Update from the BBC blog: Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, said of Pope Benedict’s speech at Westminster Hall: “The Pope’s statements concerning the alleged ‘increasing marginalisation of religion’ were a parody of the real situation in the UK, where politicians increasingly move to expand state-funded religious schools, contract public services out to religious organisations and act in other ways that privilege religious beliefs and organisations in such a disproportionate and discriminatory manner.”
Copson’s comment is absurd. Yes, the government is doing what he says–as a way of controlling what is taught, who is served, who may be hired, and pushing secular values off on religious organizations. All the state is doing is trying to absorb a pre-existing infrastructure that will be required to carry out the state, rather than the religion’s, mission.
Copson is a near-child who cannot remember what Britain was like before this ilk got in control. Surely no self-proclaimed pariahs were ever so under-persecuted in modern times than humanists in Britain.