Of masturbation, the BBC and religious tossers

The sound of my wife laughing her head off alerted me to some BBC lunacy this morning.
She was watching their Sunday morning 10 AM (unintentional) comedy show.
This is supposed to be a quasi-religious chat show about modern morality, where people in funny headgear and back to front collars mingle with ‘plain speaking’ media commentators (i.e. twattish motormouths from right wing rags) and a token person with a three figure IQ. The predecessor had a live audience, but that seems to have abandoned because even the Beeb and their religious advisors must have noticed how dim the churchgoing public are when allowed to rant freestyle to a camera.
There are now three 20 minute ‘questions’ and the viewers are supposed to text or e-mail 'Yes' or 'No' to instant polls. That way, the respondents are just as dim, but at least the Beeb recoups their dosh from the phone companies. I say this confidently, because, in all honesty, who but a superstitious numpty would bother paying for the privilege of registering their worthless opinion on a publically subsidised TV show?
My wife was laughing because Peter Tatchell was the token literate guest, and the first question was prompted by Hungary’s decision to lower the age of consent to 14. Peter was there to say it made sense, because 14 year old kids often have some sort of sex life anyway so why not help them through the messy adolescent years instead of dragging them through the courts.
More precisely, my wife wasn’t laughing at Peter, but because a Hungarian lawyer being interviewed via Skype was shut off rapidly. His ‘crime’ was to point out that a century ago religious zealots were so horrified by the idea of teenagers masturbating that even that was, technically, illegal. He was probably about to say, "haven’t we moved on", but the presenter, the vicar and the right wing hack were all so startled by the word ‘masturbation’ that they nearly fainted and the presenter ended the interview right there by saying it was inappropriate for that time in the morning.
The other reason my wife was laughing was that the presenter (young, female) had a blouse on that displayed her cleavage like melons on a market stall, and the camera angle on cutaway shots was so low that the view up her short skirt bordered on the gynaecological.
The lesson, I guess, is that uptight churchfolk can safely have a sly one off the wrist over an attractive TV presenter while, in theory, considering the moral mess our society has got itself into, but using a medically accurate term to describe the practice before the watershed is right out.
Incidentally, the poll showed only 16% supported Peter’s decriminalisation argument. This was taken by the vicar, the hack and the godly media tart as ‘evidence’ that the moral majority had spoken.
No, what it actually means (though Peter was far too polite to be this blunt) is that even 16% of the kind of lardarsed Daily Mail reader who’s too lazy to go to church so watches religious TV instead thought the vicar and her chums were talking bollocks. In fairness, this may have only been because it was a black lady vicar, and religiously handicapped Daily Mail readers probably hate them even more than outspoken gay men.

Kermit is risen. Hallelujah!

Me and ‘her indoors’ have just finished laughing at an inane Pentecost special on BBC 1. We’d turned on expecting our usual Sunday morning gigglefest at The Big Question, but this was even better. Classic tripe – and the Beeb’s religious programming unit really don’t know how much joy they (unintentionally) give to us heathens at times like these. Christians, by comparison, must be squirming in embarrassment.
In case anyone’s wondering, no, the nipper wasn’t watching. She’d spotted more sophisticated fare on a kiddie channel. Anyway, even her voluntary enjoyment of religious TV would constitute child abuse in our book, and swivel-eyed loons in pastel hued 100% polyester clothing so isn’t a role model for any infant.
The tragedy unfolded from some waste of a potential carpet warehouse in Peckham, and was led by the startlingly monikered Rev. Frog Orr-Ewing, backing music courtesy of a bunch of shoegazers who look and sound like U2 might if they couldn’t afford effects pedals and a light show.
As if the name wasn’t bad enough, Orr-Ewing had us wondering if Posh Boy Cameron has relatives born wrong side of the blanket. The facial features were identical (apart from a weird birthmark suggesting he’d wandered into a door with his eyes closed while praying), as were the mannerisms and oratorial style. Quite disturbing. Someone really should look into this.
On a more serious note, we probably ought to ask why the Beeb gave a Sunday morning spot to an atrocity exhibition which included (I kid not) two rhythmically challenged teens doing a creationist rap and numerous blatant adverts for the Alpha Course – the last commercially orientated bastion of homophobia in the UK, coming to an empty church near you if you’re not careful.
Various background pieces on the participants (inserted to break up the monotony of white care in the community types shuffling and waving their arms about to dirges they didn’t know the words to while token black folk looked on in horror) suggest there is serious money in this racket too. Frog and his ersatz Muppets were seen ‘ministering’ in a sink estate playground, and dropped numerous hints that they (and numerous others) will be funded to pester the public during the London Olympics.
So, do you know where YOUR council funds are going these days?
And another thing.
I see the programme, while based in Peckham, was produced by BBC Manchester. Now I remember from college days that this is where the Beeb’s religious team hang out, and these days the employees to my certain knowledge include an advisor on media strategy to the Catholic church and an Evangelical Alliance stooge. The latter also not only sits on the Beeb’s main ‘independent’ religious advisory bodies but is elsewhere employed as a TV producer by the Beeb, runs a website for an offshoot of the Evangelical Alliance and also does the PR for a ghastly megachurch in the Manchester area.
So, do you know where YOUR licence fee is going these days, and are you going to protest about it being used to publicise homophobic, anti-scientific, Christofascist scams which leech off the public purse and screw up the lives of the dispossessed?
Alternatively, like me, you could just draw attention to them, and take the piss relentlessly until the Church of Kermit is too much of a laughing stock to do serious harm.

Five questions for Easter TV

As those desperately flicking through the TV channels for wholesome holiday programming will have noticed, the Beeb is inflicting more than the usual holy madness on us this Easter.
One lowlight will be an ‘investigation’ of Christian ‘persecution’ in the UK by Nicky Campbell tomorrow night.
This is all kicked off by the recent extraordinary, and I would opine dishonest, whinings of George Carey, the last Archbishop of Canterbury to be directly appointed by a Prime Minister against Anglican wishes back in the days when Anglicans had some moral backbone, because Thatcher didn’t want an earnest herbert in a dick-shaped hat going on about poverty, injustice, striking miners and all that.
The Anglicans must have got the message, as ever since they’ve voluntarily appointed numpties who would so rather hang on to undemocratic privilege and public cash that Blair and Broon never need to slap them down. Sure, they make token grumbles about Iraq or Afghanistan, but have they ever refused MOD cash paid to Anglican chaplains or stopped the Church Commissioners investing in the arms trade?
Yeah, whatever…anyways….
It seems even the decent end of the Christian community are tired of Gormless George and his whines, judging from an item on Ekklesia by Jonathan Bartley entitled Five questions for assessing Nicky Campbell’s documentary on ‘persecution’ of UK Christians.
Bartley is the reasonable Christian who sometimes guests on Big Questions, Campbell’s Sunday morning BBC One religious discussion programme. They need one sometimes, as otherwise it would be a complete freak show, the televisual equivalent of seeing chimps tug their todgers at the zoo (or, for Manx readers, a normal morning in the House of Keys or Legislative Council).
After asking Campbell what’s planned, Bartley doubted the programme will be balanced, and worries in particular that the approach will be historical, while it should, as he puts it so eloquently: “address the context of post-Christendom – which is neither secularisation, nor post-Christian - but which is crucial to understanding what is going on.”
He mentions Ekklesia’s own work on the topic, which sounds much more worthy of serious analysis (even by godless heathen) and suggests five questions for viewers to consider while watching.
These are:

"1. Will the claims of ‘persecution’ be properly scrutinised? There has been so much misinformation about what local councils, hospitals, schools and other bodies have been doing/saying. The claims make great headlines, but upon further scrutiny – including talking to the bodies involved - the claims often have little substance. There are certainly disagreements, but they are often of a different nature to the way they are being presented. Will the documentary interview the public bodies involved and get the story from their perspective? (It is sometimes the case that the people involved in the bodies are themselves Christians).
2. Will there be a proper account of why some Christians feel marginalised? Specifically, will the context of post-Christendom be taken into account? The churches have had centuries of special privilege, with Christianity being a dominant narrative. Religion is relocating and finding a new place in society. This is making many Christians feel unsettled and making others fearful. This is being fuelled by many of the reports in the press and media.
3. Will the documentary scrutinise the work of pressure groups like the Lawyer’s Christian Fellowship, Christian Concern for our Nation and the Christian Institute, who have been feeding the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph with stories, sometimes with dire consequences? Will there be examination of their ideology and what is driving their efforts, which we have suggested involves a radicalisation as a response to post-Christendom? Will the links to what is going on in the US also be made?
4. Will the documentary look at mediation efforts to sort out the disputes? What has often been happening is that positions quickly become entrenched and there is little chance of amicable resolution following misunderstandings or mistakes. This is often because pressure groups get involved and raise the stakes, giving stories to the media. I know for a fact that the documentary makers spoke to a top QC who is not just an evangelical Christian, but one of the most experienced commercial mediators in the country.
5. Will the documentary primarily frame the debates as a simplistic conflict of rights, or accept that the situation is far more complex? Will it bring in different Christian perspectives which do not see this primarily as about one person trumping another? "

Are Christians Being Persecuted? is on BBC One at 10.50pm on Easter Sunday, and Bartley’s Ekklesia piece is at http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/11670 for those who want to see the argument in full.

Will this revolution be televised?

Here’s an interesting question…
Why would a post on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' website section be closed to public comment in less than 24 hours, and with only seven comments?
If you read the post at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/04/bbc-religion-ethics you might take it for a nonsensical bit of religious opportunism, but no more.
Andrew Graystone, who admits to being the Director of the Churches Media Council, argues that "Religious programming must be bold". He seems to have been given a chance to reply to a far superior Sunny Hyndal post of late April which suggested the CMC was lobbying for the BBC to restrict head of religious programming applications to professed Christians.
So far, so uncontroversial. But surely the Grauniad wouldn’t pull the comments plug so fast just to stop readers commenting how dull and unconvincing Graystone is.
I really do not know, though being a trainspotter who actually wonders who takes BBC religious programming decisions I sussed out Graystone a long time ago. I found, amongst other commitments, he also runs a website for the Evangelical Alliance and even works as a BBC producer.
In fact, if you were friendless and stuck in front of the TV over Easter 2008 you could have seen one of his worst efforts. He produced a totally pointless BBC crucifixion feature film, which was heavily publicised for weeks beforehand, avoided like the plague by most of the population and sank without trace. Possibly the worst case ever for an increase in BBC religious programming hours.
Which makes you wonder how on earth he ever managed to be in a position to ‘advise’ the BBC as an ‘independent’ representative of Christian opinion, while simultaneously working for both the Beeb and a group which thinks UK Christians should be prepared to violently overthrow the state if they can’t keep their privileges any other way.
Ah, so you thought the Evangelical Alliance is just a respectable, if batty, religious organisation?
Then who said: "If, as most Christians accept, they should be politically involved in democratic processes, many believe this may, where necessary, take the form of active resistance to the state. This may encompass disobedience to law, civil disobedience, involving selective, non-violent resistance or, ultimately, violent revolution."
The answer may be found in a Daily Telegraph article published in November 2006. You can read it in full at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533302/Christians-ask-if-force-is-needed-to-protect-their-religious-values.html . You may never want the EA's loudest and most obnoxious spokesman, Joel Edwards, to be let into any public gathering again without being frisked.

Radio Four and Against

So, as anyone who joined the fun this week knows, Mark 'Turd Of The Day' Damazer, the Radio 4 boss, isn't about to let anyone rational interrupt his daily two minutes of hocus pocus any time soon. I suspect he's taking instructions on the matter from one Andrew Graystone , the BBC producer responsible for the 'challenging' (that's mediaspeak for 'shite no-one watches') film prominently advertised before broadcast last Easter.
Graystone is an Evangelical Alliance stooge who Joel Edwards managed to get on to a statutory body which 'advises' the BBC on religious programming, even though he's absolutely incapable of objectivity as not only a spookchasing flake but the BBC employee who would get the work should one of his employers take his advice. After all, the EA must also pay him well for media work such as a website he does for them.
On the other hand another wing of Radio 4 is showing more taste. A month ago I ran something on the ridiculous plans to change prostitution laws, based mainly on evangelical advocacy campaigns which falsely paint all immigrant women as potential victims of mythical traffiking gangs
(see http://clingingtoarock.blogspot.com/2008/12/pimps-parsons-police-prostitution.html for more).
An article by Ruth Alexander at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7819984.stm politely but decisively trashes the trumped up evidence, and handily reveals the true source of the false stats evangelicals are waving about. It's also revealed that not only are they a decade old but that even the researcher who gathered them thinks they're badly flawed, being based on a vague survey that rang a few suspects almost at random and took a stab at what the overall picture ought to be.
Well worth a look to balance the hype due to appear unchecked throughout UK media in the next month or two.

Thought For The Day

The excellent Gavin Orland campaign to bombard the BBC this week with complaints about Thought For The Day is going well. About 1,500 are pledged to do it.
Mine, sent in good time to get the Today staff sniggering through Monday's 'thought', read as follows:

'Dear Sir or Madam,

I wish to complain (in the most amicable way that I can) about the segment of your programme laughingly called 'Thought For The Day'.
My primary objection is a simple one: there is very rarely evidence of thought. I am painfully aware that many clergy go weeks, months...sometimes an entire career.... without an orginal thought, but I would argue licence payers are being defrauded by contributors who make no effort to do so.
My greater objection is that the spot is limited to religious speakers. For the reason mentioned above I do think this lays you open to a charge of deception. You could always deal with this by changing the title to 'Superstitious Rant For The Day' , 'Misguided Misogynistic Whinge For The Day' or something else on those lines, but there is a simpler solution. Here in the Isle of Man we adopted it some time ago with great success, so I pass it on for your consideration.
The local radio station, Manx Radio, has featured non-religious contributors alongside religious ones in their 'Thought For The Day' spot for some time. For example, I speak along with other Amnesty International members during the week around Human Rights Day every year.
This has brought several local benefits. Firstly, as the station depends upon a mixture of government grants and advertising, the number of listeners and therefore advertising revenue increases. Similarly the number of commuters who catch traffic warnings and therefore do not skid on black ice, or pensioners not injured in bizarre domestic accidents while hurling themselves across kitchens to turn off the ramblings of demented local lay preachers.
I feel sure this pattern would be repeated on a much larger scale across the British Isles if you could only see reason. For the sake of pensioners, motorists, and indeed a wide section of your audience who are inconvenienced by the need to hurriedly block out two minutes of nonsense which blights your otherwise excellent programme I beg you to consider this idea.
If you really cannot face up to empty threats of damnation and do the right thing, could you at least give a clear public health warning five minutes before the offending item. This should give plenty of time for listeners to adjust their radios in good time, and considerably ease the pressure on emergency services dealing with the current crop of freak, radio-related accidents during peak commuter travel hours,

Yours,

Stuart Hartill
Isle of Man'

By the way, the reference to pensioners suffering freak injuries while trying to turn ranting biblebashers off is based on fact.
My good friend Denys Drower has broken countless radio sets and numerous items of kitchen furniture in his efforts to avoid such crap in either the Manx or UK version. At 90 it's high time he and his wife were able to breakfast in a civilised manner.
But our Denys is still fighting the good fight. Two years back I helped him get up a petition to the Beeb asking for an opt-out to the Sunday Service - something on the lines of those given for cricket matches. As an ex-Auntie reporter himself Denys knew this is technically possible for mere pence. He's also penning anti-clerical poems galore, and even features in January's Freethinker.
What a hero!
Us young 'uns owe it to old campaigners like him to get our e-mails off to the Beeb now (today@bbc.co.uk, and cc to todaycomplaints@bbc.co.uk, also try http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/ to make your complaint official).
Write now and help get wank off the wireless.

Bye Andy, and thanks for making history

Andy Arnold - Lay Reader at Ballaugh Church, and the kingpin for Manx Radio's version of Thought For The Day - died suddenly on September 30th.
It may suprise folk to know I'm gutted, but few know that Andy and his predecessor, Judith Ley, helped the non-religious to make history and show the BBC up as a weak, pathetic institution.
Unlike the BBC, the Manx Radio version of TFTD has non-religious contributors, and listeners. It was only when e-mailing him to set up spots for Amnesty International around Human Rights Day in December that I found out from his widow that Andy had died.
Judith Ley agreed at once when approached by Isle of Man Freethinkers about doing some 'thoughts' a couple of years back. As a Catholic, she knew all about Manx 'Christianity' and its sick sectarianism and anti-semitism, and was only too ready to have less bigoted voices on air. When Judith had to step down for family reasons Andy, similarly, helped me get Amnesty and other secular groups on there too. He was one of that fast vanishing species - Anglican but liberal , witty and worldly wise from an RAF career, and not about to take crap from any toytown priest or politico.
You knew where you were with them both. If you made a positive point - something to get people thinking in the morning, great. If you made them laugh, better. But slag others off and your tape mysteriously 'got lost'. It was the same rules for all, so fair enough.
Now Andy's gone I can reveal how little he thought of some evangelical snoremongers who tried to monopolise the spot. It was also Andy who quietly took godbothering retired senior army officers aside after the last 'Veterans Day' fiasco. He 'advised' them that if next year's also includes five hymns, prayers and responses and a sermon from the Bishop then interviews with angry vets would be the only radio coverage they'd get.
Great guy, who will be missed. Every time someone like Andy dies this island gets greyer.

Mark Damazer - Turd Of The Day

The excellent weekly 'Newsline' from the National Secular Society today revealed what happened when someone wrote to the BBC to complain about a Thought For The Day broadcast which was even more biased than usual.
To the complainant's suprise, Radio Four Controller Mark Damazer replied as follows:

'In response to your query about Thought for the Day on Radio Four, this reply is on behalf of everyone at the BBC you have contacted.
TfTD is commissioned as a theological reflection on current events. It is not an opinion piece. All contributors are told to ground their 'thought' in their own theological tradition, using the words of scripture or liturgy that have been worn smooth as a pebble by centuries of repetition and devotion. Their authority is drawn from faiths that have survived the centuries, including periods of persecution and intense scrutiny and still proved themselves valid. It is therefore a unique voice on the BBC. I would contend that the BBC should strive to maintain its 'uniqueness' in an increasingly overcrowded market place and serve the audience by giving them a chance to hear a perspective from the great faith traditions that have shaped our society and continue to wield enormous influence over current events. So if you change the commissioning brief to allow in secular voices it would no longer be Thought for the Day and I hear no appetite for such a change from Radio Four. I do not accept that the majority of the country are [sic] atheistic or agnostic. The last census showed 71% declaring themselves Christian and another 8% spiritual. Since then with immigration continuing apace from countries more religious than our own I see no reason to think the religious majority has declined. In a survey a few years ago Radio Four discovered that one in four of its audience go to a worship service every week so we know there is a lot of interest in the subject. Secularism has not swept religion aside as some would have hoped, indeed some academics are writing about the new visibility of religion, albeit more fractured and fragmented than before. With religion so high on the agenda it would be a strange time to change the one place where it is possible to hear the intelligent religious voice in a secular setting and understand something of why millions if not billions of people still put faith at the centre of their lives. '

Jaw-droppingly stupid, but about par for the course for Damazer.
A couple of years ago, at the request of an octagenarian friend who got tired of hurling himself across the kitchen to switch stations when the Sunday Service came on, I organised the following letter to Damazer, which was signed by 24 Manx regular Radio Four listeners, mostly of a similar vintage:

'We are a group of dedicated Radio 4 listeners from the Isle of Man. However, even your excellent station could be improved, and even our dedication could be tested if it is not.
We write with a simple request for change which would considerably improve our lot.
Would you consider giving non-religious listeners a long-wave opt-out at 8.20 AM on Sundays?
Many thousand loyal Radio 4 listeners are forced to choose either to turn to another channel or switch off when ‘Sunday Worship’ begins. For such unbelievers Radio 4 is essential morning listening.
The expense of filling this time would, we believe, be minimal. The return, in terms of new listeners attracted to your general programming but not inclined to hear sermons during breakfast, should be more than adequate compensation, '

He never replied, but then BBC service to the Isle of Man has always been rubbish. My friend was himself a Beeb reporter in the days when they wore dinner suits to read the news and saw it as yet more evidence of a once fine institution's slide into audiovisual excrement.
As it happens, I've had previous experience of poor BBC quality -but at least then they got round to replying to my complaint.
When I found out senior BBC management were meeting 'faith leaders' to beef up religious broadcasting as part of an exercise called “Taking Belief Seriously”, I wrote saying (amongst other things):

'At a time when religious belief amongst well informed people has never been lower it is ridiculous to regard the 'problem' of emptying churches as a social ill which licence payers should be asked to help solve. It seems to me the problem of emptying churches is one for churches to solve, not society, and certainly not the vast majority of the UK public (who have rejected religious belief as too ridiculous and organised religion as too easy a hidey hole for those who seek to destroy democracy). In short, perhaps religionists should recognise that people simply have higher moral standards these days.
Pandering to the superstitious is an unacceptable policy for a publically funded body, and it is interesting to compare your total lack of interest when the non-religious complain about religious bias. For example, I note your failure to address problems with a programme you still laughingly call 'Thought for the Day', even though thought is remarkably absent from the contributions of the religious minority exclusively featured on that programme.
There are probably more regular illegal drug takers or alcoholics than churchgoers in the UK. Given the 'problems' caused to those 'misunderstood minorities' by drug education programmes, should we expect that, in the interests of fairness, the BBC will be meeting drug dealers and addicts worried that their source of delusion and income is under threat? It seems no more ridiculous than your response to those whose livelihood depends upon the peddling of religious mythology.'

They replied:

'As a public service broadcaster the BBC has a responsibility to meet the needs of all audiences. Over 75% of the adult audience claim some religious allegiance (2001 census).Much of the BBC's output approaches the world from a secular, non-religious point of view. A minority of the BBC's output has specifically religious content - some of it celebratory and affirming, some of it journalistic and scrutinising - while other programmes, such as Jonathan Miller's Brief History of Disbelief, have addressed atheism directly. On Friday 13 May the BBC Governors held a seminar, attended by Mark Thompson, senior executives and a panel of invited experts, to discuss the BBC's religious and belief programming. The BBC has a public service responsibility to provide religious programming. The purpose of this seminar was not to find ways of increasing religious output, but to discuss how the BBC can best meet this commitment by providing programmes of the highest quality. The seminar also explored how different faiths and beliefs could be reflected across a range of genres. '

But it gets worse than that. Consider, for example, the role of an organisation called the Churches Media Council on BBC policy. Their strongest influence is the Evangelical Alliance. One CMC protegee of the EA's ridiculous Joel Edwards not only 'advises' both the EA and the BBC on religious broadcasting but with another hat on is actually the BBC producer responsible for this year's gobsmackingly dumb telefilm of the Easter myth.
How much worse can it get?
My BBC licence demand arrived today, as it happens, which gave me my own Thought For The Day.
If Damazer ever replies to our letter I'll pay the price of the stamp towards the licence fee. If they put non-religious commentators on Thought For The Day (as Manx Radio have for years) I'll pay a quid. If they sack Damazer and tell Edwards and his knuckle-dragging friends to take a running jump I might even pay the lot in one instalment, rather than, say, 10p weekly at the local Post Office.
Maybe a lot more of us should consider action like this, until the Beeb starts providing what they say we're paying for.