No sex please, we're Irish

Ah, the irony. Only yesterday over at the Cedar Lounge a contributor drew a rather smug distinction between the US and this country on the basis of the public role of religious extremists – over there, we were told, they are “political movers and shakers” while here they are confined merely to “prayer crusades”. My immediate reaction, as noted on the linked page, was to point out the flaw in that argument from a non-partitionist perspective. And then I went to have a look at today’s papers and found these news items from well below the border: 750 pornographic DVDs seized in Dublin and Labour calls for laws to fight sex shops.

Let’s look at these one at a time. The first article tells us that the DVDs were seized “as a result of an ongoing Community Policing Unit investigation into breaches of the Video Recording Act of 1989”. Yes, you read that correctly. A Community Policing Unit investigation into porn videos. In Dublin 2. Honestly, have the community police there no better use of their time? Maybe going after the tourist-muggers in Temple Bar? The gangs that hang round ATMs on Grafton Street waiting to distract you and grab your cash? The bicycle thieves on George’s Street? If the residential areas in that part of the city are anything like mine, I’d guess there are a few social housing estates whose residents have all but given up phoning the police when there are problems because the response is so thoroughly inadequate it isn’t even worth the effort. Well, now we know why. Maybe instead of reporting break-ins, drug dealing and cars on fire, they should tell the Gardaí there’s a porno outside.

The second article tells us that those champions of progressive, liberal values the Labour Party are shocked – shocked! – to find that not only do such DVDs exist, but the shops that sell them are subject to the same rules as any other shop. Not good enough apparently; they should have to apply for a specific change of use so that the wishes of those residents who would patronise such a shop can be vetoed by those residents who think they shouldn’t.

Labour’s Joe Costello is particularly outraged that two adult shops were able to open across from churches in his constituency. That’s my constituency too, and I know at least one of the shops he’s referring to, and frankly the fact that anyone could get exercised about it suggests to me that they are either stuck in de Valeraland or have far too much time on their hands. The part of the shop that is visible to anyone outside it is very discreetly-designed; there is no merchandise in view or any images whatsoever. If you couldn’t read enough English to know what “adult shop” meant, you wouldn’t even know what it was. Apart from the extraneous apostrophe in “DVD’s”, in fact, I’m hard pressed to find anything offensive about it. And so the fuck what if it’s across from a church? What gives people coming to or going from church the right not to encounter any reminders of how the human race reproduces?

There’s an argument to be made, from a community perspective, against having a whole conglomerate of these shops in one neighbourhood. An area that has come to be known as a red light district can be fairly unpleasant to live in, in some cases even unsafe. But that’s not the argument Labour are making. Effectively, they want local authorities to be able to prevent any sex shop from opening anywhere if enough people (and how many is “enough”?) complain that it’s unsuitable. The Council’s attempt less than ten years ago to close the Ann Summers on O’Connell Street – O’Connell Street, for fuck’s sake – suggests that such a power is likely to be interpreted broadly, making adult shops all but impossible to open in the State. Would it be the end of the world if that happened? Of course not, but it would further undermine any claim of Ireland (south) to be somehow more secularly advanced than the US.

We may not put people like Sarah Palin in high office here, but it doesn't look to me like we need them.

...let him wear his turban

I actually struggled with this one a bit: at first glance, it appears to pit two of my most deeply held principles – pluralism and secularism – against each other. On the one hand I most certainly agree that Ireland should make reasonable accommodation to the cultural traditions of newcomers, and allowing male Sikhs (how many are there here? A thousand or so?) to wear their turban strikes me as eminently reasonable. There is no suggestion that it will interfere with their job performance in any way, or cause anyone else any harm or offence.

On the other hand, I am strongly sympathetic to the argument (as expressed in a couple letters in today's Times, subs required) that religion should be kept out of public life entirely. The state should not be involved in promulgating faith in general, or any faith in particular – and police officers, when on duty, are agents of the state. If a Catholic Garda wanted to wear a big fuck-off crucifix I wouldn’t be complaining if he or she was told to take it off.

But there’s a key difference there - and I’m not talking about the lack of an onus on Catholics to wear crucifixes, in the way that Sikh men feel they have to wear turbans. I think the crucial issue isn’t the beliefs themselves but the socioreligious context in which this dispute is taking place. The south of Ireland is, in most respects, and notwithstanding the undeniable (if far too slow) changes that have taken place over the past couple decades, still a country permeated with Catholicism. Our population is 90% Catholic. Our schools are 95% Catholic. Our elected representatives (on a parliamentary level, anyway) are about 97% Catholic. And this is still, unfortunately, reflected in many of the laws and policies that affect our daily lives – including the lives of those of us who want nothing to do with the Church and its teachings. To have Gardaí going around wearing crucifixes would just reinforce the essentially Catholic-theocratic basis on which this state is still to an unacceptable degree run. You can hardly say the same about a Sikh policeman in a turban.

Now the logical conclusion to this is that Sikhs and Catholics would have to be treated differently: the former given permission to openly display their religion, the latter prohibited. It’s not a position I’m entirely comfortable with, framed in those terms. But in a way, I think it boils down to the same question that has divided the US in recent years with regard to affirmative action, or the Six Counties on the 50-50 PSNI recruitment issue: is differential treatment acceptable to achieve equality of outcome? I have always felt that it is, at least under some circumstances. It’s all well and good for the law to say that everyone is equal and no distinction will be made but, in practice, in societies where the dominance of one category of people has been firmly entrenched, such a policy usually just ends up reinforcing the status quo.

The questions we need to ask here are what kind of Ireland do we want, and what policy will best help us achieve it. As I've stated, I want one that is pluralist and secular. Allowing your man to wear the turban would obviously promote the first of these; as for the second, it probably wouldn’t help, but I’m hard pressed to imagine how it would hurt, either. We aren't a secular state, and we aren't going to become one by limiting the rights of minorities to practice their religion. They are the wrong target for us 'aggressive secularists'. When we have a society where belief is genuinely a matter for the individual, and the state actually is no longer promulgating religion in general or any religion in particular, I'll revisit my views on this issue. But until then...

Paisley Jnr in sensible comment shock

I've finally got around to reading that interview with Ian Paisley Jnr and, while his comments about gays and lesbians are every bit as vile as reported, I was surprised to find a bit of sense rarely seen in Irish politicians - north or south, republican, nationalist, unionist or other. Asked about segregation in schools, Baby Doc said:

Believe it or not, I went to an integrated school. I believe parents should have the choice, but I believe that if you want to have the choice of a religious, exclusive school then you should pay for that choice - it should not be paid for by the State... I understand that the churches have a huge input into all this, but I think the churches need to stand back and the sooner the better.

I continue my long wait for Sinn Féin to adopt such a sensible, progressive position.

Incidentally, toward the end of the interview Paisley Jnr also refers to the problems that could arise in the event of abortion law liberalisation in the South. Is he bothered by the potential deaths of Irish "babies"? Does he worry that it could encourage similar moves north of the border? No, his specific issue is solely to do with the existence of different laws in different parts of the island. Er, isn't that part of what unionism is all about?

In the latest episode of the long-running saga of Ireland's slow progress toward modernity, it seems that parents are being asked to produce baptismal certificates [free registration required] to get their children enrolled in their local school, where said school is run by the Catholic church (as over 90% in this State still are) and is oversubscribed (no figures, but that number seems to be increasing too, thanks to the widespread and ludicrous policy of building housing estates first with schools to follow later - often years and years later).

Anecdotally, some non-believing parents are even having their children baptised, for the sole reason that doing so is the only way to secure a place in the local school.

Readers from other countries should understand that this is not a case of social climbing parents just trying to get their kids into the best school. In large areas of this State, the local Catholic school is the only school. If there is no place for your child in it, there is nowhere else in the vicinity for the little munchkin to go.

This is ridiculous.

Church officials are defending the policy on the grounds that these are, after all, Catholic schools, and since the Church is running the schools, it has the right to decide who can attend. But that's just not good enough. The extent of the Church's control over education in this State means that Catholic schools are, de facto, State schools. They are even called "national" schools. Their teacher salaries are paid for by general taxation. They are not just some minor private enterprise operating on an optional basis with the right to minimal government interference.

The Minister's response to this crisis (no link, sorry; I heard it on the radio) has essentially been to wash her hands of it. The affected families have little recourse under State law, as both the 1937 Constitution and the relevant legislation were effectively drafted in such a way as to protect the Church's right to decide how the majority of our children will be educated.

But when the reality is that children are being discriminated against because of their (or more accurately their parents') religion - and that some parents are even being forced to "convert" their children in order to secure an education for them in their home communities - it is plain that a serious human rights violation is taking place. If the State won't do anything about it, the parents should go to the ECHR. My general misgivings about the European Union notwithstanding, as long as we're going to be a part of it we may as well take what benefits we can get from it - and anything that helps drag this country kicking and screaming into the 21st century is definitely a benefit worth taking.

Religious ethos exemption: a licence to discriminate

I'll call her Lily. She's a qualified language support teacher - a skill that is desperately needed in Ireland's schools today, given the large numbers of immigrant children from non-Anglophone countries. Lily loves her work and she's good at it. But she can't get a job. Why not? Well, because she lives in a small village in rural Ireland, where some of the locals just aren't used to people like Lily - dark-skinned and with a foreign (albeit native-English) accent.

The last time that Lily applied for a job, she was turned down without even being interviewed. She later discovered that the successful applicant was far less qualified than she. But he was a native. She filed a FOI request to find out why she wasn't considered. The response made reference to the need to protect the school's "religious ethos". In other words, the school looked at her details, deduced from her ethnic background that she is not a Catholic, and decided not to shortlist her.

And this is perfectly legal, because Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act 1998 allows denominational schools to discriminate against potential employees who are not of the school's religion.

Once again, Lily is a language support teacher. She wouldn't even be teaching religion. How could her mere presence undermine the school's religious ethos? And without having given her an interview, how could they be certain that she wasn't a Catholic in any case?

It seems quite clear to me that in this case the religious ethos exemption was merely an excuse for the school to discriminate against a person of a foreign/minority ethnic background. With increasing numbers of immigrants in the workforce, the likelihood of this being an isolated incident seems slim.

The need for language support teachers in our schools is pressing - far too pressing to allow the exclusion of qualified people on spurious religious grounds. The law needs to be changed urgently. Not only for the sake of Lily and others like her, but for the children, who need teachers who know what they're doing far more than they need people who happen to fit an idealised cultural stereotype.

I don't agree with the PDs often, but Liz O'Donnell's speech today on the Ferns Report should be shouted from the rooftops. Liz stated that the Church's catastrophic failure to protect the children in its care should - must - mean the end of its special relationship with the State. No more consultation with the Church on issues such as stem cell research, abortion, gay rights, etc. And no more control by the Church over education.

I agree on all of these, but particularly on the last. In an increasingly diverse society the lack of options for non-Catholics, or non-practicising Catholics (such as myself) is simply not acceptable. Schools along the lines of the Educate Together system should be the norm. If people really feel the need to have their child educated under a particular religious ethos, let them set up their own private (and privately funded!) schools. Neither the Catholic Church, nor any other religious institution, should receive public money toward this end.

It's not simply on a philosophical level that I object to state-funded religious education. I also think it's a bad idea as a practical matter. Because you can't discriminate against religions, so if you fund Catholic public schools you have to fund schools of other religions, and this simply encourages segregation. We've seen all too clearly in the northeastern part of this country what that does to intercommunity relations. It's a mistake we should not be repeating.

Today's SBP reports that clinical trials for cancer patients are being held back at some Dublin hospitals over the requirement that the women undergoing treatment use birth control.

Things like this make me so angry. More than that, they make me wonder what kind of backwater, 12th century country I'm living in where the extreme religious views of a few can place the lives of sick women at risk. If you don't believe in contraception, fine, you don't have to use it yourself. But if you're going to host medical research you have to abide by medical standards and one of those standards is that women of childbearing age use birth control while undergoing experimental treatment.

I admit that I'm nobody's idea of a good Catholic, but I'm pretty sure that the God I was raised with would give women a pass to use birth control under these circumstances (if he really cares about it at all, which I doubt). The Catholic God isn't supposed to be some kind of Puritan Sadist God who goes around forcing women to choose between cancer and thalidomide babies.

I know there was a time when Ireland was much worse for things like this, but I'd have hoped we'd moved on by now!