Fathers for Medieval justice

Because of the hospital visiting and all the stuff associated with having a relative in hospital, I've been posting less regularly than I would have liked to recently, especially since there's been no shortage of issues to comment on. However, I couldn't let this doosie in the Shields Gazette last week go without a mention.

Reading the article about the three fathers' fears of a genetic moral apocalypse (Clergy speak out against embryo hybrids, Gazette 28th March) you would be forgiven for thinking that we were in the Middle Ages or Iran, certainly not 21st Century Britain.

I support their right object to the Bill. There are genuine ethical issues to debate.

What is insulting is their outrageously arrogant presumption that they and their particluar religion have a right to assert a superior moral authority over us all. They state that "it is the role of the Church to be the moral conscience of the nation", which suggests an organisation with dreams of Sharia-like religious domination over our lives.

Well guys - you certainly don't speak for me.

Their position suggests a paternalistic 'we know better' mindset. A mindset that doesn't belong in a rational and modern liberal society, especially when it's based on a doctrine restricted by the narrow confines of religious teaching - teaching which has no more moral authority than any other philosophy.

The three amigos also make a mistake in confusing morals with ethics. The Anglican Church has no problem appeasing their gay-hating chums in the African congregation, who object to homosexuality on religious moral grounds, apparently blissfully ignorant of the fact that their position is ethically abhorrent and utterly unprincipled. The Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms on moral grounds; in the face of so many lives destroyed by AIDS, ethically, this ranks with condoning mass homicide .

So guys, before you can tell us what motes are moral and what's not, you should examine your own moral beams.