Sin and the law

[alexist]

I'm not a Ruth Kelly fan as a rule, but I think the cover of today's Independent is a bit unfair. It's one of those questions that's unanswerable. If she says homosexuality is a sin, she's seen as unfit to deal with questions of equality. If she says it isn't, no one will believe her anyway, or will accuse her of cherry-picking Catholic teachings.

Personally, I'd say that sin is a theological issue and not a political one. My faith says that eating pork is a sin, but I'm not going to vote against pig farmers. I can accept a literal reading of Leviticus on the matter of gay sex, but that doesn't justify discrimination or homophobia.

Sometimes I wonder if the openly religious can ever win when it comes to these issues. That said, Kelly hasn't made it any easier on herself by repeatedly missing votes on the issue.

Comments

[christhomas123.livejournal.com]

It's not a religious matter, so much as _which_ religious matter.

One of the key points of Opus Dei is that the followers are expected to use and promote their beliefs through their profession. If your profession happens to be deciding on what's 'morally right and proper' for a country, that's very dodgy ground.

As you say, Judaism prohibits the eating of pork, but it doesn't say you must make it your life's work to stop me eating a bacon sandwich. ;o)

[mooism.livejournal.com]

Pig farmers have not been and are not discriminated against in this country in the same way that homosexuals have been in the past and still are today. I think that homosexuals are justified in being at least worried that the Equality Minister thinks homosexuality is bad and wrong.

I vaguely remember a fuss was kicked up a few years ago when a vegetarian was appointed as a minor agriculture minister; meat farmers claimed a vegetarian could not possibly deal with them fairly. I think that died down pretty quickly.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

If she says homosexuality is a sin, she's seen as unfit to deal with questions of equality. If she says it isn't, no one will believe her anyway, or will accuse her of cherry-picking Catholic teachings.

My feeling is that most of the people who would see her as unfit in the first case would be mostly satisfied by her saying it isn’t a sin — they’d still be sensitive and vigilant about it, but they’d stop banging on about it so much. Mostly other people would accuse her of cherry-picking her beliefs. (Not saying it’s not a problem for her — just that most people out there aren’t being hypocritical about this.)