A big win for the theocrats
So there’s no freedom of/from religion for Italy or for 47 other European countries either.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled Friday that crucifixes are acceptable in public school classrooms, and its decision will be binding in 47 countries.
The ruling overturned a decision the court had reached in November 2009 in which it said the crucifix could be disturbing to non-Christian or atheist pupils. Led by Italy, several European countries appealed that ruling.
And they won, so non-Christian and atheist pupils just have to lump it. The majority wins so ha; no rights for you.
The original case was heard by a seven-judge panel. The appeal hearing was heard by a “grand chamber” of 19 judges.
The case set up a confrontation between traditional Catholic and Orthodox countries and nations in the north that observe a strict separation between church and state.
In other words, between countries that impose a particular religion on their citizens and those that don’t; in other words between theocracies and secular states.
The ruling came as Vatican officials announced the Holy See is reaching out to atheists with a series of encounters and debates aimed at fostering intellectual dialogue and introducing nonbelievers to God.
We’ve already been introduced. We don’t want to know their “God.”
The theocrats are delighted, of course.
Friday’s decision was welcomed by Italy’s foreign minister as a win for European “popular sentiment”.
“The decision underlines, above all, the rights of citizens to defend their own values and their own identities,” Franco Frattini said, according to Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper.
“I hope that following this verdict Europe will begin to examine issues of tolerance and religious freedom with the same courage,” he added.
What exactly is “tolerant” (much less religious freedom) about imposing a symbol of a particular religion on everyone? Not to mention the morbid nastiness of the symbol in question – a device for torturing people to death.
…the ruling will affect all 47 Council of Europe member states as citizens in other countries who want religious symbols in classrooms could use it as a legal argument in national courts.National governments could also the ruling as a justification to change laws on religious symbols.
Strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Not just pro-Christian, but specifically pro-Catholic. Protestants tend to prefer their crosses unadorned with a corpse.
We know. We just brought the appeal because we want to be pricks.
Read comment 7 of “school cricifixes ‘do not breach human rights'” on Dawkins.net.
I think it’s afraid of islam, which is growing very rapidly in Europe. It must hang on to the crucifix, for dear life, which it sees as part of Western culture.
“We’ve already been introduced. We don’t want to know their “God.””
Exactly. It’s not like god is suffering from obscurity. There are two flavors of door-to-door god salesmen operating in my neighborhood on any given day. There are at least five churches with large marquees within two miles of my house, (and several other more modest churches) I can’t go anywhere without passing their messages in letters a foot tall. There are a dozen religious networks in the basic cable package. AM radio has been a bastion of Christian broadcasting at least as long as I have been alive. I can’t even look at face book without religious spam choking out other content.
I’ve been introduced to so many gods it’s hard to keep track: ethereal, nebulous, apophatic, vengeful, jealous, wrathful, vague, feel-good, metaphoric, subtle, guiding, loving, irrelevant, unknowable… The list is basically endless. To paraphrase an earlier thread; god is no one because it is purportedly everyone.
A nearly naked dead man nailed to lumber is not an appropriate image for any child to see in school, or anywhere, regardless of what its fans claim it means. Where is the international community of child psychologists when we need them? Sucking their thumbs in a closet, apparently.
Hear, hear, Bruce S. Springsteen. I second everything you say. The experts have all the answers – but are never around when needed. i’ve noticed that for years with child abuse issues.
Tolerance and religious freedom, as long as you’re a christian.
Since I’ll apparently be raising a child in this country, I realize I have a very rough road ahead me. I’ll admit I thought this was a no-brainer, and am rather shocked at the decision. Shocked and horrified. But this is just one small piece of a much larger battle we’re all waging. So, at least we have each other. (Auld Lang Syne playing softly in the background.)
I don’t understand. It’s just a graphic depiction of a dead guy nailed to a tree. What could be disturbing about that? Torture and execution? Part of everyday life.
I wonder how they’ll feel about my ‘god is dead’ banner?
Really? OK, I’ll bite. You show me god and I’ll show you invisible green interdimensional alien monkeys that shat the universe into existence out of their red monkey butts.
Fair’s fair.
Intellectual dialogue, indeed.
This is, of course, horrible and I would like to know more about what pressures were brought to bear. What pittige maki pointed at #3 ought to surprise no one. Banging our heads against a brick wall is not going to help here. We have to be creatively subversive. A thing can’t be a powerful symbol and utterly innocuous at the same time. That’s the tension that needs to be played on.
We know they’re wrong. We know that any child with no religious affiliation or one that doesn’t involve a cross will be made to feel like a minority in such a classroom.
Think back to all the Americans who have written Europe off as secular…
I honestly find this a baffling decision, when we’re supposed to be moving away from public services identifying with religion. I can only guess that the powerful Catholic lobby has had an effect.
Why are the symbols there then?
The slightly crackpot Anglican blogger, Cranmer, revels in the decision:
This after pointlessly warbling on about the establishment of the Church in the UK. These people don’t see the point of secularism until it suits them. Hypocrites, the lot of them.
So any state school in any of the 47 states could just go ahead and start plastering the place with religious symbols and no one could do a damn thing about it, is that right?
Full version of judgement: http://www.echr.coe.int/echr/resources/hudoc/lautsi_and_others_v__italy.pdf
Dissenting opinion, pp. 47-51.
“Think back to all the Americans who have written Europe off as secular…” Stewart, thank you for that. I feel there’s something to be said in that vein that needs elaborating. Perhaps the New World can still teach the Old a thing or two about civility. My wife asked me this evening, “Don’t they have crosses in American schools?” See, she grew up here and thinks it’s normal. Well, almost. Europe just took a quantum leap backward toward the dark ages. Pity us.
My gut feeling is that a lot of Europe is more secular, but the bastions of religion are no less entrenched than ever and when you’re in Italy you have the headquarters of the poison in your backyard and they do have their tentacles into a lot of politicians. People need to be shaken and woken up; a judge is fired over the refusal to have any symbol except the crucifix and now this judgement that is in essence permitting as neutral the massive favouring of one side – and this is all after religion has been defanged beyond recognition from the literally murdering monster it used to be.
I suggest a pasta protest; plaster walls with spaghetti in honour of the FSM.
Stewart @ #18
That dissenting opinion gets it pretty spot on, afaics.
Goodnight, all. Fight, Harvard, fight fight fight!
@Mark Jones #19
I can’t bring myself to read Cranmer’s blog (cowardly maybe but I’m worked up enough as it is) but that quote of his you posted just sums up everything that people like him <em>just don’t get</em> about secularism, and the complete obliviousness of ‘…should not be free to demand that their sensitivities should trump everybody else’s freedom of religion’ boggles my mind – ‘everyone else’s’?!
Sorry, I meant #14.
I just said this on Marc’s blog, but I’ll repeat here. One way of looking at today’s news is that the ECHR delivered a judgement regarding the symbol of an organisation that has become notorious not only for child-rape but for organised attempts to conceal it, cover it up and protect and repeatedly re-enable the perpetrators. The ECHR’s decision regarding the symbol of the organisation that does this is that nobody may legally object to its being displayed on the wall of every classroom in an entire country.
So how will it go down when somebody wants to display a Star & Crescent in a classroom? In Italy? In the meantime –
“debates aimed at fostering intellectual dialogue and introducing nonbelievers to God.”
WTF. I almost choked on my pinot noir when I saw that. If Hertta hadn’t blown my last irony meter last week this would have. How TF can you have an intellectual discussion with people whose whole raison d’etre is to oppose the intellectual and replace it with fear-mongering, totally incredible, unsubstantiated myth?
We’ve been introduced to that doG and roundly rejected it for intellectual reasons (among others).
Sorry your Faengership – that doG won’t hunt!
If you see a religious symbol in a public place, rip it down, and call the act “art”.
I wonder if they have to stay the right way up!
Perhaps this will make it harder for them to play the “persecuted minority” -card next time something doesn’t go their way. Or not.
Yeah. As long as you’re Christian. If you’re anything else, you do not get to “defend your own values and your own identities”.
*spits*
You all seem to think it’s self-evidently terrible that a sovereign State can determine whether or not its schools can display a crucifix.
Perhaps you should set aside your sectarian obsessions, and accept it is for the nation State to determine the relationship between Church and State within its own boundaries, and not for a supranational institution to rule for 47 very different countries
It’s the supranational institution that did rule in this case.
Be that as it may, I don’t take sovereign statehood to be the only or most relevant issue. I don’t think any states should impose religion on their people.
don’t be so depressed: just now, in Austria, the court ruled that a crucifix may hang in a kindergarten because it is not a religious symbol any more. So I think we should just go on and place a piece of paper next to each crucifix citing the Austrian court’s opinion: “This is not a religious symbol” :-)
(I’ll paraphrase a joke I heard from comedian Steven Pearl.)
A kid brings home his report card one day and his dad is upset to see that he’s failing math.
“That’s it. Starting tomorrow, you’re going to the Catholic school.”
“But Dad, we’re not Catholic!”
“I don’t care, it’s the best school in town.”
After a few months at the Catholic school, the son brings home his report card, and this time he has an A+ in math.
“Son! This is amazing! What led to such a big improvment?”
“Well, when I saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they weren’t screwing around!”