Banned wagon
A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit
ONE of the hilarious things about Tony Blair is his tendency to rewrite history to fit in with his worldview of the human race as one big happy family who, no matter whether they wear a sari or an Eskimo coat, all really share the same values: i.e., Tony's interpretation of human rights. Hence Hindus traditionally have never put pressure on their daughters to partake in arranged marriages, and the set of beliefs held by the Taleban has nothing to do with the Koran, which is really fully compatible with the European Charter on Human Rights.
But it has spread beyond Mr Blair. Annabelle Ewing, Scottish National party MP for Perth, has tabled a House of Commons motion seeking to outlaw the teaching of creationism in schools. Many will have some sympathy with her campaign, or at least believe that schools which teach creationism ought to teach evolutionary science as well, but it is the justification for her motion which astounds.
'This House believes,' she writes, 'that creationists have nothing to do with the great religious faiths in Scotland, the United Kingdom and the wider world....' Really? Perhaps Ms Ewing can put me right, but I've had a quick flick through my battered old Gideon Bible and I can't find anything about man being descended from apes which descended from the fish which descended from the amoeba. However, there does seem to be an awful lot about the good Lord creating 'a firmament in the midst of the waters' and 'every thing that creepeth upon the Earth'.
The priests who condemned The Origin of Species — were they really nothing to do with 'the great religious faiths in Scotland, the United Kingdom and the wider world'? Nor the Pope, who has told scientists that they must not study the Big Bang because it represents the act of the creation? What Ms Ewing really means as she creepeth around Perth is that she can't be doing with any of this religious nonsense, but she doesn't want to upset those nice Presbyterians in hats upon whom she relies for re-election. Ross Clark
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