Humanists react to Westminster Hall speech

Andrew Copson at the BHA site:

'The idea that a reasonable politics cannot take place without "the corrective supplied by religion" is to argue for a privileging of religious views over equally strongly-held non-religious ethical beliefs that is not acceptable in a free society.

'The idea that religious people should always expect their conscience to trump the rights of others or that religious organisations should be free to follow their religion whatever the effects on other people, is equally unacceptable when the effect of such freedoms is to so seriously undermine the rights of others.

'The Pope's statements concerning the alleged "increasing marginalisation of religion" were a parody of the real situation in the UK, where politicians increasingly move to expand state-funded religious schools, contract public services out to religious organisations, and act in other ways that privilege religious beliefs and organisations in such a disproportionate and discriminatory manner.'