I was on the Nolan show (BBC Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster) this morning. The topic was the mix you get when politics and religion collide. If we’d been able to insert sex as well we’d have had the ideal mix: Gay Byrne used to say his RTE Late Late Show thriced on those three ingredients. For once he spake truth.
But we stuck largely to the politics and religion. The question posed was, should politicians park their religious belief when they enter the Assembly or parliament. Those opposed lobbed in a reference to the videos of Isis beheadings, which was like referring to laser beams used for cutting metal when discussing what cutlery to buy. Those who don’t like the idea of religion in general were naturally agin it appearing in political form. I mite misleading, I thought. Everyone in politics, be they religious, agnostic, atheist or devil-worshipper, brings a view of the world, a set of values, to their political work. Often it’s a commitment to those values which motivates them to enter politics in the first place. So yes, was my response on Nolan – of course Jim Wells is entitled to bring his religious beliefs into the political sphere. Many of our laws have their origin in religious beliefs – laws governing theft and murder being obvious examples. But some religious precepts, like those about fornication and worship of graven images, find no place in our legal system. Stephen Noland and you and I are free in law to worship as many graven images as we like and to fornicate until the smoke’s coming out our ears. From a religious point of view we might be in error but from a legal point of view we can rip away.
At the back of it all, of course, was Jim Wells’s statement about abortion and its legalisation on non-legalisation here. Wells like many others – myself included – is opposed to abortion, and he has a right – and is right – to maintain those beliefs in his political life. But the point may come where his beliefs don’t match with the democratic will, in which case he must accept the majority view of society, however distasteful he may find this.
One final point. There are people who say they are opposed to abortion except in cases of rape or incest, and that the law should reflect that. I accept the sincerity of such belief but I find it baffling. There are two possible courses of action in such cases: either attempt to remove the cause of the woman’s distress by performing an abortion, or permit the pregnancy to go to full term and a birth. While the distress of the woman in such cases is totally understandable, it does seem more than unreasonably to punish the vile crime by killing one of the two innocent parties.
Jude, in the end surely the decision must be the womans. Noone ( and certainly no man) has any right to dictate on this issue. Whatever your or my personal distaste might be the womans right to choose what happens to her own body must remain hers.
Jackie – I can see as they say where you’re coming from, but I’m not sure I agree. I accept the woman has a connection to the child/foetus that’s more intimate than the man’s, but if my son’s wife had decided to have an abortion and told him it wasn’t his concern, I think he’d have been pretty miffed. It all comes down to whether you believe there’s another human being in there. If there is, it’s hard to see how the woman (or anyone else) has a right to end its life. If there’s not a human being, it hardly matters.
Thought provoking as usual, Jude.
Im a Republican and im absolutely against abortion 100%. Its effectively destroying the next generation. I believe children are a good thing and should be treasured, not killed.
There’s a problem I touched upon regarding the”democratic will” here in Norneverland. I feel that many here are only prepared to accept the democratic will of a political majority view if it jives with their own beliefs. Otherwise it’s to he’ll with you and your democracy.This was touched on recently in the TV thing Who Won The War. Two men were interviewed around a huge bonfire and my impression was that if there was a majority voting to unite Ireland in some new form , they wouldn’t accept that. The implication was that democracy would end there and then and there would be some pointless fight to overturn the will of the people.I noticed it too of course over the flags row at City Hall. What do people think democracy really means?
There is a lot of nonsense talked about abortion, the fact is it is used as a form of birth control, on an industrial scale. I personally would never support it but if others want to well then maybe having to catch the boat to England MIGHT make them think twice about what they are doing. I don`t care whether Sinn Féin do or do not support it, I do note cast my vote for them for moral or religious guidance, as someone said a long time ago, `I take my religion from Rome but my politics from home`.
You hit the nail on the head , ANOTHER JUDE, there is certainly a lot of nonsense talked about abortion.
Jude
How would he know the democratic will of the majority in society. The majority do not vote and do not get to vote on a single issue such as abortion. We are offered orange or green and as you frequently point out the majority tend to vote on that basis. As both orange and green hold similar views on abortion, that allows our political parties to sit back and say, well people voted us in they must support our stance!
I’m still baffled, by the way as to why anyone anti-abortion would continue to vote for Sinn Fein when the life or death of so many innocents is presumed to be in the balance. One would think it should be top of the agenda.
On the other hand the recent BelTel polling suggested that politicians (and you) are out of step with the rest of society here on abortion, with a clear majority in favour of liberalisation.
But we don’t pay any heed to polls around here. Better to keep our heads in the sand.
Roger Miller once penned a memorable song to be sung memorably by Gentleman Jim Reeves: ‘When two worlds collide’.
This happy collision occurred in Nashville in the 1960s. The collision of the two worlds of politics and religion also occurred in the same decade in the Gnashvilles of Norn Iron, which could scarcely be filed away under h for happy.
Another unhappy collision happened in 1966 in the Dublin, the Gnashville of the Free Southern Stateen when the statue of Thomas Davis was unveiled in Dame Street. Nosey Parker Perkie was hanging from the railings of the Bank of Ireland on that inauspicious occasion (a habit he has never quite managed to kick ever since) and can still vividly recall the sharp intake of breath and bafflement when the statue was unveiled by the then President E de Valera.
And as he pulled the string which first drew back and then pulled down the dark shroud which had tantalisingly covered the statue for the previous week, the unmistakably roar from the larynx of Jem the Generic Dubliner could be heard to shatter the stunned silence of that stunned silence among the invited and uninvited alike:
-Jeyses fluid ! Would youse look at good ole Boris Karloff !
By which he meant, by extension, Frankenstein’s monster. This is how Mary Shelley described the original: ‘It was 8 foot high, a hideously ugly creation, with transluscent yellowish skin pulled so taut over the body that it barely disguised the working of the arteries and the sinews underneath. Its eyes were watery and were glowing, its bushy hair was flowing, it had blackish lips and prominent white teeth’.
Thus did Edward Delaney, the distinguished sculptor responsible for this monumental monstrosity, capture to perfection the creation of Frankenstein.
So what exactly did Thomas Davis do to warrant this posthumous likening to an unprepossessing Prometheus? Apart, that is, from being the conduit for the collision of the Protestant religion and the politics of Irish nationalism. It was, after all, Tommy Davis Jr who penned the following:
‘A people without a language of its own is only half a nation. A nation should guard its language more than its territories – tis a surer barrier and more important frontier, than fortress or river. To lose your native tongue and learn that of an alien is the worst badge of conquest. To have lost entirely the national language is death…the fetter has worn through’.
This is the monster of an idea which he created and for which he was to be duly punished in time and in stone.
If Tommy Davis Jr were to pull the above verbal stunt today it is possible he would get even shorter shift indeed in the Free Southern Stateen. This is the place where such an abject specimen of what the cobbers of Oz call ‘the cultural cringe, mate’, that telly jelly for the custard brained, Fr. Tedium, is elevated to emblematic status.
He would probably get as key-cold a welcome as Frankenstein himself got in 1818 when he landed on the shores of Norn Iron, just four years after the birth of Tommy Davis Jr. :
When Frankenstein heard the wee unfriendly locals speak English he automatically assumed they were English and said: ‘Why do you answer me so roughly? Surely it is not the custom of Englishmen to receive strangers so inhospitably’.
To which the reply came: ‘I do not know what the custom of the English may be, but it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains’.
Although Mary Shelley does not identify the speaker Perkie fancies he hears an echo of Sommy the generic wee Loyalist.
Of course it is quite possible that wee Sommy mistook Frankenstein for his monster, a confusion which has continued through the birth of the fillum industry and is still alive today.
Thus, is Dame Street a particularly apt location for the monstrous monument (see above). For the original plans of Dame Street itself were destined for New York while the ditto of another street were supposed to be Dublin bound. Alas, confusion reigned and so The Big Potato got Dame Street while The Big Apple got Mott Street. Mott, of course, being Dublin street slang for ‘girlfriend or dame’.
Sammy Davis Jr, of course hails from New York and has often posed the rhetorical question while serenading the various attributes of Manhattan: ‘and what street compares to Mott Street?’. To which the only answer can be: Cherchez la Femme.
Ever since boyhood’s flame was in Perkie the Putative Producer’s blood he has dreamed of bringing out an LP which would be the ultimate, erm, moster hit:
‘Davis Jr: Sammy sings Tommy’.
Just think what a finger-snapping, toe-tapping Mr. Bojangles could have done to waken up the sleepy West even as he would pile rhetorical q. upon r. question: ‘who could take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew, cover it with yellow man and add a dulse or two?’.
The Candy Man of Andytown.
It would have been published on the ‘Harmony and Peace’ (HaP) label whose motto might even have been:
Don’t confuse politics with religion, one is the other’s monster.
Religion and politics may collide, but it does not have to be an entirely unhappy collision. It can even be more dodgem than bumper, as anyone who has been to the funfair in Bundoran, south of Rossnowlagh, can tell.
Abortion in cases of rape or incest is the opposite of ‘baffling’ in my mind. How can anyone other than the victim of rape decide what is the best course after the traumatic event. If a woman becomes pregnant as a consequence of rape/incest then gives birth to child she will forever be reminded of the traumatic rape every-time she looks at her child. What a life for the mother, what a life for the child
Another Jude,
What a load of rubbish to come out of your mouth! If you take your religion from “Rome” perhaps you would not mind telling them to let people use birth control! DUH!
As for that other person Ryan republicanism has nothing to do with it! DUH!
I would never consider an abortion, purely on the grounds of my conscious with God. It can be prevented, it’s not the babies fault. Equally if the case was tight 100% I would hang rapists from the gallows, and not by their necks.
This is woman’s business and I do believe you’s should all butt out. Unless of course you are married to the woman.
Norma