Indeed - they are, increasingly, a joke. It should be obvious that police are NOT there to make moral judgements, especially not based on the ideas of whatever religious lobbying group is cosying up to them - they are there purely to make legal judgements.
hatred is hatred, there should be nothing particular about "religious hatred" that needs its own law.But then this is exactly what Rowan Atkinson and others were complaining about when they protested against the planned bill to criminalise religious hatred.
This is where I have an issue - Scientology is as much of a religion as others - it meets all of the criteria for being one. Equally it can be called a cult. It all depends on your point of view People should be free to call it what they like and protest against it as they protest against anything else without the police charging them over the use of certain words.Good grief, if you can't call scientology a cult in England, where it isn't a religion and where that description was applied by a High Court judge what chance is there of assessing the organisation reasonably?
Not the first church, or religion, to take money from people is it? Neither Scientology or any other religion should receive any actual legal or social benefit from "officially" being called one, its just a name.Of course Scientology is trying to force the UK to accept it as a religion using some carelessly drafted European legislation. Hopefully, as long as it continues to charge $500 for annual membership and/or $1000s for the auditing process, the UK will continue to treat it as no different from Antony Robbins' self-improvement businesses.
Bookmarks