In a previous post I criticised an argument made by Paul Litterick for the conclusion that theological arguments should not affect public policy. Paul has responded saying that this post consisted of a “lengthy misrepresentation of [his] views”

Now I do not wish to caricature anyone’s views. I would rather refute Paul's actual arguments than ones he did not make. That way I have actually refuted them. So let’s look again at what Paul stated. The statement to which I was responding is the following:

“The only way it [theological moral arguments] matters to me is in the public
political sphere. I am more of a secularist than anything else, I just think
these sorts of arguments shouldn’t be effecting the vast majority of people who
don’t share them and there is always a difficulty with arguments that are put
over as being matters of faith, or matters of, say Christian Heritage of the
nation and so and therefore we must do these things that they will take
precedence over the views and the freedoms of everybody else”

Here, Paul appears to express two concerns about theological arguments in the “public political sphere” (i) laws enacted on the basis of such arguments will take precedence override everyone else’s freedom and (ii) the majority affected by these laws do not share the beliefs to which the arguments appeal.

Now that sounds very much like the objection is that laws enacted on the basis of theological premises will restrict the freedom of the majority who do not accept these premises. Certainly it’s a reasonable construal of Paul’s claims. And, as I pointed out in my previous post, this objection is problematic. Laws based on secular ethical theories also restrict people’s freedom and most people affected do not hold to the theories in question. Hence if this argument were sound it would exclude almost all philosophies from public discourse wether they were secular or religious.

Nether the less, I accept that that may not be what Paul really meant. He has generously clarified his position. His view is rather that “a secular society is the best means of guaranteeing the rights and freedoms of all, regardless of their differing beliefs.”


That is an interesting thesis. Unfortunately Paul only states it and provides no argument for it. That of course is not Paul’s fault he can hardly be expected to lay down all his reasons in a short comments section. But, it is also true that, in the absence of any argument, those who do not already hold this belief have no reason at all to accept it.

It also seems to me that there is an ambiguity in Paul’s claim. One problem is that the truth of his thesis depends on what one considers to be “the rights and freedoms of all” another is that there are various different models of a secular society.

Some examples will illustrate this. Take the model of a secular society proposed by Ayn Rand. It’s clear that on certain libertarian understandings of “the rights and freedoms of all” this model of a secular society will guarantee these rights and freedoms better than one which follows the premises and arguments proposed by religious conservatives. On the other hand, on the same understanding of “the rights and freedoms of all” listening to religious conservatives will guarantee our rights and freedoms much better than listening to the secularism of Karl Marx, or Chairman Mao.

A further and related problem is that any attempt to compare the beneficent and malevolent effects of religion will depend in part on ones secular or religious philosophy in the first place. If the rights and freedoms of all includes a right to life, and fetuses posses this right, listening to religious conservatives will greatly decrease the abuse of human rights in this country. On the other hand if a woman has a right to an abortion, then it will not. However, it is not unlikely that some secularists and theologians may differ on the moral status of feticide or numerous, other substantive moral questions that affect the conclusion.

It seems trivial to say that a Marxist society will guarantee rights and freedoms as understood by a Marxist and that a theologically conservative society will better embody the ideals of religious conservatives. It would also be question begging to exclude religious premises from the arguments from which one derives an account of rights and freedoms if this account is to be used in a premise for the conclusion that such arguments should be excluded from public policy debates.

To substantiate Paul’s thesis what is needed is some: (a) account of the freedoms and rights of all (b) some non question begging argument as to why this account is correct as opposed to its rivals (c) some argument as to why secular philosophies always guarentee these rights and freedoms as opposed to religious ones. I am sceptical such an argument can be made. Of course I could change my mind if a compelling argument is forthcoming, but I am not holding my breath.

I received the following last night:

Dear Matthew

Thank you telling your readers you apologised for not
seeking my side of the story with regard to the Visiting Associate
Professor imbroglio. I appreciate your honesty there.

However, I
was dismayed to read a new litany of innuendo about this. I am depressed that
you should spend so much time on ad hominem attacks. Surely we can communicate
in a more civil way?

Having read your accusations I am not even
sure what crime I am supposed to have committed this time. I am a philosopher in
the same way you are. Your PhD is in theology, is it not? We are both
philosophers in the sense of being interested in how the world works and
seeking coherent answers. I have never made any other
claim.

I recognise fully that the Visiting Associate
title was entirely honorary, and have never used it inappropriately. I have
mentioned it on my CV and in publications written during the timespan of the
Visiting Professorship. All this is perfectly normal use of a title like that. I
have certainly never described myself as a Professor, let alone a Professor of
Philosophy in the formal sense. And once the lifespan of the position expired, I
stopped using it. Where is the crime in any of
this?

The way you spun the
story allowed some of your readers (hiding behind pseudonyms) to jump to their
own conclusions and decide beyond reasonable doubt as to my
dishonesty.

I'm not making any specific request of
you beyond asking that this ad hominem campaign come to a close. Please,
let us converse, and contest ideas if it comes to that. But this muck-raking is
a waste of our time and does your cause little credit. We may not agree on how
the world works, but that does not mean we have to dispute in an
uncivil manner, does it?

If you want to add this letter to
your blog, feel free.

Yours sincerely

Bill
Cooke

I need to thank Dr Cooke for his civil and conciliatory tone in sending this. I will make only a couple of comments about this.

First a clarification, Cooke notes that my PhD was in Theology that’s correct. As I note in my profile my area of specialisation within Theology is ethics and philosophical theology. These subjects are subfields of both Philosophy and Theology and hence areas where the two disciplines overlap. In this respect I am like a law lecturer who works in the area of philosophy of law, or a physicist who works in philosophy of science. Moreover, my master’s degree was in Philosophy and I have taught philosophy at both Waikato and Otago University and my PhD thesis was on a Philosophical topic and examined by Philosophers.

This aside however, I agree with Cooke that dialogue between evangelical theologians (like myself) and Humanists (like him) should be civil and not a series of ad hominem arguments and muck raking. The reason I posted on the whole “professorship issue” was because I perceived the debate was not being conducted in this way. A few years ago NZARH published a newsletter, which was circulated in the media, this letter stated following “We will pass over Flanagan's rather odd notion of the 'law of nature;' he is, after all, a PhD candidate in Theology, not a real subject like Law or Biology". This was an unprovoked attack upon my academic credentials. NZARH also published attacks on Bernie Oligvy because he used the term Dr and yet only had an honorary doctorate and NZARH attacked Maxim because one of its members engaged in plagiarism. I could cite other examples.

The point I wanted to make regarding these comments was that if this line of argument is valid (which it is not) then Cooke's claim to being a professor and Litterick’s continual reliance on the research of Craig Young provide an argument for rejecting the position of NZARH. I was reluctant to post any more on this question and only did so because one of Cooke’s supporters stated I was “a cheap blogist who has disinterest in nor sought counter argument in defence of cheap accusations that fact would spoil his pitch” when I did not respond to Cooke’s counter argument .

Cooke however clarifies his position, he is a religious historian with an interest in the philosophical debate regarding religion and he has received an honorary professorship and never been on faculty. Moreover, he like I, is committed to civil dialogue and is interested in discussing issues of philosophy and religion. In light of this I will take up his offer and post no more on the issue of his professorship. I hope that under Cooke’s guidance NZARH will lay off similar attacks against me and other Christians . I look forward to dialogue with NZARH on these more civil terms in the future.

Paul Litterick was recently interviewed by Russell Brown on Public Address. The topic predictably is his criticism of conservative Christian groups whom Russell appears to have no time for. Here I will make to criticisms of this broadcast, first one of Russell Brown and the second of Litterick.

Turning first to Russell Brown; Brown mentioned in detail the New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanist's (NZARH) exposure of Bruce Logan’s plagiarism, elaborated how this damaged Maxim’s credibility and meant they had little media respectability as a result. It was also stressed on the show that this incident showed that they were a bogus think tank.

However, Brown seemed almost silent about NZARH’s own apparent deception that both Litterick and I have discussed. Yet it is clear from what Brown does say that he does know about it but he omits to mention it - even in contexts where it is relevant.

For example, Brown mentions that there was an interesting story about Littericks falling out with NZARH but will not go into the details and he queried why Litterick even made the issues of the falling out public but he never ventures to state what they were.

There seems to me to be a clear double standard here. NZARH make media comment about religion and public issues, so do Maxim. If Logan’s deception is newsworthy and calls into question Maxim’s media credibility then why is this not equally true of NZARH?

Moreover, if Brown feels it is acceptable to make Logan’s alleged plagiarism public, which he does on his show, why then does he query the appropriateness of bringing up NZARH’s actions on air? Is privacy something that applies only to secularists perhaps?

Turning now to Litterick; Litterick states he has no issue with private faith but is opposed to religious values guiding public policy. This is because he is concerned that the views of one group of society (those with a religious faith) are being used to restrict the freedoms of everyone else in society, many of who do not accept the religious beliefs in question and may in fact openly reject them.

Now this is a common line of argument. However, despite its pervasiveness, this argument is erroneous. In the literature on Religion and Public Life Christian Philosophers like Nicholas Wolterstorff, Christopher Eblerle and Philip Quinn have published cogent rebuttals of it. Here I can summarise the issues.

The main problem with this criticism of using religious beliefs to guide public policy is that exactly the same thing can be said about secular, non-theological beliefs. Beliefs that Litterick and Brown hold to and would advocate public policy changes on the basis of. Phillip Quinn articulates this point,

... if the fact that religious reasons can not be shared by all in a religiously
pluralistic society suffices to warrant any exclusion of religious reasons for
advocating or supporting restrictive laws or policies, then much else ought in
fairness also be excluded on the same grounds.[1]

Quinn notes correctly that secular moral theories such as Utilitarianism or Kantianism, Intuitionism, Socialism, Libertarianism, can all be reasonably rejected in a philosophically-pluralistic society.

Indeed, it would seem that the appeal to any comprehensive ethical theory,
including all known secular ethical theories, should be disallowed on the
grounds that every such theory can be reasonably rejected by some citizens in a
pluralistic democracy. And if justification of restrictive laws or policies can
be conducted only in terms of moral considerations no citizen of a pluralistic
democracy can reasonably reject, then in a pluralistic democracy such as ours
very few restrictive laws or policies would be morally justified, a conclusion
that would, I suspect, be welcome only to anarchists.[2]

Quinn is substantially correct here. There is special pleading going on whereby theological beliefs are rejected on certain grounds while secular ones are not, even though the same grounds and reasons should lead to their rejection as well. If it’s unjust to restrict a person's freedom on the basis of beliefs held by only some members of the community and which are rejected by others then all laws are unjust.

It could be added that such arguments are frequently incoherent. After all, such beliefs propose a moral viewpoint that many reject, the view that theological beliefs are not to be appealed to in public. Given that many reject this view, some people think that they should be appealed to in public, it should not be appealed to in public debate about policy. Moreover, since this position is generally defended by appeals to normative principles about freedom or pluralism or conceptions of equality that many reject, many of the arguments for this conclusion should not be utilised in public debate either.

Perhaps, however, I am being uncharitable here, perhaps what Litterick means to assert is not that the religious beliefs can be reasonably rejected by some people - that would, as I note above, lead to anarchism - rather, his point is that a majority of people reject them. This too, however, is problematic.

Implicit in this argument is the claim that a necessary condition for any principle to be utilised in public debate is that the majority accepts it as true. However, this is subject to numerous counter-examples. Consider a culture where the majority believes that a husband has the right to beat his wife. Would an advocate of majoritarianism contend that in such a society criticism by a feminist minority of this practice and the advocacy of norms forbidding spousal abuse is an unacceptable imposition of a narrow, feminist perspective in a pluralistic society? Would it be true that in such a society public policy could not be based on the moral principle that it is wrong for a man to beat his wife?

Consider an Islamic society where the majority believe that conversion to a rival, trinitarian monotheistic religion is immoral and should be a capital offence. Not to execute converts to Judaism or Christianity in such a society would, by this reasoning, be unjust. In societies where a racial majority thinks a racial minority is sub-human, it would be unjust to grant equal human rights.

There is a further objection to this argument. Many normative positions that are currently supported by the majority or a wide section of the populace were once minority views. Over time, however, the minority has persuaded others and or converted them to its cause. If “narrow” views are to be excluded, this type of reform is not possible. A minority would never be able to propose its ideas until it was no longer a minority view. However, it cannot cease to be a minority view unless it is proposed in the first place. Consequently, this stance freezes societies in whatever popular prejudices currently exist. The reforming minority that critiques contemporary culture would be effectively silenced if we were to hold that only the views of the majority are the just ones.

So in sum: It seems to be that Russell Brown is inconsistent in his treatment of the issue and Litterick uses common but erroneous and, I think, discredited arguments to justify his secularist stance.




[1] Phillip Quinn, “Political Liberalism and their Exclusion of the Religious,” in Religion and Contemporary Liberalism, ed. Paul Weithman (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 144.

[2] Ibid.

[1] Beverly Wildung Harrison, Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), 35.
[2] Harrison, Our Right to Choose, 35.
[3] In this discussion of formal and implicit contradictions I am influenced by Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom and Evil (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1974) 14-16.
[4] This argument was suggested to me in private correspondence.

RELATED POSTS:
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 1
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 2
Sentience Part 1
Sentience Part 2
Viability
Abortion and Brain Death: A Response to Farrar
Abortion and Child Abuse: Another Response to Farrar
Imposing You Beliefs Onto Others: A Defence
Published: Boonin's Defense of the Sentience Criteria - A Critique
Published: Abortion and Capital Punishment - No Contradiction

As a person who studies theology and philosophy I have, over the years, read some brilliant skeptics; John Mackie and Paul Draper come to mind. I also have become reasonably informed about the debate over theism in the literature. Consquently, I have a good idea when the issues are being caricatured.

Unfortunately rebuttal of a theological position by caricature is all too common in New Zealand. A good example is the blog no god zone this claims to be a site devoted to critiquing theism. However, after briefly examining the site, there appeared to be no discussion of the arguments of Plantinga, Swinburne, Craig, Alston, Van Inwagen or any other representative proponents of theism. Instead what exists is mostly caricature and what’s worse the caricatures are usually responded to not by robust counter argument but by vitriolic abuse.

A good example of this is an attack on my wife, and fellow MnM blogger, Madeleine. Here is what the blogger godlesszone writes:

A Madeleine Flannagan repeats the same rot saying “Hell Pizza will never again
see a cent of my family’s money for their utter disregard of parental rights.”
Again the Christianists seem to think that there is a right which controls the
actions of others to prevent anything they find offensive. I’m sure people find
this woman offensive so would her waddling down the street violate the “parental
rights” of others? Of course not. Once again this moron has no idea as to what
it means to have a right.

Note godlesszone's argument here; he quotes a portion of what Madeleine said on a forum and then asserts, on the basis of this quote, that Madeleine believes there is a parental right to not be offended. He then offers an insulting counter example to the existence of this right, calls her a moron and then concludes that Madeleine, therefore, does not know what a right is.

Now even if Madeleine believed that there was a right to not be offended, this would not show she does not know what rights are, merely that she mistakenly believes in one that does not exist.

Moreover, even if Madeleine did not know what a right is that would not make her a moron. There is vigorous debate about the nature of rights and what exactly they are, if they exist, in contemporary philosophical literature. Many intelligent people disagree on this issue. Hence we have two clear non-sequiturs in this argument.

It is worth noting that this non-sequitur attacks a straw man, because nowhere did Madeleine claim that there is a right to not be offended. If one turns to the quote (to which godlesszone actually links). You will see what Madeleine actually said is in its entirety:

No one has the right to tell me how to educate my kids. Not the state, family
planning and not the local pizza company. I am not catholic, I am speaking as a
parent. Hell Pizza will never again see a cent of my family's money for their
utter disregard of parental rights. We used to buy their pizza, we never will
again. I encourage every person who believes in parental rights to boycott Hell
Pizza. We have a big enough Nanny State in New Zealand without them adding to
it. My kids reckon Pizza Hut tastes better than Hell Pizza anyway.

Nowhere in this citation does Madeleine claim that there is a right to not be offended. What Madeleine claims is that there is a parental right to educate ones children. Hell Pizza had attempted to educate people’s children’s about sex and contraception without parental consent. That was the basis of her complaint, a simple reading of what she actually wrote makes this clear. Now of course Madeleine was not claiming here that the state can never step in. In cases where there is clear evidence of abuse the state has a right and a duty to step in but nothing like that was involved in this situation being discussed.

Two things are worth noting here, first godlesszone is a Libertarian and hence actually believes in a parental right to educate ones children, in fact he probably holds to a stronger conception of parental right to educate one's children than Madeleine does. Hence nothing she actually said about the existence of such a right would be objectionable to him.

Second, by linking to this quote and citing it godlesszone shows he had in fact read this quote and hence knew what Madeleine actually said. And by snipping out the first few sentences, and asserting she was referring a parental right to not be offended, godlesszone deliberately attributes to Madeleine a thesis that he knows she did not assert.

So here the blogger at no god zone sees a person appeal to a principle he actually agrees with. However, because he dislikes the persons religion he lies about what they said, makes up something else and then ridicules them for making this made up claim, and finally make fallacious jumps to accuse them of ignorance of basic concepts in ethics.

I suspect that no god zone is not actually interested in rational critique. All we have is hatred of Christians, a hatred that burns to such an extent that simple basic prima facie moral obligations such as don’t lie about other people and don’t insult other people are considered not to apply when dealing with them.

There is an irony here the author of no god zone was until fairly recently a writer for a respected internet news outlet which claims to stand for tolerance. He also is a contributor to a liberal institute which proposes tolerance as one of its core values. Unfortunately this sort of thing is becoming far too common. We see the banner of tolerance and reason used as a vehicle by which to promote irrational intolerance of Christianity. Orwell parodied a world which stated “War is Peace” today, perhaps, the parody should be “irrational bigotry is tolerance”.

A friend of mine sent me this this morning.

Its great, very witty satire. I particularly like the parody of Dawkin's "Who made God" argument. Dr Terry Tommyrot addresses the question of wether science can explain the existence of Dawkin's books with out postulating the existence of an intelligent author named Richard Dawkins. Tommyrot replies that , "If Dawkins designed this book who designed Dawkins, you tell me that". Exposing in a simple sentence the problem with this, common but mistaken, retort. A retort which, incidentally, constitutes one of Dawkins major arguments. For those interested in philosophical critiues of Dawkins. I recommend Alvin Plantinga's review in Books and Culture .

I wish to clarify that I am not Madeleine Setchell.

My maiden name is Richards.

Apparently, after I commented on kiwiblog the other day under my usual posting name which is simply 'Madeleine' a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that I must be the Madeleine in the story. Whilst there have been instances of David Benson-Pope lying about his staff doing things he in fact did involving me, I am not the Madeleine in the current instance of his fabrication.

It should have occurred to me to post as 'Madeleine Flannagan' in this instance as the leap is a rather obvious one to make - apologies for the confusion - its just that as a 'Madeleine', I am not used to being confused with other people, I have met very few Madeleine's in my life so it simply did not occur to me.

In an earlier post I mentioned the schism within The New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists (NZARH) between former spokesperson Paul Litterick and current spokesperson Dr Bill Cooke. NZARH contend that Dr Cooke was a Professor at The State University of New York at Buffalo. Paul Litterick maintains this is false. Litterick claims Cooke was never on faculty at this University and hence was never a professor there.

A few days latter Dr Cooke wrote to me and complained that I had not checked his side of the story before I posted. On this point he was correct and for that I sincerely apologised. He then proceeded to take issue with two points I had made: (a) My claim that Cooke had not been a professor at this University and (b) My claim that Cooke’s PhD was not in philosophy at all. Seeing I was remiss in not addressing his side of the story I shall do so now.

Turning first to (b) Cooke sent me a copy of his PhD and noted that it had written on it the phrase “Doctor of Philosophy”. I agree. A PhD is a “Doctor of Philosophy” that is after all what PhD stands for. However, this really misses the point of what I said. I never said that Cooke did not have a Doctor of Philosophy. I in fact explicitly stated that he had a PhD. What I said was that his PhD was not in Philosophy. Although the word “Philosophy” appears in the phrase “Doctor of Philosophy” it doesn’t follow that any one who has a Doctor of Philosophy has a qualification in philosophy. This is like saying that a person who has a Master of Arts is qualified as an artist. A person can successfully complete a PhD in physics, or history, or one of any number of disciplines and have little or no training in Philosophy at all. I know many Theologians who have PhD’s in biblical studies and little or no understanding of Philosophy at all.

Dr Cooke’s PhD was in Religious Studies. Moreover his PhD thesis was on the history of secularism in New Zealand. Hence Cooke is best described as a religious historian. He may well be a good one, but that does not make him a qualified philosopher let alone qualified to hold a Professorship in a Philosophy department.

Turning then to (a) here Cooke sent me a letter he received from the Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at The State University of New York at Buffalo which states that he has been awarded a professorship. This letter has since been published on the NZARH web page. This intrigued me because Paul Litterick claimed to have a letter from which denied Cooke was ever on faculty. Not content to rely on ‘he says she says” I wrote to the University myself. Here is the answer I received.

Dear Dr. Flannagan,

As I told Paul Litterick, Bill Cooke was
resident in Buffalo for a time as a fellow at the nearby Center for Inquiry. He
was given a courtesy appointment in our Philosophy Department so he could use
the UB library and facilities. At that time, the title that the Dean's Office
used for such affiliations was "Visiting Professor." Because this caused
confusion, since such people were not appointed to the teaching faculty, we no
longer use that title for fellows of CFI.

There is not any question
of fraud or misrepresentation on Dr. Cooke's part. He refers to the title that
he in fact was given.

I hope this clears up the
matter.

Sincerely,
Carolyn Korsmeyer

This letter states that Cooke was given the title of “Visting Professor” so on this point NZARH and are correct. As Korsmeyer notes Cooke is not lying when he claims he was awarded such a title because this was the term used by the Deans office.

However, the letter also points out this was a professorship in name only. In most English-speaking countries, the term professor refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual. In the US the term is often used of any University lecturer. However, in neither of these common senses of the term “professor” was Cooke a professor. In reality Cooke did not hold any faculty position at all. He was not a researcher, or a lecturer for the Philosophy Department. Cooke was merely a research fellow for a rationalist think tank in the same town. The title “Professor” was only a courteously title given to him so he could use the University Library.

Now when you hear that a person is a professor you normally assume that this means a lot more than that they have access to a University library. Korsmeyer appears to concede this. She notes that the name of the title was latter changed to avoid confusion. Apparently there was concern that people might mistakenly think that a person granted the title of professor was actually a professor in the normal sense of the word i.e. a senior member of faculty.

In light of this information I need to retract my earlier claim. Dr Cooke’s claim that he held a professorship at The State University of New York at Buffalo’s philosophy department is true provided one means by professorship an honorary title which gives you access to the University Library. Incidentally, by this definition I was a professor at the University of Otago last year. I was employed by the Theology department to do research and had access to University library and facilities. In fact by this definition of Professor I am arguably still a professor. Even though I am not on faculty, not teaching, nor studying at Otago, after I graduated I was given special rights to use the University library. Hence, provided this is all NZARH means to convey when it states it’s spokesperson held a professorship, there is clearly no deception on NZARH’s part in claiming this.

On the other hand if by claiming Cooke is a professor NZARH are attempting to suggest Dr Cooke actually had a professorship. i.e. he was a Philosophy lecturer or possibly a departmental chair then there comments are deceptive.

So the question is what does NZARH mean to convey when the claim Dr Cooke is was a Professor? Korsmeyer suggests he means only to refer to the position he was in fact given and suggests there is no deception. Litterick on the other hand thinks NZARH are trying to suggest Cooke held a faculty position in a philosophy department and is hence being dishonest.

I am not party to Cooke or NZARH’s intentions hence I will not comment on who I think is correct. Instead I’ll ask my readers, what do you think? When NZARH, an organization which promotes the philosophical critique of religion, claims that Dr Cooke was a philosophy professor do they intend to let us know that Cooke’s credentials include him being temporarily granted the right to use library at a state university? Or are they trying to pass their spokesperson of as having expertise in Philosophy of Religion which they know he does not?

A final thing, one of the main points in my previous posts was that NZARH have denounced Christian's for falsifying their credentials and hence if they were consistent should now denounce themselves. In light of this I want to ask another question: Suppose a Christian MP had claimed to have a doctorate when in reality it was merely an honourary doctorate, would NZARH consider him to be honest ?

See here and here for NZARH’s answer. A Dr Bill Cooke from NZARH seems to think it is not honest and calls into question the organization of which the Christian is a member.

I leave my readers to ponder the irony.

Here is a list of the instances I can recall where Benson-Pope has blamed one of his staff members for something he did:

• Leaked content of Police Report over Tennis Ball saga - staff member leaked it without his knowledge. (Later turned out it was with his permissison/instruction)
• Having the police collect a $35 cleaning bill - staff member went to police and made request without his knowledge. (Official Information Act request showed his signature on the police forms)
• Playing a part in ending Madeleine Setchell's employment - staff member made calls without his knowledge. (Turns out he forgot that he did intervene)

Are there any more?

Benson-Pope clearly has really crappy staff.

I saw Dr. Michael Cullen speaking in on TV3 last night. What he said was interesting because it highlights a tension I have often noted in liberal views of sexual morality . The issue was as follows: A school had hired a teacher. This teacher however had advertised on an internet adult site for a woman to have sex with him. He requested the women be 17 or adding that the younger the student was the better. His partner apparently consented to him doing this and offered to join in, apparently one of them “liked to watch”.

Now Cullen stated that he wanted to tighten up regulations so Schools could dismiss teachers like this. He stated it was unacceptable that a person like this should be teaching teenage girls. He seemed to take this latter claim as obvious and there was no apparent disagreement from anyone in the clip.

Let’s be clear what Cullen is saying here. He is suggesting that it should be permissible to refuse to employ someone on the basis of private sexual behaviour they engage in with other consenting adults (under NZ’s laws a 17 year old is not considered a minor when it comes to sex and hence is a consenting adult). Moreover, he is also suggesting that a person’s private consensual sexual behaviour can be grounds for considering them unfit to teach at public schools. Moreover Cullen appeared to think this was obvious and certainly no one appeared to disagree in this instance.

If this is so the question I have for Cullen and the Labour party is this. If you believe this, why have you repeatedly stated the opposite in the past? This is the party whose activists have repeatedly stated that it’s wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of their private consensual behaviour.

I also have another question. Suppose this teacher had instead of advertising for a member of the opposite sex on a website he had been cruising for causal sex with another man in a local gay bar. Would Cullen say this person was unfit to teach teenage children? Suppose he had advertised for causal in Express magazine? Would that be grounds to discriminate against him and to claim he is unfit to teach at public schools?

I suspect I know the answer to this question. If a person were to make this argument about a homosexual teacher Cullen and his supporters would denounce the person as a bigot and an intolerant homophobe. No doubt the person would be compared to the Nazis and to the Taliban (as though somehow saying that a person is unfit to teach at a school is the same as engaging in mass murder and genocide).

But this raises an obvious question; If it’s obvious that a heterosexual male is unfit to teach because he advertises for sex on the net. Why is a homosexual male who advertises for causal sex in a Gay bar or on the pages of express not also unfit? In both cases the sex is consensual in private. The only difference is the gender of his partner. I thought Labour believed it was wrong to treat same sex relationships differently to heterosexual ones?

If we are to believe what Labours activists have told us then either one of two things is true either (a) Cullen is a pro Taliban Nazi bigot or (b) much of what Labour has told us about consenting sex in private is false and much of the character assassination it has dished out to Conservatives is unjustified. Which is it?

A rational person should not prescribe a principle unless he is willing to also prescribe the logical implications of that principle. If you prescribe a rule but are unable to accept its implications because you find them intuitively absurd then you have good grounds for rejecting the rule. No amount of denouncing others as bigots can change this fact.

The claim that its wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of their private consensual sexual activities has counter intuitive implications. Hence in the absence of compelling arguments for this claim it should be rejected.