Published on
9 October 2013
Posted in Civil Liberties, Conscience, Culture, Human Life, Human Rights, Morality in Public
In the aftermath of horrible deaths at parental hands of Baby P., Daniel Pelka, Hamzah Khan and Keanu Williams, questions are naturally being asked as to what more might have been done by way of prevention. Unsurprisingly, the parents of these poor boys have been sentenced to prison. On paper perhaps, and technically, the local […]
Published on
1 October 2013
With publication of a series of YouGov polls the State’s funding of religious education is once again in the news. Secularists have renewed their assault on all things religious, and public and religious leaders have responded saying that State-backed faith schools are a ‘precious right’ and that it is wrong to drag children into an […]
Published on
5 August 2013
Andrew Brown in a recent blog for The Guardian argues that Catholic attitudes to gay sex fail to account for human beings. Though his conclusions are different, in terms of argumentation Brown often seems to adopt an approach that is quite like that of Judeo-Christian moralists, so it is refreshing to discuss an issue while […]
Published on
1 July 2013
In order to maintain public order secularism in our time relies on well- established delineation of ‘public’ and ‘private’ realms. While attempting to play down divisions between social groups, secularism reinforces a distinction between public conduct and private life. In this way a moderate secularism can reduce public conflict by emphasising those aspects of public […]
Published on
26 June 2013
Posted in Big Society, British Politics, Civil Liberties, Conscience, Culture, Moral Philosophy
You wait months for a whistleblower to say something genuinely newsworthy and then two come along in quick succession: Edward Snowden, a former NSA worker who let the world know about PRISM; and Peter Francis, a former police officer who reports that he was ordered to find out compromising information on family and friends of […]
Published on
10 June 2013
Posted in Civil Liberties, Conscience, Culture, Legal Affairs, Liberty, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy, Public Policy, Religion
News that the United States government ordered the largest US communications company Verizon to hand over details of communications of all of its customers on a daily basis is as regrettable as it is shocking. That is to say, insofar as it is regrettable it is also shocking but it is not a complete surprise. […]
Published on
5 April 2013
Posted in Civil Liberties, Conscience, Culture, Marriage & Family, Moral Philosophy
Perhaps the only social phenomena that could be attributed solely to the internet over the last 20 years has been the meteoric rise in the use of pornography. Like all vices pornography is nothing new but the pervasiveness of it online has led to discussions of whether it should be filtered out (censored) at source […]
Published on
12 December 2012
Posted in Conscience, Culture, Education, Marriage & Family
At present it looks extremely likely that legislation extending the possibility of legal marriage to same-sex couples will be passed in the New Year, and that in spite of strong opposition from voters, churches and even some homosexual people, too. We have blogged before about ‘gay marriage’ here, here, here and here. One aspect of […]