to think that Christians do not want equal treatment, they want their views to be given a privileged in public life.

[seeker]

and that the discrimination that some Christians claim they are suggering is actually just the withdrawing of that privileged position, and the levelling of the playing fiels for people of faith and people without faith.

I'd like the list of privileges that I'm entitled to please -
I want to take full advantage of them - starting today

Oops, things moved on whilst I was one-handed-typing, sorry!

A list of Christian privileges:

1. Special schools
2. Daily act of Christian collective worship in almost all primary schools.
3. No council tax for the clergy
4. Exempt from having to comply to the Charity commission rules, including those on equality and those on the need to demonstrate a benefit to the public.
5. Tax exemptions in general
6. 93% of VAT exemptions, which does not apply to all other listed buildings.
7. Seats in the house of laws.
8. Almost all state funded religious activity is Christian (lights, christmas trees etc).
9. Public holidays are Christian.

10. Restricting the right to marry to heterosexual people only because of political pressure from Christians. Banning of any religious content from civil partnerships, even when not held in a state owned building (hopefully about to change).

House of Lords is what I meant to type!

Yes seeker, we know there are 25 Bishops in the House of Lords. This is because the UK is a Christian country. It doesn't mean we are being secretly sabotaged and brainwashed by Bibler bashers from within the government. Elder statesmen of the church have been involved in government for centuries, and not just in the UK.

Seeker I am actually quite disturbed by your attacks on christianity and your refusal to tell us what religion you are yourself. Put the shoe on the other foot. No other religion bashing would be tolerated like this if it was a christian saying Muslims have too much power or Jews have too much influence.

bluenordic - or, because the crucifixion story is based around Passover/Pesach - the last supper was the Passover Seder (all Jewish months are lunar, hence they move in relation to the secular calendar)

10. Restricting the right to marry to heterosexual people only because of political pressure from Christians. Banning of any religious content from civil partnerships, even when not held in a state owned building (hopefully about to change).

this is something i particularly dont like

MillyR: re: your list - I want the priviliges that I'm entitled to as an individual - you might as well have listed the privileges MP's or the royal family get for the relevance it has on me.

Show me where I have attacked Christianity.

Do you really think that having 25 Christian Bishops automatically in the House of Lords and therefore automatically being in a position to influence the formation of public policy is not a privilege?

Explain why you think my own belief system is relevant and I will tell you what it is. I am obviously a secularist - like many people of all faiths and none.

Since when were Christians in general awarded a higher status in public life than anyone else? Fair enough with the House of Lords argument but that affects 25 people out of millions. And they come from one part of the Church. As a member of The Salvation Army, I seriously don't give a toss whether they're in the Lords because it doesn't affect my life, or those in my church.

What I do object to is the notion some people carry around that Christians are somehow lesser people- naive, ignorant, reactionary. While I have met some who are like that, the vast majority are not. The people at my church are some of the most lovely, non-judgemental people you could meet who work to assist the most needy in society; the homeless, the jobless and the vulnerable. We do that because we believe Jesus commanded us to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Whether you think Christianity (and other religions, as well) is a massive fiction or not, surely the people doing good out of a sense of religious conviction and not looking for praise for their actions are still doing a good thing.

RE point 10.

In the Catholic church the two people getting married actually perform the sacrament of marriage. The priest is there to oversee it and give a blessing after the marriage has been contracted (i.e. after the exchange of vows).

There are many priests who will give a blessing to a homosexual couple after their civil wedding.

In this respect it is equal on a spiritual level.

But it is deeply unfair that church law will not allow a homosexual couple to contract a civil partnership in a church if they want to.

By the way, I have many friends of other faiths, and atheists. People are just people, aside from their religion. I'll let you have your atheism if you let me have my sky-God XD

carminaburana
The discussion is AIBU to think that Christians do not want equal treatment, they want their views to be given a privilege in public life NOT private life .

I think you have to reverse it for people to see the privilege.

How would Christians feel if it was decided that they were not allowed, by law,to get married, because many gay people were uncomfortable with the idea of a marriage that involved God. So only people who didn't attend church were allowed to get married, and Christians had to have civil partnerships instead, where they weren't allowed to mention certain ideas when they signed the document, because gay people weren't comfortable with Christians mentioning those ideas.

And every time a Christian said they were married, other people would turn around and say, you're not really married. Only non-christians can get married. You just have a civil partnership, which doesn't include vows, or even have to have the two people turning up at the same time to sign it. It is just a piece of paper.

Would Christians think it was fair that their right to get married was considered less important than the feelings of gay people, or would you think society was putting the feelings of gay people into a privileged position?

"Whether you think Christianity (and other religions, as well) is a massive fiction or not, surely the people doing good out of a sense of religious conviction and not looking for praise for their actions are still doing a good thing."

Of course it is. WHere did I sy it wasn't?

What I am saying is that Christian beliefs should not hold a privileged place in public life.

If your child was asked to worshop Satan every day at school, or make a whatever it's called - an obeisance or something to the Earth Goddess, would you be cool with that? If not, why should you expect me to be cool with my children being obliged to pray to a Christian god at schoole very day?

TheAtomicBum I think I am quite respectful of anyone's right to have a schizophrenic discourse with whatever imaginary friend they like.

House of Lords Time for a properly elected second chamber. Why should someone born between a certain pair of legs be allowed to influence laws made by an elected chamber? The same goes for religious Lords, it's not the brand of fairy tale they worship that is the problem, ir is that they are there at all unelected, becuase they have climbed to the top of a profession. Law Lords - keep them as a subset of the second chamber.

Schools Should be totally secular with religious lessons taught as I described earlier. Want to worship something? Do it on your own time, not on the time reserved for education, or form your own educational establishment that worships the same idols that your clan do, but not paid for out of general taxation. (many have).

Point 3 - no council tax for the clergy. This is not true. Council tax is paid on clergy houses by the dioceses concerned, rather than the individual living in the house (as the house is not theirs) - but the tax is still paid.

Flingon, it isn't church law that stops people having civil partnerships in church. Some churches and synagogues want to be able to conduct civil partnerships. It is the government who has banned civil partnerships from being conduced in a religious place or from having any religious content.

nesta - 'jews have too much influence', don't bring jews into this. i am a jew and i fucking LOVE this country being christian, LOVE it. i am not aware of generally jews being the ones who make demands, you know that generally it is one specific religion who seem to do this but noone dares say but we know. i too HATE the way my dd comes home from school constantly spouting on about other religions but RARELY EVER mentions anything she has learnt about christianity unlike when i was at school years ago and we learnt about jesus etc all the time plus we sang every morning hyms, all of which never really happen in her school now for fear of offending, and her christmas nativity was about a teddy bear which really pissed me off. And instead of making christmas cards, they made cards with flowers on because it had offended others in previous years. i cannot, as a jew, remember a single time when jews have spoken up about wanting christianity being played down so leave us out of it. i love this country being christian and do not want it to change

Although many of the listed priveleges may not directly benefit you, some do.

1. Having a greater chance of getting your child into a christian state funded school. Why else do you think parents pretend to be religious and drag their kids along to church every week.

1. Having bank holidays on christian festivals. I think this should remain - but it is a privilege. Imagine if bank holidays were on other days and you had to book annual leave for every christian holiday.

"But it is deeply unfair that church law will not allow a homosexual couple to contract a civil partnership in a church if they want to."

Why though? I find it deeply repugnant, but it's their club so they can make up the rules.

If you think you have it bad, try living in Ireland. 95% of the schools run and owned by the Catholic church. Mass on TV, and the Angelus. No abortion. Divorce fairly recent.
Bloody church in everything.

And Winterval, still, really? You can't see the difference between a name for "a programme of events run over Christmas and New Year" and renaming Christmas so as not to offend minorities? Anyone who can't see the difference is an imbecile.

Middlemarch: see seeker's post above: the bishops influence public policy, therfore, public policy is swayed in a christian direction, see esp. Millie's points 2,4,7,10. Christian thinking permeates the culture, it is not about the individual bishops as you suggest in your first paragraph.

Also, Some Christian beliefs are reactionary (eg Millie's point 10), so it's not hard to see where that opinion comes from. People always generalise, don't they?

YANBU (to an extent).

We do hear a lot of Christians saying "this is a christian country", i.e. our views should take precedence

Nope, Fiesta, I understood you perfectly.

Personally i would hate to live in a country with sharia law as I would not not want to live in any undemocratic governmental system - that in itself represents to me 'too much power'. Whether it is 'too much power' for the citizens of that Islamic country is for them to determine, and has no reflection on what we should do in our democracy.

And I think it is outrageous that the Queen being Head of the CoE automatically creates a link between the state and the church. For me, in a democracy, that is a serious anachronism which undermines our democratic values.

The position of Queen as Head of the CoE should, constitutionally, be optional, IMO, as it automatically precludes any monarch of any other branch of chritianity, lety alone any other religion. What sort of basis is THAT for a democracy. And if the monarch accepts such a position of the head of any church (FlingOn's , perhaps, should Will and Kates dd's take up her denomination), then that should abslutley not result in an automatic 25 seats in the Lords!

Actually, of course, the monach should have no constitutional role at all, in a democracy.