Grans Moral Maze

The fact that a tiny minority of men/boys might at some point need circumcision for medical reasons is irrelevant to the principle that this assault on children must be made illegal. It is beyond credence that it is still legal.

Equally irrelevant in this context are religious sensibilities. No religious sensibilities can override the need to protect babies and children from assault.

Well said Lucky

After reading this thread I listened to this edition of Radio 4's "The Moral Maze" on BBC i-player.

I was very struck by the contrast between the measured debate on Gransnet and the angry speakers on the program. Most of the panelists seemed to have a religious agenda and were quite unwilling to see that religious freedom should not justify acts which, if done without a religious context, would actually be illegal.

I thought that the CEO of the National Secular Society was subjected to quite unwarranted abuse and so I googled their website. Secularism is not the same as atheism. Many religious believers are secularists. They simply do not want any religion to enjoy a privileged position in our society.

There is a very telling critique of this "Moral Maze" program by Dr Antony Lempert, who comes from a Jewish background.

www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2018/02/schrodingers-penis

Link to "The Moral Maze". I'd be very interested to hear whether any of you regard this as a balanced debate.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rzhxl

varian wrote
"I was very struck by the contrast between the measured debate on Gransnet and the angry speakers on the program".
As a Jew, I have a lot to say on these subjects, but from experience have decided to stay shtum.

I heard it last night. It seem difficult to have a calm rational discussion about religion. People’s views are so entrenched.

I listen to the MM regularly and think ‘Clare Fox - WTF? I now feel the same about Giles Fraser and am glad he no longer writes in the Guardian. I thought the quality off the debate was abysmal overall..

And GF is heading for another heart attack

This "religious" circumcision issue is IMO not acceptable.
FGM has now been made illegal in many countries At least that is a starting point if not yet fully implented.

Why does every mammal in the world have an intact foreskin when they are born. I cannot believe that evolution has not provided a foreskin as means to protect the penis from damage but a few religions consider it as an offering to the gods. Nature knows what it is doing.
If anyone actually thinks circumcision is not barbaric. I will repost the video of a circumcision operation I posted some years ago.

Fennel I don't think anyone on this thread is other than a concerned Gran who can't bear to think of a little baby being subjected to unnecessary surgery for reasons lost in the mists of time. I'd deplore any religion that perpetrated such cruelty btw antisemitism doesn't come into it for me.

I’ve been thinking about JW and blood transfusions - we make their children wards of courts if the parents refuse treatment. The child comes first

Just watched a distressing report on BBC news about this very subject of 'underground' religious schools. the conditions of some were disgusting, filthy kitchens etc., and there was covert filming of a what looked like a small boy being hit around the head by his 'teacher'. The Ofsted spokeswoman was quite specific in her criticism; they can visit, they can report but they cannot close down. These places should be shut down immediately, what is the matter with these parents that their religious beliefs are more important than the health, happiness, safety of their children, let alone whatever kind of religious crap propaganda they are being fed instead of a balanced curriculum. Surely this is child abuse?

GillT57 - I never say the local authorities were perfect but the way they ran education and other public services was so much better, more consistent than the so called free schools and the academies. Makes me very cross. Faith schools are one thing and I accept there are strong feelings for and against. Faith schools that take place in cellars and houses - is that really a school? No national curriculum, no real oversight, children separated from the wider community and other faiths, taught single minded nonsense. It's just plain wrong.

Do we not have a law saying that children of school age must be in a registered school unless they have official dispensation, eg for home schooling?

The report I heard said they have to be registered if they are providing education for a certain (low) number of children for a certain number of hours each week.
But there seems to be no scrutiny or accountability.
We seem to have gone back in time.

janeainsworth
I believe there is scrutiny but sadly not a lot of accountability.

We have gone back in time janea, it feels increasingly like the country that Charles Dickens wrote about.

A few years ago, we let some unused classrooms at our school, to a near by Mosque for lessons on the Koran. Sadly we had to discontinue this as the teacher would whip the children with a piece of wood if they annoyed him in any way. Many of their parents complained to us as they felt they could not complain to their mosque

Oh BBevan - that is appalling. There has to be some way of bringing these religious indoctrination centres into the mainstream of safeguarding legislation.

BBevan, what was the response of the police and children's services to these complaints about the Imam's behaviour? The big issue is usually getting children and then their parents to tell anyone in authority what is happening. Investigations will take place and prosecutions have taken place.
Our family includes a young Muslim woman now in her mid 20's. She talks about the beatings at their Mosque. Her mother marched down and told the imam she knew what was happening and if he ever raised a finger to her children, she'd tell the police. He never did assault any of her children but of course, this course of action, whilst brave on her part, didn't do anything to stop this man's physical assaults or emotionally terrorising children in his care.
Our generation must all have friends/or ourselves have experienced physical abuse and being terrified of priests and nuns. I didn't go to a religious high school but we had teachers who regularly hit boys round the head, threw board dusters at children in class and one teacher who frequently resorted to throwing the window opener, a long pole that looked like a javelin.

But of course there are parents who consider that this is th way a child should be treated. Years ago I taught in a school with a high immigrant population and the children who came in from Muslim schools in other countries were amazingly quiet and well behaved. They had been subjected to very strict discipline which involved physical punishment. In fact the parents found our approach hard to understand. One colleague talked to the parents about their son and his maths, as the boy was having difficulties. The parent's response? "Well beat him Mr X beat him!"

trisher, my parents generation would be hit at home if they complained they'd been hit for misbehaving at school. Some people still support the 'spare the rod and spoil the child' approach to bringing up children.

I think, in those days ( 80-90s) although the school reported it to the education authority, nothing bar not letting the classrooms being used again, was ever done. The parents of course would not confront the Imam

Iam64 in response to your post of 15:29, many of us remember teachers like this. Imagine if they had carried guns as President Trump recommends!

Iam64, agreed; LA were never perfect, but there was some kind of responsibility, of accountability. I just do not understand how religious belief trumps the law of the land? Why should it be acceptable for these unqualified teachers to hit children? Why should it be acceptable for the kitchens to be filthy? These practices would not be acceptable at my local primary school so why should it be deemed acceptable at the Orthodox Jewish School in Southend ( that is where the male teacher was seen hitting very small boy over the head), or at the Imam run school in Shoreditch with the headteacher who had previous convictions for assaulting children? Why don't the DofE just 'grow a pair' and go in on the basis of Ofsed reports and shut them down? What are they waiting for, a child to be battered?