Yesterday, I attended hustings for the candidates for my constituency and regional list in the upcoming scottish elections. The following are just some personal thoughts and observations, in no way intended to influence anyone's votes. If you disagree or have your own thoughts please feel free to comment.
1. The first two questions last night were about the behaviour of an SNP MP at Westminister and about Trident - both issues which are largely irrelevant for these elections. Holyrood has no real power over issues like trident or the war in Iraq. The only way these become Scottish issues is if Scotland becomes independant. Therefore the SNP and SSP have a vested interest in keeping these issues at the forefront, but turning the election into a referendum around these issues seems to be denying us the chance to hear more about what the parties would actually want to do about key issues that Holyrood can actually impact - like healthcare, education and the environment.
2. Solidarity and the SSP seemed to give identikit answers to every questions, although Solidarity's were slightly more polished, which begs the question why we need both of them apart from to provide room for Tommy Sheridan's ego. I am slightly surprised that he hasn't gone the Robert Kilroy Silk route and named it the Tommy Sherida Solidarity Party - it might perhaps be a bit more accurate.
Two parties who weren't represented last night and who I won't be voting for anyway were the Scottish Christian Party and the Christian People Alliance Scotland. I've got to admit that I'm not totally sure about the idea of a christian party to start with - I think its great for Christians to be involved in politics - in all parties, but there seem to be so many issues where it would be legitimate for christians to hold quite widely differing opinions that to have a "Christian" party. Given these differences, christian parties tend to end up focussing mainly on the "family values" issues.
I had a quick scout around the websites for both parties this morning and have to say I couldn't find a single policy for the Scottish elections for the Christian Party. The Christian People's Alliance was far more comprehensive - although their first two policies were on Trident and the War in Iraq (see above). Pleasingly and surprisingly they did have policieson healthcare, the environment and education, although not as comprehensive as the major parties and not different from many of them. So, their major distinctive and the area where they are getting all their media coverage is around "family values". What follows are my own individual view on these issues and why I tend to get turned off by the political debate on these issues. Please feel free to comment and disagree.
(1) To start on a positive - the CPA favour offering greater financial incentives for parents who wish to to stay at home looking after their children, especially in the early years. This I believe is a great idea - bringing up a child is one of the most valuable jobs anybody can do - greater recognition and valuing of this key role can only be a good thing.
(2) How people react to talk of the family will depend to a large extent on their own experiences of family - for many people this is not a positive thing at all. I think the CPA need to recognise this one heck of a lot more than they do.
(3) The biblical concept of family is a much wider, more inclusive one than the Western nuclear family - maybe we should stop talking as if this is an inherently Christian concept.
(4) Of course the Bible is very strong on marriage. However, I'm not sure that I see it as a politcal agenda to support it. In fact, I tend to think that if marriage needs politics and legislation to support it, then the battle is already lost. Maybe Christians should instead focus on the power of a good example. As to offering financial incentives for married couples over other couples - with divorce rates already so high, do we really want people to marry for financial reasons? Most people who choose not to marry do so for other reasons - sometimes the negative example set by their parents. I think the law should be there to offer equal protection and rights to all. We are not looking at a situation where marriage is being discriminated against - that would be unjust and a cause for outrage - rather there seems to be unhappiness because other relationships are being given equal status under law. Basically I think marriage is God's plan, but don't think it is the place of legislation to give one group of people or ideas privileged status over another. So why shouldn't co-habiting couples or same sex relationships be equal under the law?
(5) Yes, God's ideal plan would be for a child to be raised by a mother and father who love them and perfectly image God's love for them. But lets be honest, no child since the Garden of Eden has actually had that. We are dealing with degrees of imperfection here - and in some cases it might be better for a child to be with a single parent or same sex parents who are able to show them love, than a mother and a father who aren't or who are even abusive. I do tend to find that alot of the debate about family values is actually far too divorced from the reality of what childhod is actually like for many children.
(6) Two of the main areas of recent legislation the CPA have been critical of are civil partnerships and gay adoption.
Civil Partnerships - if two people of the same sex want to enter into a legal commitment to each other, who are we to say that they shouldn't be allowed to do this? Nobody is saying that churches should be forced into marrying them. I'm not sure that I see this as a threat to marriage. Is ther real argument here pro-marriage or anti-gay?
Gay Adoption - the thing that bugs me most here is talk, on both sides of the argument, of a right to adopt. NOBODY has a right to adopt - they have a right to put themselves forward to be considered for adopting a child - there is then, as there should be, a very thorough selection, vetting and matching process before they are allowed the privilege of adopting. The process, as it should be, is governed by the best interests of the child and as I've said above, those best interests may sometimes be best met by two parents of the same sex. If it places more children in homes where they will be genuinely loved and cared for it can only be a good thing as far as I can see.
(7) The CPA favours an abstinence based sex-education programme in schools. All well and good in principle - it can only be good for teenagers to hear about abstinence as a viable alternative, but I'm afraid their language tends to suggest a "just say no" approach, which has been shown time and time again to be counter-productive. (After all, the Bible tells us that one of the effects of the law is to produce a desire for the opposite). It is also based on the huge assumption that the most at-risk teenagers have the confidence and the skills to say no - I'm afraid that this is not the case. Any serious sex-education programme I believe should include not only biological facts, but also moral and ethical considerations plus some element of social skills training. Fundamentally, it needs to recognise that teenagers will make decisions for themselves, preaching won't work, but supporting and guiding so that they have the confidence to make choices that help themselves might.
In general then, I'm not in agreement on a lot of these issues and even if I was, I'm not sure they're important enough issues for me to sway my vote, but what do other people think?
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4 comments:
good post tony! and brave to launch into all those issues in ONE post ... not sure where to start.
To be honest i haven't looked at the two christian parties website / manifesto (or anything) ... but i probably have a pretty similar reaction to you.
I do think family is a big issue for society ... or perhaps better to say that breakdown of family is a big issue. Broken relationships. Broken families. Broken kids. And it fractures society. But what to do about it? And how to communicate that family is a good thing, without finger wagging at those many people who don't fall into our nice neat categories? those who are single parents, not through choice?
I wonder if one way would be to make it harder to get out of marriage / civil partnership. If you want to the tax breaks, then you have to enter some formal agreement (marriage or civil partnership), but to get out requires you go to mediation or something similar. And for children too if they are involved.
I saw an inspiring women in texas (i think) who worked with families and children going through divorce. She was amazing, and the process helped the families to minimise the impact of the separation.
Enough for now ... could say more about adoptions, partnerships etc.
What do you think about my suggestion?
Rupert,
Thanks for the comment.
I recognise that there are people doing excellent work around these issues. I guess I still think that legislation is just not the right way of tackling these things. I guess as I see it, it comes down to the difference between God's grace and legislation in that God can hold absolutely to an ideal while recognising that we are all imperfect, fallen works in progress, whilst legislation if it holds to an ideal ends up trying to conform people to that ideal and I don't think that works. Which is a brief summary of a very big issue.
On a practical level, one suggestion I would add - one of the main problems coming from the breakdown of families is a lack of male role models for many children. I think that alot of work needs to be done to attract more men into primary teaching and early years work in order to start to address this.
Yes - i think you are right about legislation and the ideals we aspire for. And the problem comes when people think we are soft on the ideal just because we don't want to legislate! But i think you are dead on, and worth the flack we get to stand on that ground.
How would you practically get more men into primary teaching?
The conventional wisdom is that these jobs attract less men because they are less well paid than other jobs, but I think that that is only half the story - it doesn't explain why there is such a huge discrepancy between the number of men going into secondary as compared to primary teaching. I had a friend who was considering primary teaching and he was actively enncouraged to think about secondary instead.
I think there is still a cultural attitude that work with younger children is somehow more woman's work and men who are interested in it are almost treated with suspicion and that attitude needs to be actively challenged. Not totally sure how you go about that, but its worth thinking about.
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