Ignorance does not lead to bliss....

I was not so much interested as unsurprised to have it confirmed today that many of those who hold public, even ministerial office, in our land would appear to display a degree of ignorance.

As many will know the House of Lord's is debating Harriet Harridan's Equality Bill and at last some of our bishops are making a robust defence of the Faith and calling into question the wisdom of such a bill which will almost certainly lead, not to equality, but to power for certain minorities over people of faith.

In response to the bishops' statement's in the Upper House Baroness Thornton trotted out the Government's agreed line: "It is only right that people employed by commercial and publicly funded organisations are not allowed to discriminate on any grounds, no matter what their private belief." This would seem to me to be a display of a certain degree of ignorance.

Firstly, the Baroness needs help to understand the difference between objective and subjective, between obedience and disobedience, between what is private belief and what is held in common. Christians are members of The Church and ought not to place their private opinions above what has been revealed by God to the world, and which they hold in common. Christianity is a revealed religion and calls for acceptance and obedience and even though individually and corporately we may fall from grace this does not diminish its truth. Furthermore, this Government seems to have forgotten that this is not a secular state, but one with an Established Church (the right and wrong of that is for another blog post). The Church is not the Government's Poodle and nor does it simply exist to toe the party line.

Secondly, who is to say whether the opinions of the members of the Government which they inflict on us in the form of legislation are anything less or more than private opinions?

Thirdly, this political class seems to revel in claiming that public opinion is on its side - well we will see come Election Day. But if the opinions shared while queueing up for the Newspaper or the Bus are anything to go by then there is a gently simmering resentment at being told how we should think, never mind act.

Indeed it could be argued that the way for a minority to enforce acceptance of its views and private opinions - no matter how out of keeping it is with the history of mankind and what has always been held in common - is simply to gradually take over a major political party - it may take years and it will have to be done quietly, but it can be done: indeed it has been done and we are now paying the consequences.

The present shower running "New Labour" are not Labour Party members at all - they are bourgeois ungrown-ups who have taken over the Labour Party displaying for all thinking people to see their own ill-informed and uneducated thinking.

There are two short letters in the Telegraph today that speak volumes:

1. "Sir - I joined the Labour Party because I believed in breaking down social barriers and in giving educational opportunities to the underprivileged, not to see a modern form of religious persecution. I left the party over a year ago, feeling betrayed."

2. "Sir - The answer to the question "Why does Labour hate faith schools?" is simple. Like Grammar Schools, they educate working-class children too well and so do not churn out little Labour voters."