Would Ruth Kelly have allowed slavery to continue?

I was reading the Independent of Sunday yesterday and struck by the irony that in this, the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery by Parliament, had there been an Equalities Minister back then and had she been Ruth Kelly, would she have succumbed to lobbying by the Church of England (who owned the Codrington Plantation) to give faith communities an opt out from the anti-slavery legislation in order to comply with the deeply held doctrinal beliefs of those Christians who still felt slavery was hunky dory (and there were still a good many of them in 1707).

I believe that she would and that the Church of England would to this day still own people and not see anything wrong with it.

Incidentally when I was at school historical Christian anti-Semitism was "justified" on the basis that "the Jews" had committed Deicide!!! Has Christianity really progressed?

 

Religious groups have too much influence, and have done for a long time. I think it's going to take a while to kill off religion, hopefully we'll get there though.

TB

 

Ah, the old "You killed Jesus" argument.

Rather a pointless question, IMHO. Ruth Kelly is a product of the 20th/21st Century, so to ask whether she would have condoned continuation of slavery considering the views of the time is stretching the point somewhat. It's like asking if Tony Blair would have fought the American War of Independence if he'd been PM at the time. Who cares?

Surely we should celebrate the fact that our antecedends abolished slavery in this country and its dependencies two hundred years ago, rather than trying to score points off present-day politicos with this line of questioning. Personally, I'm more interested in Ruth Kelly's present day religion based bigotries than some unlikely "what-if" theory.

 

Well said Sir.

 

I doubt it. Ruth Kelly is rumoured to be a member of Opus Dei, which makes ordinary Roman Catholics look like angelic pussy cats. As the schism between Rome and Canterbury was only just getting into its stride in 1707, Ruth Kelly would have willingly, I guess, stabbed the Church of England in the back by deliberately banning slavery!

Of course, she would only have done that if the Pontiff required it.... some people only take orders from a Higher Authority!

Litotes

 

Here is a good current day what-if then. Islam holds the words and actions of its Prophet Mohammed dear. Sharia Law is the embodiment of Islam and should be followed (according to Muslims) to the letter. The Prophet Mohammed married (and I presume slept with) a 9 year old girl. Should she allow this as a Muslim expression of religion?

More to the point, should the stoning or beating of women be allowed as it is part of Islam faith?

The thread does not seem unrealistic in my mind. At what point does the law and customs of the land take a higher priority than the tenets of a religion?

If a Muslim woman has the right to refuse to shake hands, is allowed to wear the hijab and we must respect her religious freedoms in the UK, then mustn't we also allow the other 'freedoms'?

 

Some Americans have a good saying about freedom.

"Your freedoms end where my nose starts" or words to that effect.

You can have as much freedom to do anything you want so long as it in no way affects other people. Wearing a full body condom/not shaking hands/praying 500 times a day/beating your self with a whip anything you like so long as it does not hurt any other person (unless they are into that kind of thing of course).

Now the problem becomes what do you define as hurt? Mental trauma caused by having to watch some of the more dubious religious/cultural/gender identity goings on?

 

What she thinks or believes is irrelevant. She would wait for direction from his holiness the Rt Revd T Bliar. Does anyone think that ministers actually

a. Have beliefs.

b. Stick to them.

Not me.

 

I created this thread because I believe that she is a hypocrite, and we all know what Jesus said about hypocrites. Human rights must be universal. If we allow opt outs based upon claims made about beliefs then where does it end? Should a religious charity be able to refuse to offer food or shelter to ex-servicemen because they may have killed someone or simply because they are gay ex-servicemen? It reminds me of the old justifications for allowing Protestant businesses in Northern Ireland to discriminate against Catholics on the basis of the alleged beliefs of the Protestant majority of its employees and strikes me as profoundly un-Christian. If we are to allow those who have chosen a faith to opt out of human rights legislation they disagree with why should other groups abide by it? What moral authority can we claim when we lecture China or the KSA on their human rights record towards the unpopular Christian minority if we are so selective in granting them ourselves to other unpopular minorities?

The significance of this question is one of irony and paradox, faith and religious doctrine competing against justice and universal rights and duties toward others. It would cause an outcry if an Equalities Minister tried to legislate to allow Protestant dominated local authorities an opt out on employing or allowing children to be fostered or adopted by Catholic couples, but she apparently sees no paradox in her treatment of gay couples. I should point out here that the church only objects to gay couples not to single gays adopting children!

Historically the Christian Church condoned slavery, including the RC church, on theological grounds: it was promoted in the Old Testament after all and the New Testament equivocates too much on its wrongfulness. So to return to the original question, I suspect that Kelly, under religious pressure, would have sucummed and watered down the anti-slavery legislation to allow the Church of England to retain its Codrington Plantation.

 

The answer is - of course she would.
She got where she is today by being relied on to maintain the current orthodoxies.
Born a couple of 100 years ago she would have done exactly the same.
She is an earnest master pleasing lap dog.

As for the Catholics blaming the Jews for the death of Christ.
They still believe it alright but they only whisper it now where once the might have used a bull horn.
When the Catholic Church gets powerful enough then they get the bull horn out of storage - witness the anti semitism in Poland now.

 

A much more relevant question, Giblets, as it's based in today's realities instead of a quasi-historical pretext made up to tw*t Kelly with. Personally I think that there's enough ammo around to shoot at Ruth Kelly without making ridiculous and unfounded allegations.

As to your question, I'm a great believer in the old adage of "When in Rome, do as the Romans do".

Therefore I'm off to vote in the Senate followed by a quick sacrifice to Mars on the way to the Colliseum, where I look forward to watching Christians being devoured by lions. Hopefully one of which will be Ruth bloody Kelly.

 

Well, it is CURRENT Islamic procedure under Sharia law to stone women and to deny them the vote. I'd like (as part of my personal religious beliefs, these being the ascendancy and superiority of myself) that the b1tch should be hijabbed, given surprise sex, stoned for it and then shipped off to Saudi Arabia in a bikini. That will satisfy my religious beliefs, and I'm sure she will be able to convince the Saudis that her religion and customs are perfectly acceptable there (before she gets beaten and jailed for improper conduct and for being an infidel hooer).

 

watch it Giblets,
Britain is..er..hem allies with the MODERATE Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, remember?

 

On the basis that Ruth Kelly is a moderately aware polititiand I suspect her actions are based on ensuring she maximises the catholic vote in her constituency, why because she I am sure is aware that at the next election labour is going to lose a lot of seats and she will need votes from every where. After the dust has died down on this one wait for another spat where she panders to another minority interest. Her current majority is some 2000 which may well not be enough, certainly not a safe seat.

Peter

 

And so have all other groups with vested interests including environmental groups, homosexual activists, big business, Trade Unions, the Anti-Hunting lobbyists, animal rights groups, the list goes on and on. When do propose to start killing these off? Or do actually support some of them? In which case go and stand in the corner with the other hypocrites.