Cliques and Cliches

The protection from discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexuality, race, religion etc, applies to ‘straight, white Christians’ and everyone else. That is why the churches are not forced by law to adopt equality in terms of gender, marriage or sexuality. If members or leadership of a church decide to conform to social changes, that is their right.

It’s to easy to suggest that modern freedoms are all about ‘them’. The law is phrased very specifically to make the freedoms apply to everyone. Like all laws, they are ignored by some (by no means all) SWCs because gossip and rumour are more powerful than fact. But SWCs have used the equality laws in courts and been successful.

Removing other peoples freedoms is unfair and vulnerable to bias. The test of which freedoms you really disagree with is actually the freedoms you would forego yourself. It’s a useful exercise: “To whom it may concern, I (state your name) am quite happy to be unfairly or badly treated by reason of the characteristics in the list below. I indemnify any individual or organisation, government or private of any civil legal consequence, if they discriminate against me because of . . . . (begin list here)”

You soon find that the specifics associated with rights that are resented when they are associated with “them” – freedom of religion, dignity in disability, equal pay, respect for gender, freedom to marry etc aren’t ‘theirs’ but ‘ours’.

You personally might not want to marry anyone, but you can choose to cohabit with them. If you change your mind, you might prefer the choice of who and how you want, rather than be forced to abandon the country of your natural allegiance – not much point marrying in Holland if that marriage is not going to be recognised in the country where you live. You also might want your soulmate to have the automatic rights of next of kin in terms of children, property or health decisions (wills etc can be challenged). These are recent changes.

If a number of people on a discussion/message board have similar views on a topic that don’t match yours, that does not make them a clique unless they then go on to deliberately exclude anyone who doesn’t agree with them from the discussion.

There are many examples of cliques in everyday life, religious institutions being one example, political organisations another. Not all cliques are bad though, some can achieve amazing things.
To my mind a clique becomes “bad” when the exclusion of others causes pain or suffering, or when the clique sees themselves as being superior to others.

@panda12 wrote:

Poli, you said the “straight white Christians of this country are gradually being pushed into extinction.”

Do you have facts to back that up?

Asians have been present in this country since the 17th century with records showing black people having been here since as early as the 12th century.

It’s rather ignorant of people to think this country is a white man’s country. It may be predominantly so but black and asian people have been here for a long, long time. Ironically, guess who bought a lot of the black ppl here? Slave owners.

I think I said it on another thread but British ppl or English ppl aren’t exclusively white, you know. Just because a person has black or brown skin doesn’t mean they can’t possibly have been born in this country. :roll:

Panda thank you for proving my point, i clearly stated it wasnt a racist rant and skin colour has nothing to do with it being british, as you have also stated different colour skinned people have been here for generations, my point being, the fact i as a straight white christian chose to say something regarding our history, culture and traditions being maintained, whether they were bought about by asian or any other colour is irrelevant, but u have chosen to see that as a affront to coloured people, hence my meaning about freedoms of speech, someone white as i did speaks out and its assumed bigotry or racist.british culture is british culture whatever the skin colour of someone. And i for one oppose the need to feel obliged to change that for other cultures, whether they be white black or any tone inbetween, makes no difference at all.

Not sure which thread to put this on now since the gay marriage thread and the clique thread seem to be merging but since the quote I’m replying to is here….

@(f)politics? wrote:

Agreed and some definitions of clique is a small group who exclude others, inclusion is always the key, if you have a group invite people into your group willingly, if they wish to be included. If they don’t like what the group is they have the power of choice to decide whether its the right group they want to be included in or not, for example you wouldn’t join a knitting club and expect them to then on ur whim change it into a model aircraft club would you :D

And gay people want to be included, they want to celebrate their union of love in a church in the eyes of God but the clique that is the Church denies them that inclusion.

@(f)politics? wrote:

Yes Jen but while I hear what you are saying, the knitting club isn’t a model aircraft club, and like I’ve also said the knitting club could be pressured into accepting it but the real heart is the knitting club why would you feel the need to change that, all of this said if there really is nothing in the bible opposing homosexuality then I agree but if the church have a reason to oppose it why can’t they have the same right and voice as those for it, today’s society likes to be a victim and Relish in it. It’s a bit like that couple who didn’t want a gay couple to share a room in their B and B. Why should they change their view on this, if I stayed in a place that was non smoking I wouldn’t smoke if I wanted to stay somewhere with my dogs but they didn’t accept pets then I’d stay somewhere that did, not expect them to change Their policy for me.

But there’s the rub…if you want to smoke or take your dogs there are other B&Bs available to you…gay people who want to get married don’t have that option because the Church is doing its damndest to stop the law being changed to permit it even though they could still refuse to perform such marriages.