Putting faith in diversity

Tuesday 15th January: Today I went along to a Foreign & Commonwealth Office consultation on 'age and belief as aspects of diversity'. I normally try to give the diversity fundamentalists a wide berth, but given the subject matter it seemed prudent to get involved at an early stage, to help avoid any strange ideas on religious belief finding their way into official policy.

The hour-long discussion was mostly uncontroversial; good points about the need to avoid fostering a 'victim culture' and the potential for conflict between the agendas of different special-interest groups. However, the biggest stir seemed to be caused by a comment that I made near the end.

I suggested that, rather than trying to identify more and more strands of diversity requiring special treatment (adding age and belief to their existing programmes on race, gender, and sexuality will bring the FCO's total to 5), we should instead agree some core principles and apply them equally to everyone. Thus, discrimination in pay or promotion on grounds unrelated to doing the job is unacceptable whether the individual is black, gay, female, octogenarian, zoroastrian, or has any other salient trait that might be considered a factor.

I admit that I didn't come up with this on the spur of the moment. I have been reflecting on how to balance personal freedom and the protection of individuals since the notorious Big Brother racist bullying incident brought it into the public spotlight. I believe that what Jade Goody was guilty of was foul mouthed, mean spirited bullying. It was wrong when directed at Shilpa Shetty (using some of the language of racial stereotypes in the process), it would have been equally wrong directed at any other human being, and it was wrong of Channel 4 to package and distribute it as entertainment. We teach children that bullying has no place in our schools, and we should be similarly intolerant of it in adult life.

This seemed to strike a chord with the FCOs consultation group. The fact is that very few of us still believe that our social ills can be addressed through divisive political correctness. A return to a values-based agenda (which leans heavily on biblical and Christian ideas about the value and dignity of every individual) is long overdue.

...and a blasphemous new year

The BBC have had a strange Christmas season this year.

They began advent by narrowly avoiding prosecution for blasphemy, following a case brought by Christian Voice over their 2005 screening of 'Jerry Springer: The Opera'. Having made a heroic stand for freedom of artistic expression in the courts, they then immediately threw it out of the window by voluntarily choosing to censor out the word 'faggot' from the popular Christmas hit 'Fairytale of New York'. The late Kirsty MacColl's acerbic lyrics were only saved by a public outcry and subsequent climbdown by the bosses of Radio 1 (the fact that Radio 2 had continued to play the song in full couldn't have helped much either).

All this merely goes to demonstrate what most of us already knew. Blasphemy laws (or their modern descendants, political correctness regulations) have never had much to do with protecting God from insult. They do however have everything to do with guarding the sensibilities of the current ruling elite. Whether 17th century ecclesiarchs or 21st century liberal authoritarians, the message is clear: you challenge the official view of the world at your peril.

In light of all this, I was intrigued to see what noted atheist Russell Davies would serve up for the eagerly awaited Doctor Who Christmas Special. Certainly the visually lavish offering was short on peace and goodwill (killer angels very much in evidence), and we were denied the satisfaction of moral justice (the bad guys didn't win, but most of the good guys didn't make it either). Lines like "She's just atoms, doctor... an echo of the ghost of consciousness" and "if you could decide who lives and who dies, that would make you a monster" are familar atheist mantras. Yet in spite of this, Davies portrays a world in which good and evil are very real and actions have clear moral consequences. And as the character Astrid chooses to sacrifice her own life in order that humanity might live, we are presented with a parable of redemption that is about as biblically rooted as they come.

Kylie Minogue as a 'type' of Christ?? To quote my girls' other TV favourite of this Christmas, The Railway Children, "Very beautiful and wonderful things do happen, don't they? And we live most of our lives in the hope of them."