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This must be the Tweet of the Day – politicalbetting.com

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  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    edited August 2022
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    Whether they needed it or not, that's what they got. You need to live with it, not be bitter about it. There has to be a parable in the Bible about not letting how others live upset you so much.
  • AlistairM said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "I. Energy consumption in the West is faltering

    Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.

    According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."

    https://quillette.com/2022/08/24/the-energy-of-nations/

    Is it not possible that energy use is falling at least partially because of..
    errr... Government attempts to reduce energy usage?
    Lightbulbs. How many houses use to run 60W or 100W lightbulbs. Now mostly replaced with bulbs likely to be around 5W. Considering lights are on a lot in the winter that is a massive power saving when multiplied up across the country.
    I glanced at the Quillette piece. The argument seems to be that, in the past, more efficient energy use led to other uses being economic, so total energy use went up. So, to take the light bulb example, lower energy bulbs means we should be using a lot more of them. That's not happening, and that's a bad thing.

    Now, that has happened in the past. A single candle was replaced by a gas lamp was replaced by multiple light bulbs. But it also looks like we have maxed out on things we want to illuminate. The same probably goes for other energy uses. We can generally warm our houses to 20 degrees if we want to. 30 degrees would be possible but unpleasant.

    I don't know what problems that causes economically, unless you derive money and power from selling energy.
    But we have switched from prior things that consumed energy to other ones.

    Yes I only may only have a 5w bulb on my ceiling, but I now have a 60" TV that needs illuminating too.

    Total global energy consumption has gone up, not done, as you'd expect - but our taxation being punitive on domestic fuel energy but zero-rated on imports has led us to us exporting our energy consumption and importing finished goods like that 60" TV instead.

    Countries like China are producing and consuming more energy and we are buying from them goods produced by that energy. So we are still indirectly consuming energy, we've simply exported that consumption from a country that uses primarily clean fuels, to a country that still uses coal.
    You may well have a large TV, but it likely uses similar-to-less energy than a smaller CRT set did. Accelerating electrons at a screen was pretty energy-inefficient (which is why the screen got staticy and the back of the set got warm and they used to tell people to unplug their sets lest they catch fire.)

    Same thing with computers. Once everything goes solid-state, the power needed falls by an order of magnitude. So the laptop I'm typing on doesn't need a fan and the battery lasts all day.

    Now the claim being made is that we should find an alternative use for all this saved energy. But TV screens have got about as big as they can usefully get. I wouldn't want my computer to be any bigger, and wouldn't really notice if it got any faster.

    And whilst manufacturing is an issue, there are gains there because stuff generally breaks down less, so doesn't need to be replaced as often. The more use something gets, the lighter its environmental footprint.

    I'm not surprised that global energy use is still going up- there is a lot of the world that is nowhere near the levels of "enough" that the West has reached. But we shouldn't feel that we have to use energy just because. And we should absolutely be thinking about the externalities and whether some of the things we do are dumb and wasteful.
    As a planet we are finding alternative uses for all this saved energy. Total energy consumption is going up, not down.

    We're simply offshoring our energy consumption and importing the proceeds of it.

    Absolutely we should be thinking about the externalities of energy, but we should also recognise that abundant, cheap, clean energy allows us to do many good things with that energy and we should be seeking to enable that future.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,271
    edited August 2022
    MrEd said:
    Yep, just looked at the link.

    Somebody has erred by including the letter 'f' on his avatar lapel badge, sponsored by some tech company called Shift.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    God is single! Marriage = Socialism!
    No, marriage is the backbone of conservatism
    "And thus spake Sunil unto his PB Disciples: 'Know ye that the Lord God did NOT marry the baby-mama of His only begotten son!'."
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,529
    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.


    Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
    What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?

    Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
    The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.

    Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
    I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?

    You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
    Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.

    Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
    Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
    How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
    Ok let's get away from this tangent of 'how many' and back to the original point that you are not answering.

    If you accept humans evolved from 'animal' as you (although not all Christians do) at what point do they stop being animals? Eg was Lucy a human or animal?
  • HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    We religious like We Tories and We English. Belong to the in group, bully and hate and marginalise the out group. At all costs.

    The gospels are primarily a sustained hymn of hatred of utterly horrible bigots like you.
    No, if we really were that then homosexuality would be illegal again as would divorce and we would scrap Holyrood and expel Scottish MPs from Westminster and arrest Sturgeon and also expel all non English born from England.

    The words of Christ are many things but words of hatred certainly not
    The words of Christ may not be hatred, but you don't care about Christ.

    The words of Paul have more hatred, and you care more about your own hate-filled ramblings than anything Jesus said.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,470
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.


    Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
    What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?

    Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
    The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.

    Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
    I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?

    You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
    Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.

    Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
    Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
    How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
    Ok let's get away from this tangent of 'how many' and back to the original point that you are not answering.

    If you accept humans evolved from 'animal' as you (although not all Christians do) at what point do they stop being animals? Eg was Lucy a human or animal?
    Off to bed, but if I may, vide Aristotle:

    "man is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above it [...]."

    Clever chap, old Ari.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,202
    Quick glance at front pages.
    Big Problems for Starmer and Labour Mount up on the “I”.
    Tory members don’t deserve derision on front of the Independent.
    In the Tele Sunak plays the “wrong to empower scientists in pandemic” card
    It’s interesting how Anti Truss Murdoch’s Times has been throughout?
    The star has lost it on weather again, this time drawing willies all over the place best reserved for Australian metrological charts? Sure it may rain in London tomorrow morning, but not bad weekend after that.
    The big story is on front of the mail: after I raged at Albanian traffickers bussing them to the channel yesterday, Patel has a new agreement with Albania to fly them straight back. I’m sure someone will ask, how much tax payer dosh is Patel bunging them in this attempt to hold on to her job?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232
    edited August 2022
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    How anglocentric of you. That's certainly not the case in Scotland. Hence the complete incomprehension of southerners when they got to Scotland and found that making a contract before witnesses, but not in church, was sufficient to become married.

    {The laws were changed - influential southerners were getting upset at what happened to their children and heirs.}
    Ask the average Presbyterian if they consider the religious aspect of their marriage or the Scottish civil law aspect of their marriage more important. Their answer will almost certainly be the same as mine
    "Wah, wah, what I think is more important than the historical facts." And I have just given you the facts.

    Another is that marriage is not a sacrament in the Presbyterian tradition. You do understand? Quite different.

    Another is that the religious aspect was so downplayed that people didn't even get married in church. In the frontp arlour if it was OK. The minister might come along, as well. Or perhaps folk might ask to have the manse study for a few minutes.

    No you haven't. Even in the Presbyterian Church most Presbyterians would still see their marriage as primarily a witness of their union before God, not a civil one, regardless of location
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

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    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

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    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

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    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

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    darkage said:

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    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
    Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman

    https://biblia.com/bible/esv/matthew/19/5
    Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
    Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
    You hate gays by refusing to let them get married in your state church against the laws of the same state.

    Of course, maybe you know better than God.
    Clearly you know better than God as you have just redefined marriage outside of what it is defined in in the Bible as a union between a man and woman for life to suit your agenda
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    But God is single! Marriage is blasphemy!
  • VerulamiusVerulamius Posts: 1,522
    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    So presumably you are in favour of Sharia Law and the Jewish courts?
    Even the religious who get married still have to have a civil law union too.

    Sharia law and the Jewish courts cannot go against UK law if the 2 are in conflict, if they aren't though yes they are fine
    Have you considered the Thirty Nine Articles which sets out the Elizabethan establishment of the Church of England?

    This sets out that there were only two sacrements in the Gospel: Baptism and the Eucharist?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
    Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman

    https://biblia.com/bible/esv/matthew/19/5
    Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
    Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
    Marriage in your Church may be a religious institution between a man and a woman.

    Marriage in other Churches is not. Marriage in law, it is not.

    Why do you want religious law being written in Parliamentary Civil Law rather than religious Canon Law? Set your religious codex in Canon Law and allow the rest of us to have civil laws set by Parliament. Which is precisely what Jesus advised, Mark 12:13-17, but you and Fox don't care about Jesus.
    Marriage in most Christian churches is defined as between a man and a woman, even if a few liberal ones allow gay blessings that is not the majority view.

    Jesus allowed things like tax to be the concern of the state, not the redefinition of marriage
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037

    Strong rumours circulating that Boris Johnson might make a surprise visit to the UK.

    https://twitter.com/tomfoxtom/status/1562481380705333249?s=21&t=kRb_VBw1xDYlMWA5SupEpA

    Can it be we are really only a few weeks away from him not being PM (and possibly no longer an MP)? It feels both so near and yet so far.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,639

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    So presumably you are in favour of Sharia Law and the Jewish courts?
    Even the religious who get married still have to have a civil law union too.

    Sharia law and the Jewish courts cannot go against UK law if the 2 are in conflict, if they aren't though yes they are fine
    Have you considered the Thirty Nine Articles which sets out the Elizabethan establishment of the Church of England?

    This sets out that there were only two sacrements in the Gospel: Baptism and the Eucharist?
    It sounds like Elizabeth or Cromwell or whoever was Dangerously Woke.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    So presumably you are in favour of Sharia Law and the Jewish courts?
    Even the religious who get married still have to have a civil law union too.

    Sharia law and the Jewish courts cannot go against UK law if the 2 are in conflict, if they aren't though yes they are fine
    So why is the C of E permitted to be in conflict with English law?
    It isn't, gay marriage included a religious exemption when it was passed though it would have been better just to stick to gay civil unions in English law and not redifine marriage
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,812
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

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    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

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    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

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    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
    Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman

    https://biblia.com/bible/esv/matthew/19/5
    Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
    Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
    Marriage in your Church may be a religious institution between a man and a woman.

    Marriage in other Churches is not. Marriage in law, it is not.

    Why do you want religious law being written in Parliamentary Civil Law rather than religious Canon Law? Set your religious codex in Canon Law and allow the rest of us to have civil laws set by Parliament. Which is precisely what Jesus advised, Mark 12:13-17, but you and Fox don't care about Jesus.
    Marriage in most Christian churches is defined as between a man and a woman, even if a few liberal ones allow gay blessings that is not the majority view.

    Jesus allowed things like tax to be the concern of the state, not the redefinition of marriage
    Marriage took many forms in the Roman Empire. Jesus certainly took marriage most seriously, but he never tried to prescribe how and whether pagans could marry.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
  • HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
    Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman

    https://biblia.com/bible/esv/matthew/19/5
    Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
    Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
    You hate gays by refusing to let them get married in your state church against the laws of the same state.

    Of course, maybe you know better than God.
    Clearly you know better than God as you have just redefined marriage outside of what it is defined in in the Bible as a union between a man and woman for life to suit your agenda
    But God did NOT marry the mother of His only begotten son!
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    edited August 2022
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
    Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman

    https://biblia.com/bible/esv/matthew/19/5
    Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
    Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
    Marriage in your Church may be a religious institution between a man and a woman.

    Marriage in other Churches is not. Marriage in law, it is not.

    Why do you want religious law being written in Parliamentary Civil Law rather than religious Canon Law? Set your religious codex in Canon Law and allow the rest of us to have civil laws set by Parliament. Which is precisely what Jesus advised, Mark 12:13-17, but you and Fox don't care about Jesus.
    Marriage in most Christian churches is defined as between a man and a woman, even if a few liberal ones allow gay blessings that is not the majority view.

    Jesus allowed things like tax to be the concern of the state, not the redefinition of marriage
    And yet just as when that made up argument was used around the time gay marriage was legalised, the state has long involved itself with what a proper marriage requires. Including times when people were a lot more religious than now, and a lot more religious than you. It is an invention that you are giving the weight of immutability - but an invention all the same, and transparently one to boot.

    Not even you can believe the things you spout about the unchanging nature of rules and interpretation, given the history of the faith is so full of change.

    In the 1650s things were very confused as a result of various legislating on the subject, as Parliament had multiple marriage laws on the books as a result.

    I don't recall this bit though, but it is very interesting if true - though the legality of the assembly would be called into question (though you cannot claim that as a reason it does not count as the state being involved, since you have previously insisted that the purging of the Commons and dissolution of the Lords in no way undermined the Rump being a legitimate parliament, though royalists would have disagreed with you, and as such the appointed assembly would have been legitimate at the time).

    https://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/marriage-in-the-english-revolution/

    The trend was towards simplicity and reduced ceremonial, and towards greater involvement by the state. During the Nominated Assembly or ‘Barebones Parliament’ of 1653, this was taken to its logical conclusion when the conducting of marriages was taken away from the clergy altogether and vested in justices of the peace
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 7,992
    I preferred it when it was Brexit chat, tbh.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,713
    kle4 said:

    Strong rumours circulating that Boris Johnson might make a surprise visit to the UK.

    https://twitter.com/tomfoxtom/status/1562481380705333249?s=21&t=kRb_VBw1xDYlMWA5SupEpA

    Can it be we are really only a few weeks away from him not being PM (and possibly no longer an MP)? It feels both so near and yet so far.
    Less than two weeks...
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,383

    Quick glance at front pages.
    Big Problems for Starmer and Labour Mount up on the “I”.
    Tory members don’t deserve derision on front of the Independent.
    In the Tele Sunak plays the “wrong to empower scientists in pandemic” card
    It’s interesting how Anti Truss Murdoch’s Times has been throughout?
    The star has lost it on weather again, this time drawing willies all over the place best reserved for Australian metrological charts? Sure it may rain in London tomorrow morning, but not bad weekend after that.
    The big story is on front of the mail: after I raged at Albanian traffickers bussing them to the channel yesterday, Patel has a new agreement with Albania to fly them straight back. I’m sure someone will ask, how much tax payer dosh is Patel bunging them in this attempt to hold on to her job?

    Even the Mail asks "but can she deliver?".

    I think we all know the answer to that one tbh.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
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    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    That is completely untrue. All cultures have marriage. It's only a religious thing in the ghastly intolerant religions of the book because everything is religious to them. Every language has a word for bastard.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,383
    Eabhal said:

    I preferred it when it was Brexit chat, tbh.

    @HYUFD painting himself into yet another corner is rather tedious.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 31,477

    Andy_JS said:

    "I. Energy consumption in the West is faltering

    Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.

    According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."

    https://quillette.com/2022/08/24/the-energy-of-nations/

    Why is using less energy bad? Am I being thick again?
    Using less fossil fuel produced energy is obviously a good thing. But what about energy produced from renewable sources? Interesting question IMO.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 27,815

    ...

    moonshine said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    moonshine said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    I suppose it could be a series of extraordinary coincidences.

    Not that extraordinary. If you take tens of thousands of pictures of one woman and compare them with tens of thousands of pictures of another that she looks vaguely similar to, you're bound to ultimately get some similarities. People have done these 'lookalike' comparisons for as long as the internet/Private Eye or others have existed.

    Was George W Bush trying to look like a monkey?
    image
    She is a vapid, posturing windbag and as big a threat to world peace and stability as Putin. did George Bush get an Official Photographer to tag along everywhere he went and take those photos? Do you realise that the Truss photos are carefully curated (dread word) and posted on instagram by or on behalf of her, not her enemies?
    Taking photos doesn't mean you're trying to be Thatcher, unless she curated the lookalikes and posted them side-by-side herself just as moonshine just did with Starmer and Boris.
    look at this

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10508019/Putins-state-media-mocks-Liz-Truss-fur-hat-despite-THAW-Russian-capital.html

    see the footage of her landing? the 3 bods from the embassy, 2 women and a wallace-grade baldy, are HATLESS, it's only uniform guy wearing one cos he has to.

    She was dressing up.
    She wore a hat while visiting a notoriously cold country?

    Oh well that changes everything, she must be only the second person in history to wear a hat
    while visiting Russia.

    Although on your link there's 2 other people wearing hats. They're not women though, so I guess they don't count.
    The particularly charming poster Ismael also misunderstands something. I don’t think there’s anyone here who is giving full throttled support to Truss. I’m certainly not, I have little idea whether she’ll be any good and I suspect neither does she until she starts the job. Big step up even from Foreign Sec.

    But the reflexive hate for her before she’s even got going strikes me as quite bizarre, when there’s nothing obvious in her track record to justify it. Perhaps she’ll do enough for the Tories to earn my vote for the first time in 4 elections, perhaps not. But it would be good to see a more serious critique of her abilities and plans, rather than “oh look she’s wearing a blue jacket and a hat. What a f**** b***ch! Who does she think she is!”.
    What? You can't claim the moral high ground on charm, and start making blanket accusations of "reflexive hate." One or the other.

    And "before she's even got going." Many of us here have an informed and detailed knowledge of UK politics, and thanks for confirming you are not among us. She is Foreign Sec FFS. This is not an Emma Raducanu situation. She is also a terrible and deeply unserious person, despite your elderly penchant for her disciplinary reputation.
    Her most telling contribution as Foreign Secretary, has been to firmly elucidate the position that “Russia must lose” and that that means their troops “leaving the whole of Ukraine including Crimea”. At the time I remember quite a lot of bed wetters in the guardian and elsewhere saying she was recklessly endangering the whole world for personal ambition. These days, it’s a pretty median position. Backed this week by Putin’s erstwhile ally Erdogan no less. Now it’s an exaggeration to say she has personally driven that narrative shift. She hasn’t. But she did play her part in driving it towards broad international acceptance.

    Not that she drove the formation of Aukus, her appointment aligned with the announcement. But her department saw it over the line. As for her time as Trade Sec, sure there are those who moan about us getting cheaper food products from strategic allies. I’m not one of them but I am disappointed no progress was made with the US on a financial sector accord that would become the global standard.

    I don’t know really what to do with her being a “terrible and deeply unserious person”. And I’m not elderly or into that particular niche. I just think that at a time of national peril, she deserves a chance and the nation’s goodwill. If she’s no good, she’ll be booted out!
    Pushing the line that the war is not over until Crimea returns to Ukraine, by any assessment, prolongs the conflict, and prolongs UK involvement in it. If you hold the somewhat quaint view that foreign policy is a tool to promote the security and prosperity of the UK, that is taking a 12 boar and emptying both barrels into your own size 9s.

    However, I give a pass to Truss for anything she says on Ukraine. Our foreign policy on this is decided by America. It will be a bold leader indeed who departs from the US line on anything. If she starts to forge the beginnings an independent foreign and defence policy, it will be a pleasant surprise.
    Ensuring Ukraine's territory is returned to Ukraine ends the war, it doesn't prolong it.

    If you want the war over, you should be pushing to do everything we can to ensure Russia leaves the entirety of Ukraine, which of course includes Crimea. If Vlad leaves Ukraine, the war is over, until he does, it isn't.
    No, the war is over when the two sides stop fighting, not when an arbitrary set of preferred conditions transpire.
    The two sides stop fighting when the invader leaves the nation they've invaded.

    That means Russia out of Ukraine, including Crimea.
    Dribbling garbage. Most of the world's countries sit on bits of territory once forcibly removed from other nations. Including our own.
    Not since WWII at least whereby nations agreed not to seize bits of territory by war. The UK hasn't seized any territory since then.

    If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding Russia leaves Crimea? If you genuinely want the war over, why aren't you demanding the UK applies maximum pressure to ensure Russia leaves Crimea, thus ending the war?

    Seems to me that you don't genuinely want the war over. Instead you simply want Russia to win the war, then be able to launch its next war.
    Three reasons. Firstly, because I am not sure that Russia leaving Crimea is the outcome desired by the people of Crimea. I would however be in favour of an internationally-observed plebiscite to establish whether this is the case. Secondly, because I think getting Russia out of Crimea would be a difficult, if not impossible military aim, so making an end to hostilities contingent on that, guarantees an almost permanent conflict, which is good for nobody. Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, nobody involved in the matter gives a flying fuck what I 'demand' (or even what you demand), so it would not make a blind bit of difference.
    1. In the only free and fair vote in Crimea, Crimea voted to be independent of Russia and be a part of Ukraine. If its not clear that the people of Crimea want Russia to leave, then why don't we ask them after they've left? They already said they wanted them to leave once before.

    2. No getting Russia out of Ukrainian Crimea will not be difficult or impossible, any more than Russia getting Ukraine to give up its independence or territory is going to be difficult or impossible.

    3. Yet you keep proclaiming your supposed desire for the war to end, yet you oppose the one way we have to make the war end, which is aiding our allies to win the war and kick the invaders out of their territory.

    If we aid Ukraine sufficiently to get Russians kicked out of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, as they've already been kicked out of Snake Island, then the war would be over. Do you want to see that happen, yes or no?
    1. Just hold it now. It's gonna be held with one of the interested parties controlling the territory. Hence the international observers.

    2. More utterly unsubstantiated bollocks which even the most enthisiastic supporter of Western involvement in the conflict wouldn't put their name to. I never brought Ukraine's willingness or otherwise to give up its independence into this - crappy straw man argument. However, on your second point, it has already been established that it was Western politicians like Truss, not Ukraine, that have pushed the Crimea angle.

    3. As we've already established, your point about there being 'only one way' to end the conflict was garbage. And the points that you made to defend that point were shown to be garbage. Repetition of it isn't helping. Or are Turkey not still hanging on to chunks of Cyprus with the square root of fuck all consequences?
    1. It can't be held now until the Russian guns leave which allows people to vote freely without reprisals, and the people displaced by Russian guns are allowed to return back to their homes. Your transparent agenda is showing.

    2. You are either very ignorant, or a Putinist liar. The Ukrainian President has repeatedly said all of Ukraine must be liberated before the war is over, including Crimea. Why do you know better than the Ukrainian President?

    3. Its the one way we have that we can aid the war to end, is to give the aid to Ukraine that they're begging for to end the war on their terms, liberation of their land. Its either that, or we aid Russia to end the war on their terms, defeat of Ukraine. Or we do nothing so prolonging the war as we aren't taking steps to bring it to a conclusion.

    So which do you want us to do?
    Aid Ukraine to help them win the war on their terms?
    Aid Russia to help them win the war on their terms?
    Do nothing to help the war end?
    1. Hence internationally-observed, to everyone's satisfaction. If I were talking about a Russian-controlled vote, I think there has already been one.

    2. Ukraine rightly refusing to rubber stamp the Russian annexation of Crimea isn't the same as making its return a precondition for peace. Ukraine has had various rounds of peace talks with Russia, implying that Crimea's return was not a necessary precondition for the end of current hostilities.

    3. Oh, you're allowing two ways for it to end now are you? That's generous, can we persuade you to any further bids? Only one thing is necessary for a war to end. For both sides to stop fighting.

    Your arguments are risible - develop a shred of self-awareness and just look at the stream of utter guff you've put your pb name to.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037

    Eabhal said:

    I preferred it when it was Brexit chat, tbh.

    HYUFD painting himself into yet another corner is rather tedious.
    You'd think I'd have learned by this point, but the never breaking of character, even when being self contradictory, just draws me in.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,284

    AlistairM said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "I. Energy consumption in the West is faltering

    Since about 2005, and in almost every Western economy, something historically unprecedented and extremely alarming has been happening to energy consumption: it’s either flatlining or in decline. This remarkable but little discussed fact is jeopardising almost every aspect of our public policy, from climate change mitigation, through national security to societal progression itself. President Biden’s plans to vastly increase spending on renewables such as wind and solar through the Inflation Reduction Act are grabbing the headlines, and it’s not hard to see why, but they may actually be counterproductive, and in any case are overshadowed by the sweeping macroscopic trend of falling Western demand for energy.

    According to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, total energy consumption in the UK, for example, is back at levels not seen since the 1950s; there has been a 30 percent decline from its peak in 2003, which is astonishing given that the population has increased by 12.5 percent, to 67 million, over the same period."

    https://quillette.com/2022/08/24/the-energy-of-nations/

    Is it not possible that energy use is falling at least partially because of..
    errr... Government attempts to reduce energy usage?
    Lightbulbs. How many houses use to run 60W or 100W lightbulbs. Now mostly replaced with bulbs likely to be around 5W. Considering lights are on a lot in the winter that is a massive power saving when multiplied up across the country.
    I glanced at the Quillette piece. The argument seems to be that, in the past, more efficient energy use led to other uses being economic, so total energy use went up. So, to take the light bulb example, lower energy bulbs means we should be using a lot more of them. That's not happening, and that's a bad thing.

    Now, that has happened in the past. A single candle was replaced by a gas lamp was replaced by multiple light bulbs. But it also looks like we have maxed out on things we want to illuminate. The same probably goes for other energy uses. We can generally warm our houses to 20 degrees if we want to. 30 degrees would be possible but unpleasant.

    I don't know what problems that causes economically, unless you derive money and power from selling energy.
    But we have switched from prior things that consumed energy to other ones.

    Yes I only may only have a 5w bulb on my ceiling, but I now have a 60" TV that needs illuminating too.

    Total global energy consumption has gone up, not done, as you'd expect - but our taxation being punitive on domestic fuel energy but zero-rated on imports has led us to us exporting our energy consumption and importing finished goods like that 60" TV instead.

    Countries like China are producing and consuming more energy and we are buying from them goods produced by that energy. So we are still indirectly consuming energy, we've simply exported that consumption from a country that uses primarily clean fuels, to a country that still uses coal.
    You may well have a large TV, but it likely uses similar-to-less energy than a smaller CRT set did. Accelerating electrons at a screen was pretty energy-inefficient (which is why the screen got staticy and the back of the set got warm and they used to tell people to unplug their sets lest they catch fire.)

    Same thing with computers. Once everything goes solid-state, the power needed falls by an order of magnitude. So the laptop I'm typing on doesn't need a fan and the battery lasts all day.

    Now the claim being made is that we should find an alternative use for all this saved energy. But TV screens have got about as big as they can usefully get. I wouldn't want my computer to be any bigger, and wouldn't really notice if it got any faster.

    And whilst manufacturing is an issue, there are gains there because stuff generally breaks down less, so doesn't need to be replaced as often. The more use something gets, the lighter its environmental footprint.

    I'm not surprised that global energy use is still going up- there is a lot of the world that is nowhere near the levels of "enough" that the West has reached. But we shouldn't feel that we have to use energy just because. And we should absolutely be thinking about the externalities and whether some of the things we do are dumb and wasteful.
    As a planet we are finding alternative uses for all this saved energy. Total energy consumption is going up, not down.

    We're simply offshoring our energy consumption and importing the proceeds of it.

    Absolutely we should be thinking about the externalities of energy, but we should also recognise that abundant, cheap, clean energy allows us to do many good things with that energy and we should be seeking to enable that future.
    While that's true, the pace of increase is slowing dramatically. China's energy growth used to be 3x GDP, it's now under 0.5x..

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    edited August 2022
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    It's to US religious you fucking banana. Always this we this, we that, backed up by a psychotic need to control and dominate. Leave other people alone you utter creep.

    Pray for me.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 27,815
    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    Why shouldn't Bartholomew and his wife be married, if that's what they want?

    It doesn't impact upon you or me.
    Exactly. Legal marriage is different from marriage 'in the sight of God'. They are both marriage. Some are interested in getting both kinds, some only in the legal side. Hyufd is wrong on this and Barty right.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    God is single! Marriage = Socialism!
    No, marriage is the backbone of conservatism
    "And thus spake Sunil unto his PB Disciples: 'Know ye that the Lord God did NOT marry the baby-mama of His only begotten son!'."
    Joseph was Jesus' father, committed to Mary as his wife as per God's plan
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.


    Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
    What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?

    Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
    The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.

    Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
    I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?

    You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
    Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.

    Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
    Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
    How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
    Ok let's get away from this tangent of 'how many' and back to the original point that you are not answering.

    If you accept humans evolved from 'animal' as you (although not all Christians do) at what point do they stop being animals? Eg was Lucy a human or animal?
    I do concede you are probably still an animal, most likely a form of hyena
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    We religious like We Tories and We English. Belong to the in group, bully and hate and marginalise the out group. At all costs.

    The gospels are primarily a sustained hymn of hatred of utterly horrible bigots like you.
    No, if we really were that then homosexuality would be illegal again as would divorce and we would scrap Holyrood and expel Scottish MPs from Westminster and arrest Sturgeon and also expel all non English born from England.

    The words of Christ are many things but words of hatred certainly not
    The words of Christ may not be hatred, but you don't care about Christ.

    The words of Paul have more hatred, and you care more about your own hate-filled ramblings than anything Jesus said.
    Believing marriage is as intended and set out in the Bible (even by Jesus) as being between a man and woman for life is not hatred
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 61,608
    Hmm.

    Interesting.

    The minute a politician proposes to move funds to social care from NHS the massive briefing war starts.

    Truly, social care is the cinderella service:


    Allie Hodgkins-Brown
    @AllieHBNews
    ·
    55m
    Thursday’s TIMES: “Alarm over Truss raid on NHS” #TomorrowsPapersToday

    https://twitter.com/AllieHBNews/status/1562550000248184832
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 27,815
    MrEd said:
    There seems to be a typo on his badge.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

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    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

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    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    Marriage is civil. Has been since for thousands of years since before your Jesus that you so love to ignore was according to your own religious text born or said the words "render unto Caesar" about separating religious and civil laws.

    So no thanks, civil partnerships are not the same, when people want civil marriage. Try again.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I shoul