There is a common element in the two examples of political rhetoric about religion we’ve been looking at recently – Steven Waldman’s last weekend and David Blunkett’s this past week. Both of them argue at least partly from perceived alienation or resentment or anger or grievance, or all those, of religious groups or ‘communities’. Alienation and resentment of religious believers at being ignored by secular Democrats or Democratic secularists, and alienation and grievance of Muslims at not being protected by the Race Relations Act, because it doesn’t cover religion. ‘While Jews and Sikhs are covered under the existing law, those of Islamic faith and Christians are not,’ as Blunkett put it on the ‘Today’ programme. One interesting thing about … Read the rest

As I promised or threatened yesterday, more on the ‘attempt by various well meaning people to legislate religious hatred as a ground for prosecution on the same basis as racial hatred,’ as Meghnad Desai put it in The Independent. Desai also thinks it’s a bad idea. Good, that. Let’s hope many people think so and say so.

A secular tolerant democracy needs to get away from privileging religion as a mark of citizenship rather than giving it a special status. The Anglican Church needs to be disestablished and its privileges such as the Blasphemy Law removed. Human rights should adhere to one’s humanity regardless of special characteristics. In a truly equal society we will all be citizens protected under