In other news...

How the Scottish Christian Party offended me

My #1 strongest-held political view is that a government must govern for all the people, and not just for the majority. My #2 most strongly-held political view is that we must have both religious freedom and freedom of speech in this country. However, freedom of speech does have some very sensible limits.

The SCP wrote to me, and being a conscientious voter I took the time to carefully read their material. On the last page, they spent several hundred words decrying a recent change to Scottish law that limits freedom speech. So, I should agree, right?

Except that the change to the law they were complaining about is that it is now illegal for a teacher to tell a teen who thinks he might be homosexual that his orientation is "offensive in the eyes of the Lord". Seriously.

Here's the thing: I absolutely maintain that a person can hold that belief if they see fit (I happen to disagree, because there's a whole lot of context that I believe renders that assessment flawed, but there we go). I also absolutely maintain that a person has the right to express that view.

But you don't go telling a scared and confused teenager something like that. And don't try feeding me the classic line about hating sin but loving the sinner, either. That's a very fine distinction, and one that our hypothetical teenager isn't going to hear. What he'll hear is the trusted adult telling him that he's some sort of freak. Good one.

There's a whole lot more I have to say on the topic of homosexuality, and especially as it intersects with my faith, but I'm not going to post them until I get my thoughts all neatly organised. Officially, since I'm straight, and therefore it doesn't affect me, I don't have an opinion. Unofficially, of course, I have an opinion on just about any topic you care to name.

Laptop

I'm posting this from my exciting new laptop, which I bought with mybonus money. It's quite a lot of fun. However, even with just the documents I'm transferring across from my main PC, I've just about filled one of the hard drives, which is a matter of some concern. I'm also really not a fan of Windows Vista, and have found that setting up a new PC so it looks and feels like I want it to is a long and drawn out process.

Still, if I ever find the time to set it up properly, it'll be great.

Elections

I am now infuriated at our political process. As of now, no Scot will ever again be able to mock the Americans for their ineptitude in running elections. Grr.

How dare they?

Doctor Who isn't on next week because of the Eurovision Song Contest! In what sort of a world is this a good thing?