Blessed are the pure in heart: tackling eugenicism against Down's syndrome babies, and a chance to bring liberals back into the tent

For World Down Syndrome Day, 21/03/20

“I find it deeply offensive”, says 24-year-old campaigner on breakfast talkshow slot. My fellow conservatives might eye-roll with weary familiarity. Who’s this latest young grievance-monger come bidding for boomer recognition of some imagined injustice? Here to shoehorn some alien pronoun into the English language, no doubt, or to tack yet another letter onto the ever-sprawling ‘LGBTQIA+’? 

Continue reading at Orthodox Conservatives






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sun Rising Over Bengal

Image
Today is Bangladeshi Independence Day. I know this thanks only to a good-humoured and educational chat I had with a chap in a Subway in Leytonstone a few months back. A conversation about how spicy we like our toppings quickly gave way to the richer and more interesting topic of our countries of origin. Not for him the affected wincing at being asked about his homeland (who knew that in 2020 curiosity about your fellow human beings would be classed as offensive?); he jumped at the chance to share a little about his country's proud and traumatic transition from 'East Pakistan' to independent Bangladesh.  He told me about the annulled 1970 election in which 'East Pakistan' returned a huge majority for the nationalists, the following Pakistani military campaign to take out well known nationalists and the resulting (and successful) Bangladeshi Liberation War of 1971, concluding the potted history lesson with the playful postscript that today's Bangladesh continua
Read more

Rejoice in the Lamb: The Poet, The Composer, His Friend and Their Saviour

Originally published D-Day weekend, June 2019. But I thought it suited Holy Weekend.  Imagine - if you will - having wandered into St Thomas' of Canterbury Cathedral, Portsmouth and happening upon what at first appears to be a run-of-the-mill Evensong service. It could be anywhere on the island. There is the usual smattering of greying elders peopling the pews, with maybe four or five in their fifties. There are - the greeting canon has told me excitedly - some Americans in, and an Italian family who are sat at the back (and later discreetly excuse themselves about halfway through). The hymns are pleasant and the intercessory prayers pass without controversy. I silently chastise myself (very Catholicly) for not having any loose change for the collection (they're certainly not getting the fiver, I resolve, much more Protestantly) All so regular. All so expected. Until an intelligent female vicar takes the pulpit and begins what is part sermon, part explanatory lecture
Read more

I Don't Predict A Riot

“I dislike rallies and it might get ugly if we haven’t left.”, said a friend when I asked if he’d be joining me on the Leave Means Leave rally on the 29 th  March. I assured him the average age of the crowd would be about 50 and if in the unlikely event of ugliness we could simply scarper. My friend is no shrinking violet and far from a hand-wringing liberal; he voted Leave and has ribbed me as a ‘pussy’ ever since for failing to do the same. But my sanguinity was not from any particular natural bullishness either. I’d simply been on enough rallies in my misspent late teens to know that a big enough crowd equals a diverse crowd. If there is one thing that brings large diverse groups of people together – other than the cause or attraction for which they’ve congregated in the first place – it is their aversion to violence in general and being hit in the face in particular. Furthermore I had seen the awe-inspiring pictures and videos from the March to Leave, of people with enough anger
Read more