Faith schools are flourishing, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service is replaced by anti-abortion group Life as a government adviser . . . and the Rapture is still on the cards. Help!
The world is going backwards. Just as I was daring to think that things were looking up a bit, with science working out how the world works, people nearly able to walk about in this country being gay, black or whatever without being murdered, rapists and slave owners almost disapproved of and sometimes even punished, and sex considered more or less natural, then here we go, being dragged back into the dark ages by our government. Faith schools are flourishing, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service is replaced by the anti-abortion group Life as one of the government's advisers on sexual health, funding has been taken from the Poppy Project and given to the Salvation Army, Christian pro-abstinence Silver Ring Thing people on the Sex and Relationships Council are being taken seriously by Michael Gove, and the Rapture is still on the cards.
"Those people are easy prey," says Fielding. "You're like Richard Dawkins sneering at the hippy water diviner."
Good. Just what I want to be. What a wet Fielding is. He doesn't want people to think he thinks he's cleverer than the religious fundamentalists peddling fairytales on his doorstep and everywhere else, and his mother always taught him to be polite to strange but harmless visitors. The Jehovah's Witnesses seem frightfully busy lately, visiting Fielding, me and my friend Clayden, where they discuss Jesus through the intercom.
"The trouble is," said Clayden politely, "that I've never had the slightest feeling that there is such a thing as a God. It makes no sense to me, and it seems that your God is a tribal and racist God who condones genocide."
"He is the God of love," said the JWs, but that isn't what Clayden found in his Jerusalem version of the Bible, and just as he launched into his thoughts on Noah, he heard a click and the JWs had gone, on to the lady downstairs.
I just shouted immoderately at the JWs and ordered them never to call again, but at least they were only on our doorsteps. The more terrifying groups seem to have their feet right inside the door. Of No 10. Help!
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/may/27/religion-sexual-health-anti-abortion
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