philosoraptor42

A case has recently gone to the UK supreme court that a school called the Jewish Free School (JFS) uses racial discrimination in its selection procedure. The BHA have intervened in support of the prosecutors, insisting that racial discrimination should never be accepted, even with religious reasons involved. Interestingly, this turns out to be a result of the idiocy of Jonathan Sacks again.

The child's father was Jewish and the mother converted to Judaism. As such, the child has a Jewish mother and is eligible. The mother is a practicing Jew and the whole family attend synagogue so there is no reason to dismiss on the grounds of religious observance. Nevertheless, the Chief Rabbi ruled that the mother did not truly count as Jewish because she converted via a Masorti synagogue. Jonathan Sacks apparently doesn't count Masorti conversions and thus by the same reckoning the child does not count as Jewish either. The obsession over the place where the mother converted rather than both her and her son's religious conviction makes this a clear case of selection based on racial rather than religious grounds.

Also rather cool, Accord Chair, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain declared: “This is a defining moment. For too long state-funded faith schools have had a free hand to discriminate. This will be a big first step towards creating faith schools that serve the community around them, not just themselves.”

(Oddly it seems that the intro to the interview with Andrew Copson was quite biased in favour of Benjamin "at the cutting edge of fighting assimilation" Perl's side of the argument. It claimed that the idea that admitting a Jewish boy with a devoted Jewish convert mother was devastating to the Jewish community. Wtf? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGvBsxx9itc )

(Via BHA)

(Via Ekklesia)

This is my previous extra-long confused post, re-cut to make more sense and be FAR more readable:

Baroness Warsi and the National Secular Society

The BHA recently criticised comments by two prominent political figures: Tony Blair (for whom I feel no explanation is required) and Baroness Warsi (whose comments can be found here). Baroness Warsi is a Muslim politician in the Conservative party.

The National Secular Society quoted Baroness Warsi's description of "state multiculturalism" where she defines it as follows:

"Firstly, when we as Conservatives talk about multiculturalism we are not talking about the building of temples, or synagogues or mosques in any neighbourhood. For us that is religious pluralism and it is a defining British characteristic that began with the non-conformists.

"For me, state multiculturalism, as I like to define it is forcing Britain’s diverse communities to still define themselves as different, patronisingly special and tempting them to compete against each other for public funds."

The National Secular Society then respond by saying:

"We have been saying this for the past ten years. So far so good."

Sorry, but no it's not bloody good! Why the hell shouldn't religious groups compete for public funds just like everyone else? It's actually in this criticism of "state multiculturalism" that Baroness Warsi's criticism of secularism is most clear and obvious. She doesn't think that religious groups should compete against each other along with all the other stances vying for public attention. Instead she thinks religions should be granted priveledges by default.


Both are united against "state multiculturalism" - whatever the hell that is.

So where did the term 'state multiculturalism' come from?

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Problems with the Conservatives' critique of 'state multiculturalism'
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What should the National Secular Society have praised Baroness Warsi for saying?

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Baroness Warsi's absurd examples of persecution. (The bit the National Secular Society were absolutely right about.)

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