Tuesday, January 25, 2005

CHRISTIANS GETTING FED-UP

Church-going Americans have grown increasingly intolerant in the past four years of politicians making compromises on such hot issues as abortion and gay rights, according to a survey released on Saturday. At the same time, those polled said they were growing bolder about pushing their beliefs on others -- even at the risk of offending someone.

The trends could indicate that religion has become "more prominent in American discourse ... more salient," according to Ruth Wooden, president of Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research organization which released the survey. It could also indicate "more polarized political thinking. There do not seem to be very many voices arguing for compromise today," she said in an interview. "It could be that more religious voices feel under siege, pinned against the wall by cultural developments. They may feel more emboldened as a result."

The November U.S. election saw voters in a number of states back gay marriage bans, and President Bush won re-election with heavy support from fellow religious conservatives.

The findings came from a telephone survey of 1,507 adults made in 2000 and a second similar survey of 1,004 adults done during the summer of 2004 that tracked the same issues. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Those surveyed were nearly all Christians, not by design but because the sample reflected the makeup of the population, the group said. A 2002 Pew Research Council survey found that 82 percent of the U.S. populace considered itself to be Christian, while 10 percent identified with no religious group. On the question of whether elected officials should set their convictions aside to get results in government, 84 percent agreed in 2000. However, four years later that had dropped to 74 percent. There was a sharper decline on the same question among weekly church-goers from 82 percent in the first survey to 63 percent in the second. About 40 percent of Americans claim to be weekly church-goers, according to Corwin Smidt, director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College in Michigan. Some surveys have placed the figure at 25 percent.

In the survey, 32 percent of those who attended church once a week said they were willing to compromise on abortion issues -- a 19-point drop in four years. Among the same group the question of compromising beliefs on gay rights was acceptable to only 39 percent, down 18 points from 2000. The poll also found that 37 percent overall felt that deeply religious people should be careful not to offend anyone when they "spread the word of God," a decline from 46 percent four years earlier. The number of those who felt that committed faithful should spread the word "whenever they can" rose to 41 percent, up 6 points.

On another issue, the survey found little change in opinion on whether the U.S. political system can handle greater interaction between religion and politics. Asked if there was a threat if religious leaders and groups got a lot more involved in politics, 63 percent in 2000 and 61 percent in 2004 said the system could "easily handle" it. But the remainder continue to believe the system would be threatened.

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BRITISH GOVERNMENT PROMOTES HOLLOW BRITISHNESS

The government has announced that it may introduce citizenship ceremonies for all 18-year-olds, in which they would take an oath of allegiance to the Queen, listen to speeches and receive certificates to mark their coming-of-age as British citizens. This is part of an official drive to improve 'community cohesion' - which, decoded, means that ministers are frightened rigid by growing tensions between Britain's different ethnic groups and the prospect of national unity breaking down. As ever, though, they have taken a serious problem, failed to address it properly then attempted to cover up this failure by a prime example of gesture politics.

Its concerns about 'community cohesion' were ignited by the race riots in northern towns such as Bradford and Oldham in 2001, when Muslims, Hindus and whites fought each other on the streets. A subsequent consensus held that the problem was caused by a serious lack of integration by the Muslim community, which was in turn used by neo-Nazi groups to whip up racial hatred. This lack of integration was highlighted this week when David Bell, Chief Inspector of Schools, expressed concern that many Muslim schools were not teaching their children how to live in a liberal, pluralist society. But instead of tackling this difficult problem upfront, the Government is pretending it doesn't exist by producing a cosmetic citizenship ceremony which all 18-year-olds will be expected to undergo.

Although this initiative has been devised specifically to deal with the problem of certain minorities, ministers are too frightened to say so. As a result, the rest of the population are to be employed as ethnic camouflage. But in doing so, the Government is in effect calling into question the patriotism and sense of national allegiance of people for whom loyalty to this nation is axiomatic.

The ceremony is being dressed up as a rite of passage into adulthood, marking the young person's right to vote and achievement of greater social and economic independence. This is both patronising and intrusive. And what would happen if the young person did not attend such a ceremony? Would he or she be any less of a British citizen as a result?

The Home Office is thinking of making the ceremony compulsory. Is there not something deeply offensive - even sinister - about forcing everyone to take such a loyalty oath? In any event, national loyalty cannot be manufactured by a ceremony. Before a country can expect newcomers to subscribe to its values, it must believe in them itself. Citizenship cannot exist without a firm and positive sense of national identity, common values and purpose. As it so often does, the Government has confused form with substance. It has looked at America, where people swear allegiance to the flag, and at Australia, which has introduced 'affirmation ceremonies' for all citizens, and concluded that public protestations of national loyalty create national unity. What it has failed to acknowledge is that America is a nation that manifestly believes in itself, enthusiastically promulgates its own values and believes they are superior to those in the rest of the world. It successfully integrated high numbers of immigrants because it created institutions and policies to promote a very clear concept of American identity.

There was a time when Britain similarly possessed national pride. Unlike America, its sense of itself was formed by the fact that it was an ancient nation with a rich and distinct history. Its people did not have to swear loyalty to the flag, because the country had a strong identity for which Britons had fought and died throughout the centuries. As a result, immigrants wanted to assume the characteristics of Britishness. It wasn't just that they admired its values such as fair play, tolerance or leadership. There was also the excitement of becoming part of a country that thought itself a great nation and took pride in what it made and achieved. And so they eagerly assimilated Britishness from an education system which understood that its mission was to transmit British culture.

Not any more. For decades now, our governing and intellectual classes have been consumed by a sense of shame about this country. With the loss of Empire came not only a collapse of national role but also an exaggerated guilt about Britain's record of colonialism. With large scale immigration, that guilt developed into a full-blown attack on the nation itself. National identity was said to be an artificial construct. The cultural values of the majority were deemed racist and exclusive. Multiculturalism became the order of the day. So schools stopped teaching children British political history, and taught about slavery instead. They stopped teaching the classic texts of English literature and looked for 'relevant' minority texts. They stopped passing on the values of Christianity and taught instead a mish-mash of garbled inanities. British values were denigrated. Leadership was authoritarian. Stoicism was unfeeling. And patriotism was just one step away from fascism. Instead of transmitting a unifying culture, education turned into an auction of competing interests, babbling meaninglessly in citizenship classes about multiculturalism, 'globalisation' and 'a shrinking planet' and encouraging pupils to develop 'their own ground rules'.

Citizenship fundamentally rests upon an acceptance of the obligations to one's country. But in the current climate, in which duty has been junked in favour of rights and entitlements, it has effectively been redefined into claimantship. Thus the citizenship test for all new immigrants to be introduced next year will ask them not about the institutions of the country but what they know about legal aid, employment law, maternity rights, the changing role of women, consumer protection and Britain's relations with Brussels.

In the light of all this, the proposed 'coming-of-age' ceremony is no more than empty tokenism. It will do nothing to integrate those who believe their faith tells them to despise and even fight this country's values, and who may tell themselves accordingly that any citizenship declaration required of them is of little consequence. And it will do nothing to provide a sense of national identification, pride and attachment to young, white, disadvantaged people whose resulting alienation drives them into the arms of neo-Nazi thugs posing as political parties.

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A FATAL CONFLICT OF CORRECTNESSES

Campaigners are calling for a change in the law after the decomposed bodies of an elderly couple were discovered in their home - weeks after the gas supply had been cut off. George Bates, 89, died from hypothermia and his wife Gertrude, 86, suffered a heart attack. Their bodies were found in October in a house they had shared for 63 years. Two months earlier their gas had been disconnected due to non-payment of a o140 bill.

Yesterday Westminster coroner Paul Knapman said British Gas had followed the proper procedure in the run-up to the disconnection, contacting the couple 11 times in 143 days, including two visits to the house in Tooting, south London. But after the gas was cut off the couple's details were not passed to social services - even though they were described as vulnerable in court - because of restrictions imposed by the Data Protection Act. British Gas general manager for collections, Harry Metcalfe, told the inquest: "In the past we could notify social services when we had disconnected the supply but since the Data Protection Act that has changed. We would not now notify them of a disconnection without the customer's consent."

A spokeswoman for Help the Aged said yesterday: "If the Data Protection Act is stopping vital information being passed on it needs to be reviewed - why were an obviously vulnerable, elderly couple left to fend for themselves without heating or hot water without the help of social services or other agencies?" Dr Knapman said he planned to write to the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, who is responsible for the implementation of the Data Protection Act.

Mr Thomas said it was "generally true" that the Data Protection Act would prevent the routine notification of disconnection to social services without the customer's consent. "However, in any cir cumstances, for example age or infirmity, where there are grounds for believing that cutting a particular household off would pose significant risk then the Data Protection Act would not prevent an energy supplier from notifying the relevant body," he said.

A British Gas spokesman said the couple had not been on its voluntary Priority Service Register which gave extra assistance to elderly or disabled customers. "It is tragic that no one including the caring services recognised how vulnerable the Bateses were before it was too late," he said.

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