr Kearney sent a letter to the SFA last week demanding Mr Dallas’s dismissal if the accusations over the e-mail were true.
He said yesterday that “tasteless” e-mails may simply be “the tip of a disturbing iceberg of anti-Catholicism in Scottish society”.
And that people should lose their jobs for writing “tasteless” emails about a guy who tells Africans not to use condoms and who thinks ordination of women is a desperate crime while raping children is a regrettable accident.
As Craig Ferguson likes to say, I look forward to your letters.
“The bigotry, the bile, the sectarian undercurrents and innuendos must end. Such hateful attitudes have had their day. They poison the well of community life. They must be excised and cast out once and for all.”
He is talking about the catholic religion, isn’t he?
He sent a funny picture, and that’s enough to lose him his job? I mean, if he called for the Pope to be crucified and the Catholics to be run out of the country, maybe it might be a good idea. But if you can’t even make fun of the Pope, are you even in a real democracy?
Have they seen what the editorial comics in America are like? I bet some of the Pope themed ones would give this guy an brain hemorrhage.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rational Humanist, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Theocracy in Scotland http://dlvr.it/9PYkS […]
Insult the pope and you lose your job. Insult the prophet of peace and you lose your security. And religion is a force for good. Right.
Well said, Graham Martin-Royle. The bigotry and the bile which Peter Kearney complains of are his own, surely?
But here we go, right back to the Middle Ages! Christ! What is wrong with these people?! How come they get to decide what someone may or may not say? How is it possible for someone to lose a job because he said something in an email about the pope? The pope is easily responsible for crimes against humanity, even if no one dares to charge him with his crimes. His role in the child abuse scandal, and the lengths to which he went as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the Holy Office of the Inquisition, be it known) to cover up what had been done, and to seal the secrets of what was done until statutory time limits had run out, binding victims and abusers with the threat of excommunication should they reveal what they knew, should be enough to blacken this pope’s name forever. The fact that the church is on record as fighting attempts to relax statutory time limits placed on those abused as children, and that the pope has not objected to such proceedings, is indication enough that, when dealing with the present pope, we are dealing with a criminal mind, completely aware of what has been done, and seeking still to bind with silence those who have suffered abuse at his hands. This is not, so far as we know, sexual abuse, but it is an abuse even more destructive, for he has taken what children have been taught, with threats of eternal punishment, to regard has sacred and holy, to silence them, and thereby to increase their own sense of guilt and responsibility for the harm that was done to them by clergy and religious. And defenders of this wretchedly evil man have managed to remove from his employment someone who expressed a negative opinion about him? If there is an anti-catholic environment in Scotland or any other place, it is quite obvious why there should be one, for catholics are clearly a danger to all those who love freedom and hate injustice and malice. Give the bastards time. They will still light faggots under some poor heretic who dares to stand up to the evil represented by this church.
I really don’t know what is the matter with these people. I find it just mind-boggling – even with the stream of illiberal “you can’t say that” prosecutions and investigations and firings coming out of the UK lately, this one seems off the charts.
I wouldn’t say it’s off the charts. This is exactly what happens when religion is not forced on the back foot. This is what happens when we refrain from taming and domesticating the beast that is religious faith.
I know, but I thought religion was forced on the back foot to that extent in places like Scotland – I thought it was out of religion’s power to get people fired or forced out of their jobs for exchanging messages about popes or other clerics, no matter how hostile the content.
As a Scottish reader I should perhaps point out that football has unfortunately been a focus for a particularly ugly kind of sectarianism, marrying the worst aspects of British football hooligan culture and religious bigotry. There is therefore perhaps an argument for saying that a referee that was known to have strong sectarian views (and I don’t know enough about Hugh Dallas or the email he sent to say whether this is in fact the case) could not be trusted as an honest broker.
Though given the revelations coming out about FIFA right now, it seems a funny place to start ‘cleaning up’ football
That’s always a risk when you have a public profile job, a job (and employer) that depends on public good will. Not that I like it but that is part of the territory. If you offend enough customers/constituents you become a liability.
While the mainstream Protestant churches (Church of Scotland and Scottish Episcopalian) have accepted secular democracy, and as a result tend to be irrelevant as a socio-political force, the RC Church in Scotland has learned to play the victim card. In some parts of the country, where there was immigration from both Irish RC and Protestant factions, they imported their own animosities: there are Irish Republican and Orange marches & c, and traditionally, some football teams sang/sing pro-IRA or Orange songs. (It baffles me that after over 100 years in Scotland, some still identify themselves thus, and not as Scots.) But it was predominantly an Irish issue (“No Irish need apply”, & c), and did not have much impact on the Catholic Italian and Polish communities in Scotland (the Italians have also been here for over a century). But this has been turned into a big issue of ‘sectarianism’, which only ever seems to cut one way (on CiF, see sonoftherock and gabriel100: both Scots Catholics, the former a convert so especially fanatical). Catholic homophobia and misogyny must be ‘respected’, and any attack on it leaves one open to accusations of ‘sectarianism’ and being bigoted against a ‘historically oppressed minority’. As a Queer (bi-romantic, physically A) woman, with a part-RC background (having seen how it screwed up some of my female relatives especially), you can guess what I think about that!
The RC Bishops make accusations of ‘sectarianism’ at any attempt to tackle segregated schooling (which is a devolved matter). It’s also the case that Labour in Scotland (especially in West-Central Scotland) depends heavily on working-class Catholic voters (largely of Irish immigrant stock), and the Bishops feel they can ‘advise’ ethically on whether voters should support some candidates depending on their stance on things like abortion and gay rights. I was genuinely (favourably) surprised when Labour had the guts to defeat Cardinal Winning and his alliance with the Evangelical bus magnate Brian Soutar and repeal Clause 2a (Section 28 in England); but otherwise they are pretty pathetic when it comes to standing up to the clergy. The Papal visit was masterminded by Jim Murphy.
I will echo Patrick here to point out again that one perhaps shouldn’t read too much into the religious aspects of this case. Scottish football is basically about two teams that have a historical association with catholic and protestant communities – Celtic and Rangers. Insulting the pope has long been a tradition amongst Rangers supporters as a way of tainting their opponents. With that as a backdrop to the current situation one can perhaps see why it was inadvisable for the head of the referee association to send an email that mocked the pope. It was a mild joke but could easily be read to signal a bias towards the Rangers team (particularly when Celtic supporters tend to be somewhat paranoid about referee bias).
The reaction of the catholic church in Scotland is clearly over the top but that is not what got Hugh Dallas fired, stepping over the line in the Celtic/Rangers rivalry is what did it.
patrick:
Imported Irish politics, actually: pro-IRA vs pro-Orange.
I thought the picture was to the point and funny, re: the Church’s failure to act on child abuse.
i am suprised that ophelia didn’t know this people are scary. They have always been. Catholics are not
christians. They are an organisation with a clergy. They teach their children that the most important
person in the world is the priest. They need them to go to heaven, the most important idea they have.
So the big fuhrer in Rome is untouchable. They shall kill for him. Like Deshner said : Religion is not created
for people, people must serve religion (read clergy). it’s an obvious truth.
Aha, I have seen sonoftherock, many many times (even though I don’t read CisF all that often – he must be very prolific). That sheds a whole new light.
I did gather about the sectarian stuff from PZ’s post (after I wrote this one), so…I guess it’s not as symptomatic of general lunacy as I thought. grumble chunter.
I think the atheist blogosphere who are commenting on this (Dawkins.net, PZ etc) are misunderstanding some aspects of the case. It’s about sectarianism, which has had a pivotal negative influence over the governance of Scottish football for a century. By being seen to mock the Pope and showing anti-Catholic sentiment, Hugh Dallas has made his position untenable as an impartial referee in Scottish football. It’s that simple.
Dallas also forwarded the email from his SFA address. But I still don’t get it: did the pope have a ton on the (gasp) Rangers, or what? At this late date it’s not as if his reputation can be harmed any further.
The National Hockey League has a similar problem with emails that show its director of hockey operations interfered in decisions involving his son, a player. Lots of Roman Catholics in Canada, but no protests from the Roman Catholics that he’s not doing unto others as he would have them do unto him, besides hurting the interests of all those Catholics who bet on hockey games (I speak as a winner of the Toronto Catholic school board’s Stanley Cup pool). I guess the pope doesn’t bet on hockey, eh?
John, I don’t know if any team in the NHL has “Fuck The Pope” as its club anthem. Nor the Rangers policy of not allowing Catholics to play for the team (which lasted a century).
Rather than grumble and chunter, perhaps you should, as was pointed out in a recent thread, at least consider the context of a story before posting.
Yeah! Sorry about this Ophelia. Things have never been the same since we allowed those men(?) north of the border to wear skirts, probably have to cut their benefits or send in the redcoats or something:-)
In Scotland, as in Europe generally, ‘football’ is a word synonymous with the game of soccer, which is just one of the codes of football where I come from.
I think that the HeraldScotland article and the religious (for Chrissake!) battle lines drawn (in sand, blood, guts; whatever) show clearly that strictly enforced bans are needed: (a) on religion, and (b) on soccer. Without these, it is difficult to see how there can be even the most basic political and economic cohesion in Scotland, the UK or Europe generally.
Chhristianity can be allowed to wither and fade away on its own IMHO. Soccer however may linger a bit more in its departure. (It is according to many of its adherents, their religion.) The rage and frustration soccer fans are notorious for is IMHO an outcome of the slow rate of scoring. Games finish with scores like 1-0, 2-1, or in exceptional circumstances 3-2.
Improved scoring rates can be achieved in turn by two simple measures: (1) widen the goal mouth – at least to double its present width, and (2) get rid of the goalkeeper or ‘goalie’.
I know, I know: these measures fall a long way short of what is really needed. But all religions have evolved from barbaric beginnings like soccer in its present form by a process of cutting, pasting, patching and filling. Why should it be any different?
As a football fan, resident of Scotland and an ex-Catholic maybe I can shed some light on this issue to add to the various comments above. As mentioned, there is a little more to this than meets the eye.
Unfortunately we have historical baggage in this country of sectarian anti-Irish (Catholic) discrimination. The Catholic church plays on this victim-hood but in the past the church was the focus for the minority within the wider society, thus giving them an intrinsic identity with the underdog or victims. Whereas the majority of those Irish’ descendants have become secular or non-religious, the church itself has absorbed and retained that sense of victimhood, Using it to deflect calls for non-sectarian schools. If you are against Catholic schools then you are dismissed as a bigot.
As pointed out too, we have two football teams which dominate the sport in Scotland. To give you some idea of their size, their stadiums are around 6-7 miles apart across the city of Glasgow and both hold in excess of 50,000 people, with the majority of games sold out. The remaining teams in the league are lucky to get over 10,000, most only getting 4-5,000. Over the past 100 years these two teams have won something like 80-85% of all available trophies, and since the end of WW2 there has only been 10 years where one of them was not the winner of the league championship.
There is intense rivalry between the fans of these clubs and when they play each other, there is a dramatic spike in violence in the city after the game and the police make them play the game before the pubs open.
Celtic FC were founded by and for the Catholic community in Glasgow but soon realised that they could not restrict themselves to purely Catholic players or they could no compete. Glasgow Rangers FC soon became the focus of the anti-Irish sentiment; they became the “establishment” club with a focus on tradition, political unionism and the Prestbyterian Church. They then had a de-facto policy of not signing a catholic player, This Wonderful sketch from a Scottish comedy show will demonstrate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru7LFk7DuBA. This policy is no longer enforced but many elements of the support mourn its passing.
Historically, football’s governing body in Scotland (The SFA) have had accusations of being sympathetic to Rangers – and this may well have been the case 50 odd years ago – but unfortunately it is a belief that Celtic FC and many of their supporters cling to.
Add to this a “referee scandal” currently ongoing within the game which is too complicated to go into then the dismissal of the Head of Referee Development for this “offence” was unfortunately almost inevitable.
Within the goldfish bowl of Scottish football, sectarian strife and violent fans it is no wonder that Hugh Dallas was dismissed but we should certainly call out the over the top rantings of the Catholic spokesman here and as a blogger in Scotland, I shall certainly watch out for his future demands.
Religion poisons everything. And it seems, that includes football.
I think the important point here is: he was at work – I’m sure there’s a clause in his contract that requires him to be polite and respectful to the other employees, including their absurd religious beliefs. A genuine question, but I think most people would answer no – If he was passing around soft-core porn or racial “jokes” would it still be a free speech issue? (actually I’m sure those things happen all the time, but due to the shortage of women and black people in the SFA are never reported.) If he’d kept this stuff for his spare time, I doubt 1)that it would have been found out or 2)that it would be a dismissal issue (although for reasons described above, some professional bias might still have been suspected.)
Ophelia, do you REALLY not know that religious followers interpret attacks on clerics and prophets as attacks on themselves? and that when communalists start gearing up for riots the anti-Pope or anti-Muhammed abuse (not criticism, because it has no real principles or arguments behind it) is followed by real people getting hurt? (of course you do.)
I’m an atheist and secularist, and I’m as dis-respectful of religion and the clergy as much as deserved (which is a lot.) I also criticise without fear or favour – the RC, Protestant churches, Islam, whatever – but I’m not going to pretend be so naive that I don’t know that the EDL or the “Billy Boys” or other groups out there will use similar rhetoric and are motivated by real violent hate of one particular group, and would like to see them (literally) stamped out.
For further context –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Boys
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Famine_Song
I don’t think that sectarianism being the root of the sacking, makes this less terrible. A person should be able to send a mild joke around, that targets the pope for not handling the pedophelia cases well, without it bringing his integrety as a referee into question. In the end it still seems that some oversensitive souls caused someone to loose his job.
I agree with Axxyaan and Ophelia. All we have to do now is to poke about in the history of the last two or three hundred years and we can explain away all religious idiocy as contextual, and, what is more, perfectly understandable.
Well, I still don’t understand it. A man was fired for sending a picture from his work computer. The picture (if PZ Myers has it right) shows a caution sign, and below it are pasted the words: “The pope is coming.” And he lost his job over it. This makes no sense.
Now, it may be true that sectarianism runs riot in Scottish football circles, but the fact is that the Director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office had the man fired for making an anti-catholic gesture, and fulminated about anti-catholic prejudice. It doesn’t get any better when you know the facts; it gets marginally worse. If the church is worried about being thought medieval and stupid, this is not the way to correct the impression. And whether or not there are people who “interpret attacks on clerics and prophets as attacks on themselves” makes not one iota of difference. By so interpreting the words or actions of others they show themselves benighted and foolish. What’s contextual about that? Except that an idiot in one situation will probably play the fool in another?
“Well, I still don’t understand it. A man was fired for sending a picture from his work computer. The picture (if PZ Myers has it right) shows a caution sign, and below it are pasted the words: “The pope is coming.” And he lost his job over it. This makes no sense.”
Well, an analogous situation might be where a referee for overseeing the regular and notoriously aggressive, sectarian Palestine Vs Israel football matches had been discovered to have sent a mocking email about the Holocaust to a friend. It is within his rights to send it (free speech and all that) , of course, but you can see that it would make his job a little bit trickier and might put his judgment into question, surely.
All we have to do now is to poke about in the history of the last two or three hundred years and we can explain away all religious idiocy as contextual, and, what is more, perfectly understandable.
Of course it is – EVERYTHING that ANYONE does is contextual and nearly everything is understandable , (if you make the effort) but that’s a long way from saying it’s what anyone does is morally right or rational.
And whether or not there are people who “interpret attacks on clerics and prophets as attacks on themselves” makes not one iota of difference. By so interpreting the words or actions of others they show themselves benighted and foolish.
If we start trying to run human affairs as if people aren’t benighted and foolish (as well as enlightened and wise, depending on the moment you happen to catch them in) we’ll be in all sorts of trouble. If people weren’t benighted and foolish, there would be no Catholics, and there would be no sectarian thugs. The fact that there are less of both these people in Scotland now-a-days is a sign of progress – but we are not so far from the days when anti-Catholicism, anti-Irish, and anti-Celtic FC sentiment ruled the Scottish establishment that you can send around mild anti-Pope jokes without calling your integrity as a referee into question, and I think the bloke ought to have been able to guess that.
Torquil said: “an analogous situation might be where a referee for overseeing the regular and notoriously aggressive, sectarian Palestine Vs Israel football matches had been discovered to have sent a mocking email about the Holocaust to a friend.”
I think a better analogy would be someone sending a jewish joke. My boss is jewish and is always telling jewish jokes (the sort of Woody Allen, Jackie Mason type of poking fun at your own culture). However, on one occasion I was at a dinner with him when a fellow diner, a large german scientist, made a similar joke and my boss got incredibly offended. There was very little difference in terms of the nastiness of either jokes but it seemed to make a huge difference that it was coming from a german!
I suspect the Hugh Dallas pope joke is like that. The email itself is slightly amusing and I don’t doubt that it was widely circulated in both Ireland and Britain before Dallas passed it on. Its the type of joke most ordinary catholics would understand and would be much more likely to laugh at rather than feel offended. The average celtic supporter probably would regard it the same. Coming from the head of the referee association, however, it might sound different. Celtic supporters probably wouldn’t care about the any sort of offense to religion or the pope but may see this as evidence of bias against their team.
Just in case you think I’m sticking up for catholics too much.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2010/1130/1224284424872.html
Torquil MacNeil,
I don’t think your situation is analogous. It would have been analogous if the joke had been about an israeli or palestinian minister. Sure it still might make his job a bit trickier. But what do we want to conclude from this? That not considering oversensitive people is a reason for sacking? What message does that send to the oversensitive?
IMO a strong message should have been send to the oversensitive ones that questioning the integrity of someone on the sole base that he critisized someone you idolized, would not be tolerated. Because this reaction will just encourage those touchy people to just search for more material they can be insuled by, to use in eliminating voices they don’t like.
Apparently there were a number of other employees of the SFA who “distributed” this email. One of whom is a practising Catholic.
It needs to be borne in mind that there is an ongoing dispute between Celtic and referees over accusations of bias and dishonesty. All senior referees went on strike at the weekend for the first time in their history in response to comments made in the press by senior Celtic officials. Celtic already wanted Dallas sacked.
Unfortunately this email from Hugh Dallas could not have come at a worse time. It played straight into the hands of his oponents and allowed them to play the victim card once again. Had this dispute not been ongoing, it is likely that the SFA would have simply ignored the calls for his sacking and the Catholic spokeman would have been unlikely to have got any real publicity.
Religion does indeed poison the well here, but it was undrinkable even before the Catholic church got involved.
Axxyaan, perhaps I could improve the analogy.
Imagine a situation where the EU has appointed an impartial negotiator whose job is to broker a deal between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Now suppose there is a lot of opposition to this negotiator because he is widely believed, amongst the Israeli settler community, to be impartial and in favor of the Palestinian side more than the Israelis.
Now suppose it was discovered that he had sent an email of a jewish joke, right in the middle of the negotiations (say a Jackie Mason, Rabbi Schmuley Boteach style joke).
Now imagine what would happen.
Is there a case for him to be fired for anti-Semitic behavior?
How about a case for him being fired for lack of judgement?
What is all this Holocaust/antisemitic analogy about. A dig at the pope is nowhere analogous to antisemitism or Holocaust denial, and if it is in the Scottish context, then there is something deeply amiss in Scotland. But, excuse me if I laugh a bit over the thought that catholics are so disadvantaged in Scotland or practically anywhere else that this kind of hyperbolic reaction is in any sense a reasonable response to a fairly mild joke. Let’s get a bit of perspective, shall we? The Roman Catholic Church, like many other churches, is mired in a superstitious past, and accords to the man in the Vatican an authority that no other human being on earth would even dare claim. It is simply right and sensible for people to poke fun at this kind of hubris. If it dragoons in a lot of contextual nonsense about football hooliganism and sectarian idiocy, then so much the worse for football and religion. But it still shouldn’t measure up to dismissal of a football official. This is taking you superstition a lot too seriously — which is, in any event, the character of superstitions. It’s tough when you can’t back up your beliefs. All you’ve got, instead of argument, is force of emotion. That’s why religions are dangerous, because, when push comes to shove, religious people act instead of talking reasonably.
Sigmund,
Why do you change the situation from a joke about the person in charge for handling a particular situation not particularly well, to a situation in which a jewish joke is made.
As far as I can see, this was not a catholic joke. AFAICS it is a joke that even a lot of people that identify themselves as catholics, can laugh with, for the simple reason that a lot of people identifying as catholics, no longer take the pope serious, even if he is officially the head of the church.
If the situation in Scottland is really that bad, that it can be compared with the israeli – palestinian conflict, then I still think this is terrible. It is just terrible that the sectarioness in Scotland got this far that it got a man sacked over a mild joke. Sure you could blame him for lack of judgement bit is it normal that he would need this kind of judgement.
I’m not telling he should be congratulated but the way this is blamed on all him, with no blame for the sectarioness of the teams involved, doesn’t feel right with me.
Arthur: I’m not saying any club in the NHL is as bad as Rangers, just that Colin Campbell seems to have sinned more gravely than Hugh Dallas and the Roman Catholic church doesn’t weigh in on that. It only weighs in when its authority is questioned.
There is an alternative. I grew up in the first city in Ontario (London) to throw off the rule of the Orange Order. In 1877 the Irish in London decided they were wasting a lot of time fighting each other so they formed a non-sectarian organization, the Irish Benevolent Society, which quickly became dominant over the Order and over Roman Catholic organizations. It survives to this day and is an important philanthropic organization. So I suspect the real sources of the Scottish problem include something other than religion — the association of religion with privilege, for example. London has been prosperous for the most part, with plenty to go around for everyone. It’s also a city where Muslims play important roles without hysteria breaking out.
<i>That’s why religions are dangerous, because, when push comes to shove, religious people act instead of talking reasonably. </i> and the non-religious, or people in non-religious context NEVER do that do they?
If an English FA official made jokes about “bloody whining scousers” do you think that Liverpool and Everton would let that rest?
Lets break this down without the god stuff shall we?
A football referee is supposed to enforce the rules of the game firmly and fairly without bias between clubs.
The Scottish Football Association runs the professional game in Scotland for the benefit of all fans.
The Head of Referee Development is expected to encourage and act in his work in accordance with this “firm and fair” “without fear or favour” spirit. It is also important that he doesn’t act in such a way that he APPEARS to have a bias against an individual player, manager or club. While he’s at work he is not being paid for his sense of humour, or his philosophical views.
Hugh Dallas made himself look like part of the Orange-boy network. He slipped up in the exercise of his duties – and he was harshly punished for it, perhaps too harshly. The fact that he did this by passing on anti-Pope jokes is a peculiarity of local context.
“D is for the dunderheads who seem to think we have a conspiracy against their particular team” – Half Man Half Biscuit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh6V3_WLkb4
If you feed the dunderheads, don’t be surprised when your hand is bitten.
Perhaps a more useful discussion would be “how far can people AT WORK be held to different/higher standards of behaviour than people elsewhere in public or in private?”
Glad to, if the media mogul of the Roman Catholic Church hadn’t got involved and built it up as a matter of god stuff. Since there is no god stuff, that’s a bit of a joke in itself. Of course, non-believers have their own ways of disagreeing, quite intensely sometimes. Funny thing is that right at the moment non-believers are divided over how they should regard and respect religions! Funny that! Religion always seems to have its foot in the door somewhere.
Religion is hopelessly intemperate, though, and every disagreement turns into a major issue, like Mr Kearney and his idea that a simple joke reveals the deep anti-catholicism of a segment of Scottish society. Well, I say, if the catholics would keep their religious beliefs to themselves and not constantly try to impose their imprint on law and society (as the pope did on his recent visit to Scotland), perhaps the source of anti-catholic feeling would simply die away. Religions are private associations of people. They pretend otherwise, but that’s all they are. When the religious have recognised this, and have stopped playing cultural oneupmanship with other members of society, perhaps no one will pay them any mind, and we could break a lot more things down without dealing with ‘god stuff’. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Irreligious as I am, I don’t see that a truly democratic society can tell people to keep their religious beliefs to themselves. The fault lies with the people who won’t tell an old man in a skirt to mind his own bloody club. People outside Canada need to google the Duplessis Orphans if they want to know the tru moral status of the RC church.
Religion and soccer! Yeuk! Two things that I hate with a passion!
But “bloody whining scousers” is not the same kind of thing as a joke about the pope and child-rape, at least not straightforwardly. It’s apparently treated as if it were in the Scottish context (and it is to some extent in the US context too, where anti-Catholic prejudice as a kind of ethnic prejudice goes back to at least the 1830s). but it isn’t inherently so. Scouser is like Yankee or red-neck.
We can’t discuss the pope joke without the god stuff; that would be absurd.
Tsk, just strap Dallas in to one of these gizmos. That’ll learn him!
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/the-instruments-of-torture/
Thankfully, it’s not. Though there was a time when Rangers and Celtic fans took it upon themselves to self-consciously identify as supporters of (respectively) the Israeli Defence Force and the PLO – not one of the more edifying moments in Scottish football’s history.
To be fair, it certainly isn’t and wasn’t the Catholic Church that has encouraged a culture of political correctness. I guess they’re jealous seeings everyone these days is into the victim pantomime.
The’ve just begun to mimic the same victimhood that appears to drive everything nowadays.
Monkey see, monkey do.
And you have to admit that the invective directed at Christians and Catholics these days far exceeds anything directed at other ‘faith’ groups.
“And you have to admit that the invective directed at Christians and Catholics these days far exceeds anything directed at other ‘faith’ groups.”
srsly?
It’s apparently treated as if it were in the Scottish context (and it is to some extent in the US context too, where anti-Catholic prejudice as a kind of ethnic prejudice goes back to at least the 1830s). but it isn’t inherently so
It’s not inherently so – but in the Scottish context it is to a certain extent. We here in this comment thread can be in favour of treating religious opinions as a private thing, something which goes on behind closed doors one day a week, but we are fools if we try to understand a situation in the real world in this way, where this is not the case.
We can’t discuss the pope joke without the god stuff; that would be absurd.
The pope joke is not really at issue (it was not particularly good, and it was pretty mild stuff) the issue is that passing on the pope joke is seen as a sign of anti-Catholic (and by connotation in the Scottish context, anti-Irish and anti-Celtic) sentiments. I personally don’t like that way of thinking “the Pope = Catholics = Irish = Celtic FC” but in a city and a country where “Fuck the Pope” is a traditional war cry of anti-Irish violence, I don’t pretend that’s not going to be a common reading of the situation.
The Catholic media office guys saw this as an opportunity to be exploited and their actions and statements obviously reinforce this way of thinking. This is a Bad Thing (of course.) Their opinion is not required to settle the real question – what should a sporting organisation require of a referee in terms of his conduct at work? Just how impartial is impartial enough? Dallas was not dismissed by the Roman Catholic church in Scotland, because Scotland is not, even in the most limited sense, a RC Theocaracy, it’s a Presbyterian theocracy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scotland)
Dallas was dismissed by the SFA.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/9230531.stm
This is probably too harsh a punishment for what he did wrong, but referees need to be, and be PERCEIVED AS impartial. If circumstances are such that this is not the case, even if you take the view that it’s a sign of the Dunderheads taking over Scottish Football, well, in all seriousness, what else can you do but let the man go?
Celtic have form on picking on Dallas – unfairly, as far as anyone can tell, see link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Dallas#Celtic_v_Rangers.2C_May_1999
but Refs need authority, if the man has lost his authority he cant do any good working in a senior management position.
Interests declared: I’m a Rangers supporter. I’m an atheist and a secularist. I don’t like clerics as a class, I hate sectarianism and I don’t hate Catholics.
Scouser is like Yankee or red-neck.
It was the “bloody whining” part that my hypothetical assumed would cause offence ;-)
By the by, to show another side of Scotland (and specifically, Glasgow), here’s one of the Glasgow list-MSPs giving an eloquent defence of secularism in the context of the End Of Life Assistance Bill yesterday in Parliament
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-10/sor1201-02.htm#Col31065
What a pity that the vote was 5 to 1 against.