Friday, June 03, 2005

Banning Bibles

From the Beeb, via Harry's Place. This is very silly:
"Hospital bosses may remove Bibles from the bedsides of patients amid concerns over offending non-Christians and spreading the superbug, MRSA.

Leics-based Gideons International, which distributes Bibles, described the move as "outrageous".

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust said it was committed to equality and religious diversity.

It is to meet on Friday to discuss whether the tradition should continue at the city's three main hospitals."
So Bibles carry disease, do they? And there was me thinking that the rise in MRSA was due to hospitals not being cleaned properly. And what's this drivel about "equality and religious diversity"? Surely if they were committed to that, each patient would have a wee pack with maybe the New Testament, the Torah, the Koran and something secular - maybe the Communist Manifesto - thrown in for good measure.

Couple of serious points : dishing out these Bibles that hardly anyone reads is a long, fairly silly but rather endearing British tradition. I bet this hasn't been motivated by any complaints from atheists or Muslims or Jews. In my experience, Muslim kids aren't the least bit offended by this sort of thing; they have integrated very well into our local customs and make paper aeroplanes out of the pages just as well and enthusiastically as all the rest.

Furthermore, the idea that any books should be banned simply because someone finds their presence offensive is simply an extension of this bizarre modern idea that I just don't get: since when did the over-sensitive get an extra layer of human rights?

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