Church confused about orientation

'Vatican renews ban on gay priests', reports BBC News. But even the Catholic Church is struggling to hold the line these days.

The church has issued guidelines on who may be recruited to the priesthood. These suggest that homosexuality is a 'tendency', and that those who overcome it can be considered for holy orders. However, 'if a candidate practises homosexuality, or presents deep-seated homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director as well as his confessor have the duty to dissuade him in conscience from proceeding towards ordination'.

This view of homosexuality has provoked considerable reaction from gay Christians. Michael B Kelly, writing in Australia's The Age newspaper, notes that there is probably a higher proportion of gays in the priesthood than in the rest of society, and that these new guidelines will only dissuade many potentially excellent priests. 'This crude insult will distress countless gay priests - and it is a kick in the stomach to all gay people.'

But is the church really being hard-line? Elsewhere in the document, priests are urged to treat gays 'with respect and delicacy; one will avoid every mark of unjust discrimination with respect to them' - which seems a long way from Leviticus' statement that 'if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall be put to death: their blood is upon them'. The truth is that, like every traditional institution, the Catholic Church is confused about what it should stand for - a problem highlighted by the fact that these guidelines took eight years to prepare, were released without fanfare, and don't even have the seal of papal authority.

Catholic document on homosexuals and seminaries - full text, Catholic World News, 25 November 2005

One flu over the cuckoo's nest

UK health officials have admitted that stocks of the winter flu vaccine are running low. While panic about a non-existent flu pandemic continues, many people will now not be protected against existing strains of the disease.

It seems that GPs and the Department of Health have been caught out by extra demand created by all the discussion about bird flu. Peter Holden, a GP from Derbyshire, told The Times: 'At the last count, we were 400 short. As of Friday night, we had no idea where we are getting vaccines for our clinics from December 3.' This is despite assurances last month from health secretary Patricia Hewitt that stocks were plentiful.

The irony of this rush to be vaccinated is that the current vaccine offers no protection against any future pandemic strain, were it ever to emerge. But the shortages do mean that many of those who ideally would be vaccinated - the elderly, or those with long-term health conditions, who are most at risk from influenza complications - will now not get that extra protection. The problem isn't entirely due to the fuss about bird flu. It has been compounded by the ordering system in place for flu vaccine, which encourages GPs to be very conservative in their ordering and leaves little slack in the system for unusual demand. Nonetheless, in the short term at least, the consequences of the irrational hype about bird flu will be worse than bird flu itself.

Flu jab runs out, The Times (London), 22 November 2005

Policy problems on the cards

Comments by ex-MI5 chief Stella Rimington have further embarrassed the government about ID cards. If the cards are unlikely to prevent terrorism, what on earth are they for?

Speaking at the Association of Colleges annual conference in Birmingham, Rimington said: 'My angle on ID cards is that they may be of some use but only if they can be made unforgeable - and all our other documentation is quite easy to forge. If we have ID cards at vast expense and people can go into a back room and forge them they are going to be absolutely useless.'

This is hardly news, but the reiteration of this point by a former senior intelligence figure only reinforces it. Even home secretary Charles Clarke was forced to admit after the London bombings that ID cards would not have prevented the attacks. Nonetheless, the government has used the implication that the cards would be of some use in the war on terror as a means of countering opposition to the loss of freedom, and enormous expense, involved in implementing the scheme. Even the other potential uses of the cards - to prevent 'identity theft', benefit fraud and other kinds of crime - are open to question.

If you create a 'gold standard' of identification that is still forgeable, then it is possible that crime could ultimately be made easier, since there are likely to be fewer questions asked if you can show an ID card. That won't stop the scheme, though. As one justification falters, another appears in its place. This is a policy, and a government, looking for a purpose.

Ex-MI5 chief sparks ID card row, BBC News, 17 November 2005

28 days good, 13 days bad

Three people, two Britons and an Australian, have been telling reporters about their ordeal, held for 13 days without trial or charge in Iran.

Rupert and Linda Wise and Paul Shulton were seized by the Iranian Navy as they sailed from their home in Dubai to an island in the Persian Gulf. The ownership of the island is currently under dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. For days they were held without any clear idea of the reason for their detention and were unable to contact consular officials or their families. 'We were kept under lock and key, not allowed out, armed guards outside, guards inside, for the full period of our detention. We were hostages', said Mr Wise. Clearly, this must have been a distressing time for these three people, with the fear that their detention would be used as an excuse to cobble together a case against them for some wider political purpose.

Their story sheds a timely light on the decision of the House of Commons to double the period of detention without charge in terrorism cases to 28 days from the current 14 days. Apparently, being held for 13 days under armed guard in Iran is a terrible ordeal, with the insinuation that a miscarriage of justice could occur and rights are being violated. But being held for 28 days under armed guard at Paddington Green police station is a victory for civil liberties and a proportionate response to the current terrorist threat. On the other hand, it could just be a blatant case of double standards.

British 'hostages' freed in Iran, BBC News, 11 November 2005

Domestic violence and the 'ginger ninja'

The Sun's editor Rebekah Wade found herself banged up yesterday for allegedly thumping her husband. But it was just a 'domestic', right?

The phrase 'you couldn't make it up' springs to mind. The red-headed editor of the biggest newspaper in the country, famed for her campaigns on naming and shaming paedophiles and on domestic violence, is forced to spend a few hours in the cells for allegedly giving her partner a 'thick lip'. That the aforementioned husband is none other than soap opera 'hard man' Ross Kemp is the icing on the cake. 'EastEnder Is Decked By The Ginger Ninja,' said Sun stablemate The Times joining a line of newspapers queuing up to have a little fun at the embarrassed couple's expense.

Still, it is at times like this when the Sun usually tops everyone else's frontpages and today was no different. 'Eastenders hardman beaten by lover' screamed the front cover, only to picture Kemp's co-star Steve McFadden who, by eerie coincidence, got walloped yesterday by his ex-girlfriend. Kemp was shown in a tiny picture in the corner, next to the words 'And his bruv's had a bit of bovver too'. All this pleasure at the expense of a high-profile couple who don't seem to be wildly popular is good fun, but it begs a serious question about Wade's credibility. Last month, the Sun stated that its domestic violence campaigns 'tell millions that using violence is unacceptable. If we speak out, children will learn it is wrong to hit loved ones.' Yet these campaigns start from assuming that one-in-four women are the victims of domestic violence by lumping together every tiff with the smaller numbers of women who suffer persistent physical abuse.

Wade chose to say yesterday 'It was just a silly row that got out of hand.' She doesn't seem to apply this sensible approach, which assumes that even people who love each other can occasionally fall out, to the rest of the world, instead promoting the idea that even minor scraps in family settings should be subject to investigation and apparently show that there is an 'epidemic' of domestic violence. After all her paper's moralising about domestic violence, this incident is a real slap in the face.

She campaigns for battered wives so what happened?, The Herald, 4 November 2005