Damian O'Loan (Paris): What kind of company was Labour keeping when it relied on DUP votes to get 42 day detention through the Commons? The answer is becoming clearer by the day.
Iris Robinson MP, MLA, wife of Northern Ireland First Minister Peter, has made three horrendous statements on public morality. The latest to be reported: “There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children.”
On the 6th June she described homosexuality as an “abomination” and mental illness. The resulting controversy lasted the eleven days until the quote above. Last Thursday she said “the government is there to uphold the morals of the scriptures.” The DUP has yet to make a statement distancing itself from her support for theocracy and homophobia.
On Sunday, Ireland's most senior Catholic, Cardinal Brady, declared his general agreement with the view that government's role is to“uphold God's morality.” Though he spoke after the Pope's apology,and has released statements since, he has not distanced himself from Mrs Robinson's views.
Aside from the damage to Unionism that the First Minister's wife is doing, aside from the suffering her comments must evoke in child abuse victims and the LGBT community, there is the question of how close this to party policy. The failure of the DUP to distance itself from her views, given six weeks to do so, means one can reasonably assume this is party policy, or within a hair's breadth of it.
Support for theocracy, or a move in that direction, could, ironically, be perceived as a vote-winner in a province that is far removed from Great Britain in terms of modernity. Having lost Ian Paisley, who was leader of his own evangelical church, there is a fear of losing hard-right grassroots support. The Catholic Church clearly has a place for theocracy, and the Pope has been confusing materialism and Enlightenment values:
“the radical detachment of Enlightenment philosophy from its roots becomes in the last analysis, contempt for man. ”
In a world where temptation without hope of satisfaction is rife, the simplicity offered by religious self-effacement must be increasingly attractive. But, as Camus reminds us:
“Heir to a corrupt history, in which are mingled fallen revolutions,technology gone mad, dead gods, and worn-out ideologies,... this generation knows that it should, in an insane race against the clock, restore among the nations a peace that is not servitude, reconcile anew labour and culture, and remake with all men the Ark of the Covenant.”
britologywatch said:
Thu, 2008-07-24 07:32@ Damian,
"Far from being a moot point, morality as the role of government is the question raised by Mrs Robinson". Fair enough; that is her question but it wasn't the question I was raising. I was asking whether - not asserting that - morality was a / the fundamental role of government. On the one hand, I agree with you that government in pluralist societies can no longer stand for absolutist systems of morality; but, on the other hand, I simply don't believe that it's possible for government to be divorced from public morality altogether, unless we're thinking of states such as Burma or Iraq under Saddam, which is not exactly what you meant. Governments do have to live up to, albeit limited, moral standards, even if those standards are set by the people they are answerable to. But those standards aren't 'morality' per se: I disagree with you when you say that "morality is as subjective as will'; and, indeed, you seem to contradict that statement yourself when you make a differentiation between rights and absolute non-rights, such as murder or child abuse. Political and legal rights are not moral rights: we have a right to commit adultery or abort our foetuses but this of itself does not make such things morally right. However, in a democratic society, I would like to think I could live up to the ambition of being prepared to fight to the death to defend our right to establish those relative rights and wrongs by which civilised society must live.