Manx Legislative Council - failures as humans and unfit for office

I openly resent a religious leader, chosen by the church management of another country with his appointment rubber stamped by the prime minister of that country, being imposed, unelected, on our upper house of government with no popular mandate.
I do at least expect him to live up to the excuse offered by his supporters and be a force for truth and common decency in Tynwald. From a report in this week’s Isle of Man Examiner it seems he cannot even manage that.
I’ve blogged before on the Gender Recognition Bill currently going through Tynwald, particularly on the insidious way the churches are using particularly superstitious or bigoted politicians to get opt-outs. Churches are looking for a way to prevent transgendered people getting married in church, which they cannot do unless they ‘reasonably believe’ they are dealing with such a person.
In fact, a priest cannot ‘reasonably believe’ that someone has changed gender unless someone else provides him, illegally, with the information from the confidential register.
Sadly, rather than humanitarian, the bishop’s only interest is in ensuring that, should anyone do so, both parties would be immune from the statutory prosecution and £5,000 fine which any other publicly funded bigot would face. He got that assurance too from his fellow members of Legislative Council in return for dropping it as a formal amendment.
Doesn’t this perfectly demonstrate that he and his fellow unelected friends are, in being prepared to turn a blind eye to crime against the most vulnerable committed by public servants, total failures as human beings and unfit for public office?
And let’s just think about the basis for their bigotry for a second. We are talking about folk with such an appetite for fantasy that they believe a virgin gave birth and people can rise after death. Some believe the world is only 6,000 years old and fossils were put there by their fictitious friend to test their faith. One crowd think that when some ex-public schoolie in fancy dress snaps his fingers a biscuit and a glass of cheap plonk magically become the body and blood of an omnipotent being we’re all supposed to bow down before……yet when someone born into the wrong gendered body, having had help from the best medicine and psychiatric counselling around, is finally matched up in the right one that’s a problem, especially if he or she wants to get married?
Yeah, right!