Prime Minister refused to ban 1st cousin marriage

[happydappy2]

Even though there is clear evidence of serious birth defects to babies born from 1st cousin marriages. It is deeply worrying that the bride and groom will have the same Grand Parents.....this is unsafe for women in a patriarchal family system.

Who takes on the bulk of the work caring for the disabled child-the woman...

Why is the British gov't promoting incest?

https://x.com/Basil_TGMD/status/1974371215629578344

I hope this is not true...but does anyone know any more about it?

Obviously there are also a number of Muslims in this county who came here to get away from oppressive Muslim regimes. It partly depends on how big their voices are - I wonder if the government listen to them?

The postal vote expansion is a recipe for, if not fraud, certainly undue influence. Community leaders will be filling in the forms on behalf of voters. If someone says, “I’ll vote myself in secret, thanks” I hardly think that is going to go down well. Let alone if a woman dared to say that!

I’m afraid to say that in the next ten years we are going to have sectarian politics. I saw that there may be 30 Islam-issue MPs in the next parliament. Labour is completely deluded if it thinks it is going to retain city centre seats which were precarious at the last election.

It’s absolutely terrifying and we’ll continue to sleep walk into it. Suicidal empathy

Yes it can. Parliament can legislate against anything it wishes to legislate against. It can pass legislation to state any religious “wedding” ceremony must be accompanied by a civil ceremony and that performing any ceremony which purports to be a “wedding” without the civil aspect is illegal. And then enforce the law robustly shutting down any institutions that don’t comply.

Again, it is a legislative choice whether the UK chooses to recognise marriages that take place in other jurisdictions. Conditions can be attached to this, and already are e.g. the UK won’t recognise bigamous marriages or “child” marriages etc. Other checks can also be imposed such as a requirement to provide evidence of family history back as far as grandparents/ great-grandparents to prove that the couple are not related (such information about ancestry is required in many countries to register a birth, apply for residency or apply for a passport, so it’s not unusual information for a state to demand as part of bureaucratic procedures) or a requirement to have genetic tests to prove that they are not related if they are unable to produce documentary records.

What you are trying to do is outlaw any religious ceremony that somehow pairs individuals but is not a legal marriage ceremony. There are many cultures or beliefs that do not follow our idea of marriage: where they want to remain legally single but have some recognition of their, possibly intended temporary, relationship within their belief system. Currently at least, the ECHR prevents government from interfering with private life (which that certainly would be) or stopping freedom of belief (ditto). Stopping the use of the word ‘wedding’ or ‘marriage’ - prosecuting imams for misdescription - wouldn’t get far in cultures that use a range of other languages with words with potentially similar but slightly different meanings.

Why not just educate girls in school to know what is required for something to be a legal marriage instead? There are plenty of non-religious people who think they have ‘common law’ marriages with no religious ceremony involved at all.

You post @CatchingtheCat”…..why not just educate girls in school to know what is required for something to be a legal marriage instead of……”
But are there not religious based schools that wouldn’t give them that information?

That should be straightforward to legislate for, and check through inspections.

Education has been tried for over 20 years. This has not worked.

No, the “right to a private life” and the “right to religious freedom” have been misinterpreted in case law to extend far beyond what was intended. There are some very interesting discussions going on about this in various European countries at the moment, including an interesting paper written by an expert in this area of law who was also the Belgian Minister in charge of immigration for a couple of decades. Discussions are going on about how to make amendments to the ECHR to clarify the wording and ensure that the provisions aren’t misinterpreted by judges and therefore the extent of the protections provided extended by case law beyond that intended in the Convention itself. This is a very sensible approach and would effectively nullify a lot of case law to date and provide a reset back to the intended meaning of the actual provisions in the ECHR.

The right to religious freedom does not and was never intended to provide a right to carry out practices that are incompatible with the laws of the country in which someone resides of overrule legal functions and state legislation. This is intended to provide people with the right to practice their religion in private in a manner that doesn’t impact others. All rights are necessarily constrained and limited within the boundaries of not causing harm to others. It certainly would not provide a right for people to carry out religious ceremonies purporting to be a marriage if the state legislates very clearly that all marriages must be civil marriages.

Similarly, the right to a private life is not absolute. If your private life involves you wanting to engage in an illegal activity then it is not a defence. This is a misinterpretation of the protections that the ECHR provides. Otherwise paedophiles, domestic abusers etc. could claim that they have a right to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own home. It is perfectly legitimate for the state to prohibit marriages between close relatives, just as it has done between siblings, or children and their parents, and this not an interference in private life or in any way in conflict with the ECHR.

The problem with this, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, is that many of the genetic conditions in question are so rare that they are not possible to test for. They’re so rare that little or nothing is known about them until they manifest. They’re so rare that the probability of them manifesting in a child with two unrelated parents with no inbreeding in their family trees for several generations would be close to zero, yet the chances rise to 25% for a child with two parents carrying the same rare defective gene.

With each generation of successive inbreeding in a family these risks compound and rise exponentially with people marrying others with a higher and higher concentration of common genes. This is scientific fact and we see it in practice with breeding of livestock, with endangered animals in the wild when the gene pool becomes too small to produce healthy offspring and extinction therefore becomes inevitable, with inbreeding of certain types of pets. It causes lower average IQ (successively over each generation that it continues), behavioural issues, other physical problems, as well as the catastrophic genetic disabilities in the unluckiest children.

This is why it is entirely different to, for example, someone knowing that they are a carrier of a specific gene predisposing them to cancer, or the gene for Huntingtons or similar because that is a discrete, known thing for which a potential partner can be tested and IVF can be used to avoid passing on to children. You can’t test for conditions so rare in terms of world population that the genes involved haven’t even been identified yet, but which will result in very high prevalence of severe disabilities if two carriers procreate together.

what illegal practices do you think two pagans who don’t want to married but want to undergo a hand fasting ceremony have done? Why should the state be interested in that? Or try to ban it?

Is you concern for women who think they are legally married but are not? If that is due to misunderstanding then education and some basic protections (eg access to shared assets) might be in order - religion would not be part of that as plenty of women think they acquire such rights.

If someone misleads them into believing they have been married in law when they have not then they should be prosecuted for fraud.

I’m not aware of Pagans claiming that such ceremonies constitute a marriage, therefore they would be irrelevant and not covered by such legislation. Neither am I aware of Pagans trying to set up a parallel legal process with different principles and rules to UK law and trying to administer “divorces” from hand fasted couples and direct custody arrangements, division of assets etc.

So it is not a religious ceremony that is an issue or needs to be restricted. It is Sharia law that is? I would agree with that and say Sharia courts should be banned.

“Sharia law” or any attempt to set up parallel courts/ legal processes should of course be banned and there should be significant penalties for doing so as I said earlier in the thread. Effectively this is an attempt to pervert the course of justice/ legal process so should automatically carry severe penalties.

Simultaneously the state obviously needs to provide protections to all of its citizens therefore it legislates against many harmful practices. Religion and the freedom to practice one’s religion does not and never has overriden UK law. This issue really is not different to “child marriage” being prohibited in UK law. It doesn’t matter if your religion says it’s ok, it isn’t: it’s illegal. So is marrying your sibling. The same should be the case for any close blood relative and it’s perfectly legitimate for the state to enforce this.

The most sensible way to do this is to legislate that all marriages/ weddings must be registered as civil marriages and will therefore have to comply with the provisions set out in legislation in order to take place. This is the case already in many countries. It’s bizarre that we make this optional for certain “religious ceremonies” and really goes to show just how far the nefarious influence of religions has extended into law and state institutions. The Nikah ceremonies are very clearly purported to be a marriage, therefore it’s perfectly reasonable for the state to impose conditions upon this taking place.

As I said earlier in the thread, I think it’s very clear how some groups of people are trying to influence law and rights and freedoms and using religion as an excuse for trying to inflict their beliefs and damaging behaviour on the rest of society, from Charlie Kirk and his ilk in the US to Muslim communities electing “Islamic MPs” with block voting in the UK. These people aren’t just trying to practice their chosen religion, they are determined to influence public policy/ law to try to force everyone else to comply with their beliefs. That is unacceptable.

My personal opinion is that the right to religious freedom (i.e. to practice your religious beliefs in private, without impacting anyone else) should of course be protected but we desperately need to disestablish the Church of England and put in place a written constitution making it very clear that this is a secular society and religion has no place in public policy making or legislation, and certainly not in education, more like France but even more clear on this matter. The law needs to apply equally to everyone and those who would prefer an extreme regime where public policy and law is determined by social attitudes and edicts set out in books from thousands of years ago are welcome to move to the Middle East or the US or many other countries which take their desired approach, rather than live in a European country where policy should be based on evidence. “Culture” or “belief” is absolutely no excuse for illegal behaviours that are harmful to other individuals or wider society and it should not be tolerated or excused on this basis.

No. Of course not. Simply make it clear in a written constitution that this is a secular society and its laws are not set based on anyone’s religious beliefs.

MPs can be religious and yet leave that aside and do their job, if they are competent to be MPs, the same as anybody else may have to do things at work that they may not personally agree with. At the moment we have MPs overtly objecting to evidence-based legislation on religious grounds (e.g. the Assisted Dying bill). That is clearly unacceptable because their religious beliefs have no relevance to determining appropriate legislation for the country, which has no official/ majority religion. Their job is to assess legislative proposals on the basis of evidence, not their personal beliefs. The MP’s Code of Conduct should make it clear that this is unacceptable so that any MP behaving in such a manner is forced to resign. Likewise Bishops needs to be removed from the House of Lords, religious “schools” should be abolished etc. Religious freedom is important but should be an entirely private matter and what religious people should not have the ability to do is try to constrain the rights and freedoms of others in order to force others to comply with their own beliefs by trying to mandate it through public policy/ law.

There needs to be a very clear separation between religion and any public policy/ legislative procedures/ state institutions/ judicial procedures/ medical practice etc. A specific statement in a written constitution that this is a secular country and prohibiting such religious interference in the conduct of our legislative/ administrative/ judicial processes would provide a basis to challenge any attempt to change our laws or the administrative processes of our state institutions in favour of any particular brand of religious beliefs - see the way the fundamentalist Christians in the US are increasingly restricting women’s reproductive rights.

We are not a secular country though.

How awful that Wilberforce allowed his Christian faith to influence him in Parliament to pursue the abolition of slavery….

Absolutely. This is what all religious fanatics want, and what democratic countries must stamp out very robustly and make clear will not happen: the opposite of the approach that’s been taken for many years. Tolerance does not mean you’re going to be allowed to dominate others and mandate that they should comply with your beliefs and have their freedoms and rights restricted “because religion”.

Islamism is a scourge taking over this country rapidly and is probably the most extreme danger women and girls currently face.

Any woman who isn't fighting this should be ashamed of themselves.

I haven’t said that no good things have ever come from religion. However, a quick look in some history books (or indeed around the world currently) shows quite clearly that it is responsible for a great deal of suffering, war, persecution, control, restriction of rights and in general has caused far more harm than good over human history, not to mention holding back scientific progress and medicine for centuries.

It’s perfectly possible to make the rational arguments for why slavery is unacceptable without resorting to sky fairies. The bible condones all kinds of abhorrent abusive practices towards women, children, gay people and others, but of course like all religious people you want to pick and choose what suits you.

Ultimately why should anybody else care what you or any other religious person believes? It’s irrelevant to how best to structure society which should be based on evidence and data; what works and achieves the best outcomes. Treating everyone equally. Any reasonable person will defend your right to believe whatever you wish to believe. The boundary has to be drawn at the point where you start to inflict beliefs without any evidence or data to support their validity onto other people in ways that restrict their rights and freedoms to live their lives how they wish to, as well, provided they also aren’t causing any unacceptable levels of harm to others by doing so. This is the balance that the law always has to strike and in practice it means that religious freedoms are important but do not extend beyond you practicing your religion in private. It has no place in public life, education, determining appropriate laws, the administration of justice or any public institution and this should be a hard boundary because the effects when this boundary is breached are plain for all to see.

The precise point you were arguing against was me stating that we need to disestablish the Church of England and set out a proper written constitution which states very clearly that we are a secular country in order to stop the nefarious attempts from various religious groups to mandate compliance with their religious beliefs through legislation/ influencing public policy and its application to make it complaint with their religious beliefs (with cries of “discrimination” if their behaviour is ever criticised and they attempt to use their religion to justify it. This was even attempted as a way to justify mutilating little girls with FGM, for example).

Based on 2021 census data this is a secular country (England and Wales data):

46.2% of people stated they were Christian (a 22% decrease from 2011), but most don’t regularly practice it or go to Church anyway;

37.2% have no religion (a 48% increase from 2011);

6.5% of people are Muslims (a 33% increase from 2011);

1.7% of people are Hindu (a 13% increase from 2011);

0.5% are Jewish (static since 2011);

0.5% are Buddhist (a 25% increase since 2011);

0.9% are Sikh (a 13% increase since 2011);

7.1% didn’t answer the question at all (a 15% decrease from 2011).

Therefore, quite clearly there is not a majority religion that should legitimately hold sway over our law or public policy and has consensus from the population to do so, and based on the current trends the next census is expected to show that the majority religion of the UK is “no religion”.

What you don’t recognise is you are also driven by a belief system.

The precise point you were arguing against was me stating that we need to disestablish the Church of England and set out a proper written constitution which states very clearly that we are a secular country

I'm a floating left of center atheist voter and would vote against this.

The attack on women right last decde of so hasn't come from trational reglious groups it's come from Stonewall and their allies.

I'd vote against it as last thing we need is constitutional upheaval of any sort - I'm in wales devoltion made as many issues as it's solved - and brexit hardly been a great success.

We have many problems as a country and we need to focus on them not distratractions like a written consitution. I like how our partly written/partly unwritten one is flexibale meaning it adaps as population views change.

The state instutions that have stood test of time were build when UK was a predominantly christan country they mostly work getting rid of them at time world very unstable is madness. I may be an atheist but feel no need to get rid of our counrty's history and traditions and feel no need to impose my athism on others.

Given Trumps currently showing how toothless the USA written constitution actaully is I'm surpsied how many are suddenly arguing we need one.

I posted figure ealier that show number of first cousin marraiges in Bradford did drop in a decade - not as far as most of us would like but there was a substantial drop. I went to school with second and third generation muslims and sikhs that were influenced by wider UK society and they all likely lie us have near grown kids likely even more so.

Empirical evidence isn’t a “belief system”.

Are you trying to claim that science is a “belief system”? That geneticists just happen to “believe” what they have shown with statistically valid research studies, and that this is somehow on a par with religious beliefs for which there is no evidence whatsoever?

This spurious argument has been attempted many times by religious fanatics for centuries and thoroughly debunked. You’re fooling nobody, I’m afraid.

The difference is that scientists actively try to disprove their own theories. They test them. When new evidence comes to light that shows flaws in them, they are interested and excited and investigate further and will change their position based on new evidence. Not call the scientist who discovered it an “infidel” and claim they will burn in hell or imprison or kill them to silence them. They welcome challenge and progress and haven’t declared, ever, that their current level of knowledge is THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH which must never be questioned and all new evidence will be ignored and how dare you question even the most nonsensical things these books say, even when we know they are literally impossible?

Science and religion are completely different types of systems. One is an ongoing process of trying to discover knowledge and facts for the benefit of all of humanity about the reality in which we live. It is based on peer reviews, testing, empirical evidence, data, observable reality, and attempts to constantly learn more and invite others to try to disprove/ improve. The other is based on edicts written in ancient books for which people fail to provide any coherent, rational argument; is full of self-contradiction and supported by absolutely no data or evidence whatsoever; is entirely disconnected from empirical reality; which people quote from selectively ignoring the inconvenient parts they don’t like; and which they get offended and furious about being questioned by others.

Science isn’t about “beliefs”. It’s about rational investigation and evidence. No scientist would ever say “well, you can’t disprove my theory so it must be true!”. The onus is on the person putting forward the theory to provide evidence to support it, having put forward a hypothesis which is disprovable in order to do so, and scientists try very hard to disprove their own work themselves and welcome attempts from others to do so in order to learn more. I doubt Newton is seething at Einstein in your imaginary heaven/ hell.

It is interesting that despite all the turmoil in the world, guess who always seem to manage to work collaboratively across countries anyway, despite many states trying to make this difficult? Scientists. Who does the opposite of this and tries to stop knowledge and progress and expertise being shared? Religious fanatics.

You’ve attempted to make entirely false equivalence - one so old and tired that it is beyond silly - as I’m sure you are very well aware.

What empirical evidence is there for assisted suicide? Or that vulnerable people, especially women and disabled people, won’t be coerced? In the absence of any belief about the value of life, how can you have any boundaries at all to supporting suicide? Or do you support young children being supported to kill themselves because they are depressed?