News: facts not necessary

This one has been brewing for a while.

I've taken a bit more of an interest of late in the sheer unbelievable cheek of the mainstream press. Everyday I sit on the Tube, watching people reading the Metro, the Mail and the Express. This morning I was reading The Sun over someone's shoulder and wanting to just snatch it out of his hands. He was tutting over some completely made-up story about banning Christmas, or schools making all the children dress in burqas, or some other fanciful rubbish.

The problem I have with these newspapers - which I will henceforth refer to as papers, until they actually start reporting facts - is not ideological. Granted, anyone who knows me knows that I'm not exactly sitting square in the Mail's target demographic. I think immigration is a good thing, I wish Parliament would bloody well hurry up and turf the Royal Family out of government, I understand that you vote for the party not the PM and I actually quite like wheelie bins.

Chances are that even if these papers were the bastion of journalistic integrity, I would find much to disagree with, but that's not the issue. I think it's a good thing that there are papers that promote both sides of the argument, that focus on different issues. I think it's great that The Guardian wants a liberal government, and I don't have a problem with other papers pushing for a conservative one. There's only one thing that I really care about in journalism and, rather cornily, it's the truth.

Like reporting facts honestly. Being open about your sources. Not just making stuff up. Unfortunately on these fairly basic points both the Daily Mail and the Daily Express fall flat on their faces. Other papers aren't exactly in the clear either - watch The Times spectacularly missing the point of the current "Don't Label Me" campaign by referring to the children in the advert as 'Christian children'. Look at the smug point-scoring and ask yourself: is this meant to be the news? Is this delivering the facts to the readership, or just leading them down the editorial line?

Bias is inevitable. I mean, even by selecting stories to cover there is selection going on. However, that can be done without being dishonest. Bloggers have been speculating for a while now why the Mail worked itself - and its readers - up into a hysterical rage about the student who pissed on a war memorial while blind drunk, but has said absolutely nothing about the repeated, deliberate desecration of graves in Manchester. Is it too far to speculate that this is because they are Muslim graves, and that this story wouldn't go down well with a readership already whipped up into a frenzy about immigration?

Immigration is a good topic to discuss actually, because in reality it seems only newspapers like The Guardian are willing to be adult about the issue. Search the Mail's archive for 'immigrant' and see what I mean. Yeah, fear-mongering much? A conspiracy of silence! £30,000 pay-outs! There's nothing wrong with a rational, evidence-based discussion on immigration, but neither the tabloids nor their readers seem to want that. Richard Littlejohn has been caught lying time and time again about this - about how much immigrants get on benefits (he doesn't actually know), about how most of the crimes in the UK are committed by Eastern European immigrants (he made it up) or about how a judge who made up a load of bollocks about immigration figures was being persecuted over his 'sensible' stance on the issue (he wasn't, he was just an arse). And that's just one columnist. I won't even get onto Jan Moir or Melanie Phillips here (who has the time?)

That's not even touching on their insane fucked-up relationship with sex and (oo-er) 'flesh'. That simultaneous celibate attitude whereby sex is something scary and dirty that good, moral upstanding people entirely repudiate. It's so bad, what this person has done (worn a strappy top, kissed a person of the same gender in public, slept with a few people) that you need to see full-size gloriously-coloured HD images of it! It's a weird self-hating attitude that screams of protesting too much. It takes some real balls to print this and describe it was 'disturbing' and then print dozens of stories a day about how healthy-looking celebrities are 'fat'. Hell, let's just look at Natalie Cassidy, whose revelation that the pressure of staying in shape for the tabloids almost led to her developing an eating disorder didn't stop them printing this revolting piece of shit just a few months later.

The bottom line is this:

The Mail, The Express, all of those trashy right-wing papers, lie. They make up figures, they deliberately fail to convey the truth behind stories and most of all, they fucking lie. They do it shamelessly, cheerfully, and all the while claim they're just telling it like it is. All the fucking time. The worst thing is that people swallow their poison, totally without question. If you're reading a paper like the Mail and just believing in it without doing your own research, you are doing it wrong. Critical thinking, rational inquiry, scepticism: without employing these while reading the news you may as well just be sitting under Rupert Murdoch with your mouth open.

For example, take a look at this superb take-down by Tabloid Watch of the Express' ridiculous headline about breakfast. Turns out the study that indicates that breakfast is, like, totally super-healthy was funded by cereal manufacturers. The independent expert they pulled in to confirm the story has done work for them very recently. Oh, and by the way nutritionist is not legally protected; I could call myself one apropos of nothing - it's that prestigious a title. This is no isolated incident: most of the 'science' stories you read in the papers are little more than trussed up PR exercises for companies looking to shift more products. The papers love using science as a shiny meaningless bauble, which is probably why this patently transparent rubbish makes it unadulterated into print, while the LHC, vaccines and global fucking warming get an absolute mauling. As soon as something is more significant than a minuscule lifestyle improvement it's dangerous and scary. Honestly, this attitude - this fear of progress - totally baffles me.

Actually, just for good measure take a look at this, because it's classic Mail: it starts with a leading headline that sounds like a definite conclusion, which is hugely reinforced in the first few paragraphs with phrases like "something terrible, unimaginable, was amiss..." They then back up the insanity with what they fondly imagine is science: "a small - but not zero - chance" that it will "rip apart the entire universe". They even refer to the absolute mentalists (or "twats" if you're Brian Cox) who think that this is at all likely as "maverick scientists". Maverick's a great word: it implies that you're going against the grain but that, ultimately, you'll be right. You're Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day, you're Dennis Quaid in The Day After Tomorrow, you're Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park! Then, right at the bottom, the last three lines - the last three fucking lines, after all the talk of doom, and the massive pictures of black holes destroying the Earth and tearing the universe apart - there's a bit from the scientists, who treat the idea with total derision. Whether or not there are any scientifically literate journalists at these papers is a good question but whatever the answer, it's pretty clear that there are no scientifically literate editors.

What else can I say? These papers have no ethics. They lie, they cheat, they even pay immigrants to break the law so that they can write stories about how immigrants break the law

There is no sound argument to be had in favour of them being anything other than opportunistic vultures who distort the truth and whip people up into terrified balls of hatred who are impotently angry that their country is going to the dogs even though the only 'evidence' of it is within the pages of the Mail. So when I attack the Mail, or the Express, it's not because I'm a liberal who can't stand to hear the 'truth', or even an opposing viewpoint. It's because they are not offering an opposing viewpoint. If you have to outright lie to make your point, then your point is bullshit. The sooner people realise that, the better, because at the moment the thought that the Mail is the second most widely-read newspaper in the country makes me feel sick.

I am genuinely terrified

OK, so looking at some pictures of Glenn Beck's "9/12 Project" protest I have come to a sobering and terrifying conclusion: the Republicans have gone fucking mental.

How I wish things could be the way they were! Sure the cynical, calculating evil of Cheney and Bush wasn't great, and the unabashed ignorance of the Palin-era incarnation of the GOP was pretty horrible too but this.... Jesus Christ.

Beck's '9/12 Project' in many ways typifies the kind of ideology these people espouse. His list of nine principles and 12 values, including steadfast belief in the nuclear family and God (presumably the Christian God). He makes a point of stressing that criticising the government is not un-American, although this kind of rights-conscious approach to political critique wasn't really in evidence when the Republicans and Fox were whining about people being mean to Bush as he was leaving office, or accusing people who said Palin was an idiot of misogyny. You only have to watch this promo video for it to see how ridiculous it is, Lord of the Rings music and all.

The popularity of the Project shows that a worryingly large proportion of the American people think he's got the right idea. And they just lap up his bullshit - from the whole ludicrous "birther" movement all the way through to the idea that recreating the Boston Tea Party is somehow relevant in 21st Century America. Worst of all is the belief - so overt in these protests - that America is under attack, that their rights are being trampled on, that the President is sitting in some ivory tower of anti-white racism and liberal superiority ignoring the will of the masses.

Well you know what Republicans? He isn't ignoring you. You just happen to be the most obnoxious and loudest people in politics right now. You lost the election. What that means for you is this: suck it up. By all means criticise and debate his policies but what happened to co-operation eh? Shouting him down in Congress, unscrupulously encouraging the spread of unfounded rumours about his birth and blocking him at every turn is not appropriate political engagement. All you're doing is alternately pulling faces and blowing raspberries, and throwing all your toys out of your pram in a series of ever-escalating hissy fits. Oh sure there are conservatives out there willing to act like grown-ups but these days they seem curiously quiet.

They're quite happy for their party to come across this way but I suspect had the roles been reversed and the Republicans were in power things would have been different. The Governor of California probably wouldn't have gotten away with threatening to secede from the fucking Union, and there's no chance in hell that a Democratic senator heckling the President in Congress would have been received with the same kind of calm rationality as Joe Wilson. There would have been calls for impeachments, resignations and a foot-stomping Hulk-out from Fox News. To be fair, it's not something particularly desirable. I like the way Obama has conducted himself with dignity in the face of tbe Republican's fuming ignorance and impotent rage, but it does give the nutters room to spread out and multiply. The '9/12 Project' is a clear manifestation of this growing lunacy in the American political system. It's as much a circle-jerk over the ol' days of living in fear and America The Conquerer dishing out righteous jugdement as it is any kind of protest agains the new president. To quote blogger Pareene on Gawker:

On 9/12, people in New York (and DC) did not feel as ‘great' as Glenn Beck, they just felt like shit. They felt scared and confused and depressed. Many of them were drunk. And only an idiot or an actual terrorist would want to always feel like it was 9/12/01... Eight years later, normal people, with brains and souls, have decided that some emotional distance from that disaster is healthier and wiser than trying to recapture the dread.

It does worry me though, that the people protesting against Obama this week are now the mainstream of their party; the opposition party of the most powerful nation on Earth. These racist, thick as pigshit, monstrously ignorant nutters represent a serious challenge for the presidency in 2012. They're undoubtedly stupid or at least, that's what I hope. When I see a picture like this, I have to believe that she's stupid, because the alternative is accepting that she thinks that advocating selling her black president as a slave is a funny concept.

The thing is, these protesters and Beckites have this idea that just because it's their opinion, it's valid. It's the same kind of thinking that goes with devout religious belief, but this time coupled with an amazing ability to absorb criticism in one ear and funnel it out the other, without it ever touching grey matter. It doesn't matter how many times you slap down their representatives on TV or point out where they're just empirically, factually wrong, they will go on thinking that Obama isn't naturalised, or that the NHS has death panels. They genuinely fear that they're going to be enslaved, that socialism is going to destroy the USA and that Obama is a Muslim.

Sometimes I do feel sorry for them, much as I feel sorry for the readership of the Daily Mail. It must be hard being pumped so full of hatred, paranoia and terror all the time. If they really do believe the kind of thing that O'Reilly, Beck et al are screaming about 24/7 then they must genuinely feel under siege. Fucking hell, if it's got to the point that children are harking back to the good ol' days of McCarthyism then how can you feel anything other than pity? To quote a wiser man than I:

You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.

Save your rage instead for Glenn Beck and his friends over in the Fox News Fortress of Evil. They are unapologetically fanning the flames of these hysterical idiots with misleading interpretations, backwards views on morality and and flat-out lies. I happen to believe that Beck at least - if not the entire Fox News crew - do wholeheartedly buy into the bullshit they spout, but there has to be someone somewhere making the decision to whip up the lunatics on the borders of American politics into such a frenzy. It stands to reason that you couldn't run a company with the kind of mindset that makes you filter out the truth and replace it with your own little fantasy world (at least, I hope that's the case). Somehow having the whole show run by cynical, money-minded hypocrites abusing the stupidity of their audience is more reassuring than the idea that Fox and the conservative media are basically passengers on a runaway train destined to hurtle over the cliff into anarchy and madness - and taking us with them.

But what can they do now they've put the lunatic, teflon-coated ultra-conservatives in the centre of the American political stage? You can't put them back in their box! Glenn Beck et al created this rabid, raving mob of ignorant prats, crazed with fear and loaded up on guns. I don't even live in the USA but I'm still terrified. I am really really scared - in the pit of my stomach - that someone is going to shoot Obama, that one of these things is going to spill over into violence, that democracy and politics in America is going to be irreparably damaged by people who can't grasp the concept of a birth certificate, or that if you lose an election that's not the same as tyranny. It's fucking scary. They're all psychopaths and there's nothing we can do over this side of the pond but watch the whole self-destructive scene play out. We can only hope it's a passing phase and that the mature, intelligent Republicans are just waiting for the mob to thrash itself to exhaustion so they can sweep it back into the dirty corners of American politics where it belongs. Then maybe there'll be a serious debate about healthcare reform and financial relief.

Please help Hussein Muradi

In lieu of an actual post, I beg all of you to please follow this link and email your support for Hussein Muradi. Muradi is an Afghan asylum seeker living in the UK who has worked tirelessly for the Council of ex-Muslims and the British Humanist Association.

Despite the fact that his pending claim for asylum was not to be reviewed until 2011, he was summoned to Gillingham police station on the 10th September and informed that he was to be immediately deported back to Afghanistan. Due to his work for the BHA and the Council, and his public renunication of Islam, Muradi faces the death penalty on his return. Make no mistake, the government is sending him back to Afghanistan, where Sharia law recommends his execution for apostasy. Should they be leniant and spare his life he will be muzzled, unable to speak his mind or live as an atheist for fear of future retribution.

He has been forcibly moved to Dover awaiting immediate deportation. We have no idea why this has been done - he was contacted out of the blue to be told of his deportation and he hasn't engaged in any criminal activities. There's been speculation that this is an act of diplomacy towards the new Afghan government, but it's still just speculation. Despicably, there hasn't been a whisper about this in the press and he is relying on you - concerned, rational people on the Internet - to help him. Please take two minutes out of your day to email Phil Woolas about this, and the BHA has even provided a link

He will most likely be killed in Afghanistan: if not by the government then by some zealot. There is no reason to deport him, and no reason why it has to be rushed ahead like this without time to appeal. There is no sense in it whatsoever.

More information here: http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/355

Do you know what nemesis means?

Oh dear, I think I've got a nemesis. I didn't mean to. It just happened.

There I was, reading the following jaw-droppingly offensive Daily Mail article, happy as Larry (or at least as happy as Larry can be when reading the Mail), when I saw the name of the author of the final, horrendous bit from the 'male' perspective.

David Thomas. David Dickface Thomas. The author of the sterling piece of douchebaggery that inspired me to write this last month. Well, he's done it again. I think we were probably separated from birth or something, because he seems to set me off like no one else. Clearly an evil twin situation.

In a nutshell, the article is arguing that women don't have sex because they want to but in fact because they need some shelves putting up, or they want their partner to take out the bins. They can't do these things themselves: that's man-work! As with all 'science' journalism, this is based on a book, based on a scientific study, called Why Women Have Sex. I haven't seen the science behind this book, and I'm willing to bet Liz Jones hasn't either. I don't know what controls they put on the questionnaires to ensure that the respondents were being truthful, or the exact contents of this list of why women have sex. Perhaps the phrasing "high up the list" implies that there is more to the results than the Mail chooses to pass on. Hey you never know, having sex because it's enjoyable might be up there too!

It's classic. Women aren't sexual! They don't want orgasms and good sex, they just want a loving partner. They'll prostitute themselves to have somebody care about them, that's just how needy they are! Those women who actually like sex, and don't seem interested in submitting to providing sex to their partner on demand so that he shows them basic courtesy and affection are the product of broken homes and lack good father figures. Liz, what planet do you live on?

She also peppers the piece with misandric tripe about the male sex drive being "blunt" and stunted. While you get the sense that her misogyny is fairly accidental - she sounds essentially like "I'm not a feminist but..." - her misandry is an unthinking reflex. She has absolutely no qualms about dismissing the male sex drive out of hand, characterising men as being scared of discussing feelings and - perhaps worst of all - implies strongly that men only care about sex. This 'revelation' that women only have sex with men because they want us to do some DIY around the house is to be met with indifference rather than dismay and horror. Most people I know would be appalled to find out their partner didn't have sex with them because they actually wanted to. You know why? Because men care about more than sex in relationships. Christ alive.

But don't just take her word for it! She bases all this on the findings of the book, despite no mention being made of whether any men were interviewed. So does the book discuss male sexuality in depth, probing the whys and hows behind male sexual behaviour? Probably not. It is, after all, a book about the relationship between women and sex. I would love to know how many of these bald statements about male attitudes to sex are actually based on the book and how many have just sprung fully-formed without independent thought from the brain of Liz Jones.

I wasn't exactly expecting David Thomas to leap to the defence of male sexuality, despite the fact that he's an odious anti-feminist. It would be very out of character, given that the myth that men are mindless slaves to their sexual urges suits him right down to the ground. It's a stereotype that he believes is beneficial and one he's quite happy to propagate with the following:

"A young man's relationship with his sex drive is like a dog-walker's with an ill-disciplined dog: he's led from pillar to post without hope of discipline or control."

I've already highlighted Thomas' cavalier attitude to sexual asault and rape elsewhere, but if this is what he actually believes I'm not very surprised. Worst of all he then chooses to define himself as a progressive man who loves women! They're not the "pointless, silly creatures" that all men assumed them to be in their youth (and who wouldn't, what with their hormones and shoe shopping?) but in fact real human beings. Right, look. I'm 22 years old. I am, by any definition, a young man. I know plenty of people my age and younger who see women in the way David Thomas describes and they are - to a man - disgusting examples of human beings. The idea that treating women with respect, as equals is something that it's acceptable to learn with age is unforgiveable. I understand the use of this stereotype in justifying unethical sexual behaviour, and treating women like shit, but that's no reason to uphold it.

His toe-curlingly awful attempts to appear to be more than a cave-dwelling troll succintly sum up all the reasons I hate him. Just look at this:

Women don't have to do anything to hold men in their power. Just existing is enough. Why else would men have written countless poems and love songs; why else would they have painted them, sculpted them, gone to war for them?

The key message here? Women: you don't have to be smart, or intelligent, or interesting. We wouldn't care if you were blow-up dolls. Just as long as you can provide sex and look pretty on our arms! And if you're lucky - and I mean really lucky - we'll even engage in all sorts of activities which you won't be involved in and for which you'll get no credit. Gosh aren't we romantic! It's the illusion of power that Thomas is trying to sell. The warm fuzzy feeling he imagines women will feel when they read this. "Gosh, we hold men in our power just by existing". In truth, however, this is just naked, ugly misogyny.

Wrapping it up with a saccharine-sweet "aww but ladies you know you love us" attempt at justifying his argument, David sits back and smiles at the great opus before him. Sensible readers vomit all over their keyboards and stagger out into the street to rage at God and such a cruel twisted world that could have David Thomas in it. It makes my skin crawl, and his attempts at charm aren't even aimed at me.

So what's the worst thing about this article? The fact that David Thomas appears to believe whole-heartedly that women have no desire for sex beyond needing the odd shelf putting up, or that he claims to speak for both genders with his all-encompassing comments on human sexuality? Enough has been written about how ridiculous Liz Jones is to fill several volumes, but I am worried about the increasing presence of David Thomas on these issues. What special skills or qualities does he have that give him the appropriate comprehension and sympathy to write so often on feminism and women's issues? All I've seen of him has confirmed beyond doubt that he is a massive, wrong-headed cock who has some serious problems relating to women.

A slow few weeks

I've not been updating much lately, as my time has been taken up almost entirely with producing the latest issue of Secular Future, which is the quarterly magazine of the AHS

It's quite a large undertaking, and one I've got to balance with my day-job of making scientists happy and angry in equal measure (oh the joys of science publishing). I'll be glad to get this one out of the way and back to blogging!

It should be done and dusted in the next couple of weeks or so, at which point I've got an article about heresy ready to go. If you're interested, you can read the back-issues of Sec-Fu at: http://www.ahsstudents.org.uk/secular-future

A Rationalist Reviews: The Holy Bible

It’s one you have to tackle eventually. It’s not so rare in this age of screaming superlative taglines to see a story labelled as “the best ever told”, but on the basis of sales alone The Holy Bible is head and shoulders above its competitors.

It’s not strictly speaking a book, but rather a clumsy stitch-job of two completely different stories. We all remember the runaway success of The Old Testament and quite rightly thought the series was over when the original authors died centuries ago. Now though, a bunch of amateur script-doctors have leapt upon the opportunity to tack their own novella onto the original, calling it The New Testament in a shameless attempt to curry favour with longtime fans. The whole package is called The Holy Bible, after that Manic Street Preachers album.

The deluxe version of The Holy Bible, exclusively on sale in Starbucks

Regular readers will recall that at the time I lambasted The Old Testament for its po-faced take on the epic family saga, calling it "Twin Peaks without the laughs". Come back Moses, all is forgiven! This latest addition to the canon manages to retain the dry genealogies and lists of rules and regulations that made the OT so hard to read, and ditch the parts that made it interesting. They take the best character from the OT – the vindictive and deliciously fickle ‘God’ – and utterly change his character. This time round, you half expect to see Him hugging a tree, rather than setting it on fire and shouting from inside it. Replacing such a popular, in-your-face fan favourite with a proverb-spouting liberal deadbeat might be the kind of thing that goes down a storm in the literary world, but you can’t see die-hard fans in Dead Squaw, Alabama taking it quite so well.

This ‘Jesus’ is somehow both the ‘God’ we remember and an entirely new character altogether, in a lazy move that is never fully explained. He spends his time dithering around the Holy Land, throwing out glib speeches about equality and justice, all the while followed by a dozen irritating literary props collectively called the ‘disciples’. I cannot begin to express my frustration at this gaggle of faceless drones, whose sole purpose seems to be asking asinine questions so that Jesus has yet another opportunity to sermonise and patronise his audience. Considering this guy is supposed to be recruiting for some radical breakaway sect, the fact that his right-hand men seem unable to tie their own sandal-thongs without his supervision stretches the credibility of the plot somewhat.

At times it seems as though the authors haven’t even read each other’s contributions. Luke and Matthew are the only authors who can be bothered to describe Jesus’s supernatural birth, John completely omits the exorcisms that in other accounts make Jesus look like the fifth Ghostbuster, and Paul doesn’t even seem sure that the character he’s writing about actually exists in the book's setting. I know that authors are often under a lot of pressure, but I don’t think a weekly meet up over coffee to swap notes would have been too much to ask.

Overall, there are some good scenes, and some engaging characters, but the NT suffers from the same flaws as its predecessor. Promising dramatic scenes are utterly squandered almost without exception. The authors are adept at creating perfect set-ups for action scenes that would make Michael Bay weep tears of pure adrenaline, but consistently fail to deliver anything but bitter disappointment. One minute Jesus is kicking ass in the temple and the next he’s wandering around in the desert doing nothing, or healing the sick. It brings to mind the depressingly anticlimactic battle for Jericho in the OT and I’d hoped we’d seen the last of it.

Although not strictly relevant to the quality of the book, you have to wonder who authorised such loose brand control. The dizzying array of spin-offs, continuations and reinterpretations are enough to give any new reader a headache. It’s bad enough having a single story told from four often wildly different perspectives, but poorly thought-out fan fiction like the Book of Mormon and the dozens of near-contemporary Gnostic gospels hardly improve matters. It’s as though the publishers let any idiot with a pen have a stab at writing a gospel in the race to make money off the franchise. People really love these books. I mean, really love them. Harry Potter fanatics have nothing on some of these ‘Christians’. Letting so many people dash off their own non-canon spin-offs is at best irresponsible, but at worst pretty damn dangerous.

Overall score: 2/5

Verdict: if you somehow find yourself trapped in a literary vacuum then reach for The Holy Bible with a happy heart, but there are so many superior fantasy novels out there it’s hard to see why you’d bother with this lacklustre effort.

Originally published in the first issue of Secular Future, the quarterly magazine of the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies

Wedding Bells

Sometimes I really do hate newspapers. Jim Fitzpatrick MP was invited to a Muslim wedding in his constituency. Finding out on arrival that he and his wife would have to sit in separate sections of the church, he refused to attend. The story here is not that a Government minister is a horrible anti-Muslim bigot, but instead that he is a local MP concerned about the growing hardline elements within his constituency's Muslim community.

First of all there is the implicit judgment that he was wrong to object when faced with gender segregation - which was clearly the right thing to do - swiftly followed by the more explicit accusation that he is a bigot. You have to read through the long description of the event, a picture of him looking like a grumpy little Englander (see above), as well as severe condemnations from Muslim leaders before you get to the crucial bit from the minister himself:

"The segregation of men and women didn't used to be as much of a strong feature. We've been attending Muslim weddings together for years but only recently has this strict line been taken. It is an indication of the stricter application of rules that is taking place that didn't exist before."

It is clear that Fitzpatrick knows about Muslim customs, and it is equally clear that in his opinion segregation at weddings is not only ethically wrong but also contrary to the tradition of the local community. Why should he have to shut up in the face of sexism, just to avoid offending religous sensibilities? He didn't cause a scene, he didn't condemn anyone to their face - he discovered the situation, disagreed with it and then walked out. Trying to spin his quite obvious concern that hardline religious fundamentalism is going to prevent local Muslims from integrating and feeling comfortable in Tower Hamlets into bigotry is absolutely shameful.

For all everyone from the Tories to George Galloway are slamming Fitzpatrick for trying to be controversial to win over that crucial Disaffected White Racist voting demographic, that's quite clearly not the case. He regularly goes to Muslim weddings, and it sounds very much like he is involved in the local Bangladeshi Muslim community. The fact that he has left one before for the same reason - at a time when Labour were riding higher in the polls - is a pretty good indication that there was nothing contrived about this. He's standing up for his principles, and for those in the community who do not want to see a return to strict Islamic law in their community. Oh, how horrible of him! Statements such as this are thrown out...

"Muslim leaders insist the custom is traditional at Islamic weddings as well as in mosques, and expressed surprise that Mr Fitzpatrick, a third of whose east London constituents are Muslims, was unaware of the fact. "

... when we already know from his comments that Fitzpatrick regularly attends Muslim weddings that are not segregated. Subsequent comments from the Muslim Council of Great Britain and the Muslim Institute assume that Fitzpatrick is utterly ignorant of Muslim affairs and assume that his objection is born of prejudice or political scheming.

The implication is that Fitzpatrick is out of touch with voters, that he bumbled into this wedding and trampled all over the beliefs of a third of his constituents, and is woefully ignorant of Islamic tradition. Obviously that isn't the case. What has happened, and what he specifically states later in the article, is that in recent years a more hardline group has taken up residence in the area and he - and no doubt the Muslims whose weddings were not segregated - is concerned that this will be bad for community cohesion.

When I've spoken to ex-Muslims about this, they describe the interaction between fundamentalists and mainstream Muslims as a case of "keeping up with the Jones's" - nobody wants to be seen as a bad Muslim, or not pious enough, so they go along with the fundamentalists instead of stepping back from them. Whether or not this is true outside of the people I've talked to would make for an interesting debate, but in accusing Fitzpatrick of being insensitive and bigoted towards Muslims, The Telegraph has given column inches to hardliners who do not represent the community and established in the reader's mind that gender-separated weddings are a core part of Islam.

It's strange how the papers view American-style evangelism as a 'crazy' form of Christianity whereas when dealing with Islam its the extremists who are handed the microphone and the space in the public eye. It's insulting to Muslims for the media to assume that fundamentalists are the 'real' Muslims, and painting Fitzpatrick as the bad guy here is a grave error. He hasn't said anything offensive - certainly nothing more offensive than the root cause of the incident! - and it sounds like he has a good relationship with the Muslim community. The Telegraph, eager to put the boot into a Labour minister, has chosen to leap to the defence of sexist fundamentalists, instead of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a man trying to stand up and represent moderate and liberal Muslims. Integration, not separation, people!