Don’t think you can straddle both sides of the Jesus and Mo argument, arguing in one breath how free speech and free expression are important but in another breath how we have to be “respectful” and not cause offence, like a Hollywood stuntman expertly riding two horses. At some point those horses will go their separate ways. Pick a horse now – while you still have something of a choice.
The events of the last few weeks have demonstrated something that secularists are only too aware of: the urgent need for absolute honesty when it comes to discussing religion.
After we had finished filming The Big Questions a gentleman from the audience came up to speak to me. It’s fair to say we were on different sides of the debate. When I told him I was a secularist he remarked dismissively and mockingly, and almost salivating at his own quick wit, “well I suppose someone has to be”.
Yes, he’s bloody right. Someone has to be. [Lawyers’ Secular Society] Read more
