Thursday, May 3, 2007

Nice to see Oxford City Council is still very stupid

They've had a long range of bad ideas, the most recent being the decision by the councilor in charge of Oxford's recycling and waste collection services by changing the collection of household waste (food etc) from every week, to once every two weeks. She has said she is not for turning (whichever ward shes in, i hope she gets voted out). It's a national scheme (though councils were told to bury plans about changing from the current setup to this marvelous scheme to increase the rat population in the UK before this weeks local elections). So what is Oxford City Councils latest brain wave ? Faith based home improvements. So if your religion demands that you cook over an open flame, the council will pay for a gas cooker to be installed. It's utter drivel, it basically creates further divides in the local community which a political party like the BNP will take advantage of. Stuart Craft leader of the Independent Working Class Association pointed this out fairly well: "This is a potential recruiting document for the British National Party - it's nonsense and it's unfair. This is a secular society, the council should not be pandering to separate religions." The best quote about this story comes from a Muslim councillor by the name of Dr Tia MacGregor: "What this strategy is saying is if you want something because of your faith, you get it. What about Jedi Knights - would they have a cupboard fitted to put their light sabres in?

"If the council wants a budget for home improvements they have to be for everyone, you can't discriminate in terms of their faith."

What is needed is in fact a system that works for everybody. Though Oxford City Council can't change a lightbulb without spending several hundred pounds talking about it (Cornmarket's revamp cost more than the local and county council estimated, it went from about £1 million to about £5 million in the end). And the view of the council is just priceless (it's so politically correct i could cry but i won't): "This is part of a much wider programme of choice for tenants and ensuring we are culturally sensitive.

"It's not going to be a drain on resources, it's about recognising and working with the variety of people in the city and realising they are not all identikit."

This is one of the problems in the UK, we are dividing communitys along cultural lines. We should all be treated the same, while recognising the value of each culture that is either native or imported through immigration into the UK. People should be free to follow a religion if they so wish or not follow one. But when it comes to local and national government services people should be treated equally but fairly, rather than politicians pandering to religions. The Catholic Church for example tried to scupper new equality laws for homosexuals and lesbians by threatening to close it's catholic adoption agencys in the UK and appealing to members of parliament who are catholic to vote against the bill. They failed in the attempt to block the bills passage through Parliament. This Is Oxfordshire article.

7 comments:

Mr. Smarterthanyou said...

Why throw in the thing about the Catholic church? There are valid arguments, moral and otherwise, to oppose gay adoption. You may not agree with it, but this is just another effort to strip religious morality from people's lives. If you want to help kids, you should be able to do so w/out having to compromise your principles. It isn't that they have a monopoly on adoption services.

So as you continue your support of the removal of Christian values in society, we see that muslim values and appeasement are moving in. Very short sighted to allow and enable such a trade-off.

Recent polls show that people WANT to believe in something, to have some order in their lives. If you continue to mock and subvert Christianity, more home grown muslim kooks will emerge. It isn't rocket science you know.

Kevin said...

I believe in democratic choices based on equality for all, regardless of faith or sexuality.
I brought up the catholic church as it was trying to derail the parlimentary process with undemocratic threats. Church and State should in the main be seperated.
This issue has nothing to do with christian or muslim values.
The current power of the west is based on logic and reason, not chrisitian values. If we had entirely christian values then we would be back to the middle ages where the Catholic church had supreme power over peoples lives.
Christian values have influenced the west but people with ideas outside the scope of christianity have also shaped the west i.e. that the earth is not flat. Heretical views in the middle ages.

Any moral objections to gay adoption are based on illogical assumptions about gay people being unfit to bring children up because of their sexuality.
At the end of the day we are all human beings, we are born, we live and we die. Sexuality is of little importance to me, because it's just part of what makes up a human being. You will probably start frothing at the mouth about reckless gays taking drugs and engaging in unprotected sex. But then Hetrosexual people engage in the same sorts of behaviour.

Mr. Smarterthanyou said...

Kevin, moral equivilency is nothing more than intellectual dishonesty.

Heterosexual relationships tend to be more stable.

Homosexuals live much riskier lives.

Kids that somehow got screwed over in life need stable homes. That is #1, and it trumps the need of 3% of the population to feel validated in thier lifestyle.

Sexuality may be of little importance to you, but you are not the center of the universe. You KNOW that sexuality IS a big social issue, and it is very important to others. You cannot ignore that because of your personal feelings.

Your arguments are infantile. They are humans too? No one argued that. Jeffery Dalmer was human too, so tht makes him an eligable adoptive parent? It takes more than being human to provide a safe and stable family for a child.

People ARE looking for moral guidance. If we make people embarrassed to choose Christianity, many of them may choose Islam. That is no good for anyone.

Kevin said...

Sexuality is not a lifestyle choice.
Sexuality is only an issue because people make it one. What consenting adults do in their private lives is nobody elses business unless laws are broken i.e. domestic violence etc
The point i was trying to make is a simple one. It does not matter what sexuality you have, you can be capable of any number of things, good, bad or downright evil. Being gay does not automatically make you morally inferior or evil.

You do not need to follow a religion to have a moral code. The Catholic Church is guilty of many immoral acts, from not helping Jews escape the holocaust to protecting priests after they have abused children which were both inexcusable acts of immorality. They did not practise what they preached.
People find meanings in many different religions. There are more than 2 religions which you seem to be obsessed with.

And to finish off i think you need to look at the words of Jesus more carefully. He was in fact a liberal minded human being who may or may not have been the son of God.

I shall leave you with a quote to stew on....

"Moralites and religions are the principal means by which one can make whatever one wishes out of man, provided one possesses a superfluity of creative forces and can assert one's will over long periods of time--in the form of legislation, religions, and customs." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Mr. Smarterthanyou said...

You conveniently gloss over the point that it isn't whether or not you like to kiss men or women, but if you live a short, dysfunctional, unstable lifestyle. The average gay man has HUNDREDS of lovers. How is that parade of "partners" good for the family stability that a kid needs?


Oh yeah, nice quote from one of Hitler's favorite thinkers!!! It helped him justify the holocost, so hey, it must be valid in justifying putting kids at risk!!!

If you died in a car crash, would you want your kids raised by someone with hot and cold running lovers, a greatly elevated chance of drug/alcohol addiction and a much, much higher rate of serious diseases (TB, Hepatitis, AIDS)? DO you really need to dismiss the concerns of people who are reasonably worried about these things?

Kevin said...

My cousin is straight, has done drugs and booze, and shagged a lot of women. You are fixated on gay men as immoral beings. Some people may have hundreds of partners, but in the main all human beings want at the end of the day is somebody to share their lives with. In any sexuality you will get people who are risk takers and disregard the safe sex message. Sex education is of paramount importance, it must be honest and frank with teenagers. It is better that they are armed with the knowledge that could very well save their lives, rather than being told to not have sex because it's a taboo subject (that approach fails precisely because of the nature of being a teenager, if something is a taboo, then teenage rebellion often follows). If you know anything about diseases then you will know they do descriminate between human sexualitys, we are all fair game.

Nietzsche died in 1900, his sister a Nazi supporter changed his works to suit her views. He disagreed with his sister on many counts. If he had been alive he probably would not have allowed the Nazi's to use his works, because they would have changed them to suit Hitlers outlook on the world, which was very different from Nietzsche's.
As for what Nietzsche would might have thought about the misuse of his works then i think this sums it up nicely:

"I object to the contemporary trend in criticism, with it's excessive interest in the details of the lives of authors and artists. They only distract attention from an author's works... and end, as one now often sees, in becoming the main interest. But only one's Guardian Angel, or indeed God Himself, could unravel the
real relationship between personal facts and an author's works." J.R.R. Tolkien


I am open to the possibility that a God might exist. I have discussed that particular issue with Red Tulips on many different occassions. I am of the opinion that if such a being exists then it will be beyond our ability to understand it's nature.

As for the question about offspring:-
I would want any offspring of my loins to be looked after by people who are caring and loving. Their sexuality is of no importance to me. You are homophobic and your view points are based upon fear of that which you do not understand nor want to understand.

In the end morality is not an exclusive preserve of religion.
People create their morals based on what they experience of life and what society deems as moral. Which is shaped by a whole range of factors, religion being one of those factors but not the sole factor.

Red Tulips said...

Kevin, next time, do not even engage the bigot. Just delete his posts.

Sorry I was not here, but you did a good job, Kev!