You could argue that the liberal attitude towards sex, which removed sexual relations from the context of stable marriage between a male and female has done more to spread AIDS then any teaching of the Church.

Yes, exactly right. The spread of AIDS is mainly because men are having sex with different women without condoms. Even if you argue that they are not using them because they are devout followers of the Church (as opposed to not like using them), there is the minor detail that the Church also says it is a sin to have sex outside marriage.

“Oh and let’s not forget that the Vatican’s stance on abortion, birth control and family planning has also destroyed millions of other lives around the world.”

I don’t think there is a country in the world where condoms are illegal. The Catholic Church prohibits the use of birth control for some deep rooted theological reasons. People however are free to ignore its teachings even those who profess to be Catholic, there is nothing the Church can legally do enforce its teachings. However, the Church would argue that when baptised Catholics use artificial birth control they are committing a sin, this appeal to conscience is the only real sanction that they have the power to put in place. You could argue that the liberal attitude towards sex, which removed sexual relations from the context of stable marriage between a male and female has done more to spread AIDS then any teaching of the Church. I would be hesitant to make such an assertion, its hard argument to back-up with any form of empirical evidence but I think it is as logical as the position you put forward.

“But while the focus is on Muslims and how any association with them taints Amnesty, nothing is said about the Church.”

I don’t think this is the case, Amnesty International (AI) has had a long standing historical connection with the Catholic Church that goes right back to its founding. AI’s recent venture into the sphere of reproductive rights has terminated this longstanding relationship.

“They directly helped destroy lives.”

No they didn’t, they indirectly helped destroy lives by failing to react in the correct manner to allegations of sexual abuse by putting the needs of the institution before the need to protect the most vulnerable members of society, no-one disagrees with this even the Pope but when you state that there was direct involvement you imply there was an actual systematic policy of sexually abusing children.

“But generally, no. In contrast if that were a Muslim religious leader the usual suspects would be writing furious articles about human rights”

Sunny, when the Saudi King visited the UK, there was barely a ripple in the media, yet this was the head of state of a state that denies women the right to vote, drive and dictates to them what they should wear.
Just a few small points I felt I had to raise

(Just one more, the Vatican is a state, I think in your post you are referring to the government of the Catholic Church which is known as the Holy See pedantic I know but I could resist!)

Thanks for bringing Kenan Maliks’ piece to my attention.

I think he is completely right.

It is also obvious that we are cutting across cultures and religions to get there.

The last sentences of his piece was this:

What is certain is that if they do, it will not be because secularists have been out-bred, but because they have been out-thought. The real challenge that secularists face is not in bed but in the public square. And it’s a challenge that comes as much from Eurabists as from Islamists.

Or, if your understanding of the way religion and ideology are handed down isn’t rooted in the genetic theories of the 1930s, you could read Kenan Malik:

http://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/bergens_eurabia.html

Identity politics feeds on itself.

But this is really at a tangent to the general theme of the inexorable rise and rise of identity politics.

As famously employed by the BNP and other white racists, you mean?

That’ll be AIPAC forcing Presidents of both political stripes to bend double over barrels of crude and kow-tow to misogynous Saudi monarchs then I take it?

Jesus.

And what sort of “minority” are you talking about here? Jewish Americans who overwhelmingly vote Democrat? Or some shady cabal? Time to lay off the Alex Jones fella.

Incidentally, Sunny is right about Republicans not really caring about Hispanics. Bush alienated a ton of his fundy base by suggesting before the last election that illegal economic migrants ought to have at least some, y’know, rights and stuff… Weird one. But clearly an attempt to court the Hispanic vote. Didn’t turn out too well that one!

And incidentally, Sunny is very wrong when he writes: “the focus is on Muslims and how any association with them taints Amnesty”.

ANY?

I thought the current row was over a fairly reactionary group called CagePrisoners. I hadn’t realised it had extended to one third of the planet!

Paul Findley’s “They dare to speak out” is an excellent expose of this

http://www.ussliberty.org/findleybook.htm

But this is really at a tangent to the general theme of the inexorable rise and rise of identity politics.

My point was that just because someone has identity politics as a woman does not mean that that identity will be the defining outlook of their political life.

Good job too or else we would all slit our wrists.

Cpl. Jones -
I think you need to have a read of this post http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/03/freedom_of_reli which includes the following:

Religious freedom means that you are free to hold whatever beliefs you like – whether that’s a belief in Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, The Force or anything else – and you are free to make life choices for yourself in accordance with those beliefs. … Equal rights legislation doesn’t threaten religious freedom one bit. What it does – or should – remove is religious privilege, and this is entirely different.

It’s only a matter of time before one or another party comes to perceive an electoral advantage in fine-tuning its messaging to appeal to one or more of the other seven as well.

Once the Equality Act properly beds in people will be voting along the lines of their preferred ‘protected characteristic’. Those who don’t have one (guess who they are) will soon figure out what they need to do.

I think there can only be one solution: have more babies. Have millions of black, brown and mixed-race babies.

Are you doing your bit?

Perhaps what I’m trying to say is that the only way a minority can get over the bigotry is either by expanding in large numbers, or getting very close to the establishment.

Both feed into one another, as parties have realised they have to seen to be pushing ethnic minorities forward, which impresses both non-white and (some) white voters.

I long for the day when people vote as individuals first and foremost.

There is indeed much agreement amongst feminists, but there was less agreement, much less so, about how that should reach its end point which is what the article talks about.

Radical feminism was in many ways an academic exercise, see for example Women on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. But the postmaterialism the underpinned feminism still fitted into the traditional political divides of UK politics. Indeed, in feminism’s case it was weaker still than for pacifism where a national organisation was able to arrange political pressure (some would say entryism) on a major political party.

My point was that just because someone has identity politics as a woman does not mean that that identity will be the defining outlook of their political life. Religion is much the same to my mind. A better argument might be about separation of church and state.

Identity is not per se anything unusual in European politics, it is just wrong to assume that everyone in a given identity community will have the same interests.

By that I mean something like open discussion and changing people’s minds, including your own, in response to well informed and relevant arguments.

Perhaps such a model of democratic politics is not suited to human nature, you seem to argue above that the problem is that open discussion isn’t strong enough to overcome bigotry, and I see your point! Especially when the mass media circulates the stereotypes and provide the main forums for discussion.

The Muslim commentators who you see as moving more mainstream – do you see that as evidence of the positive impact of democratic involvement, or their growing awareness of the need to tailor their messages to get closer to the political/media establishment?

If it is about being more media-savvy, it might not just be that they have given up on democratic methods (as I see them) to become courtiers to orthodoxies, perhaps they have internalised some positive norms of democratic debate (eg. open-mindedness rather than bigotry).

So I think I agree with a lot of what you say, I just don’t know what you see as the place of what (I am maybe wrongly calling) democratic involvement in your political model. And how close your ideal model is from the actually existing one.

What I do know now is how you want to get from where we are to your ideal: breeding lots of Sunnys and getting close to the establishment!

anyone uncomfortable with the UK is free to leave.

Unless they have been deemed to be a terrorist by ‘intellegence’ and their passport/freedom has been removed.

In short Sunny, your assumption that, ‘a big demographic,’ will necessarily be a united one is misplaced.
There were/are millions and millions of feminists but they don’t all agree.

There is much more agreement than disagreement within fundamental aspects of feminism.