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Religion
What has religion got to do with political correctness, I hear you ask? Well only in the similarity of style, I suppose. It seeks to impose a 'received text or wisdom' on to us, telling us how we should think and behave. Not that there is much wrong with the ten commandments (although I imagine the one about adultery would cause problems to more than a few MPs!) Most of the rules were made centuries ago and fundamentalists (in all religions) seem reluctant to change them in the face of progress or science. We may all look back and laugh at the problems that Copernicus had in the 16th century trying to get the Church to accept that the earth revolved around the sun but similar problems still exist today. (Darwin, women priests, etc). Each religion is just like a club or society that like minded people can join. Each professes to worship the one true God and yet God seems to have given them all a different set of rules. Catholics don't allow birth control, strict Baptists don't allow televisions, Methodists don't allow drinking alcohol and Protestants won't allow divorcees to remarry in church, etc, etc. In the Middle East, anyone committing adultery gets stoned. (In the west, of course, we tend to do the last example the other way round!) If you don't like the rules of the club you are in then just start a new club and try to dissolve the old one as Henry VIII did when the Pope refused him a divorce. Strange how this one act of selfishness resulted in so many deaths, as Protestants and Catholics fought each other in the next 450 yrs. God seems to take some pretty long lunch breaks. In reality of course, all the rules of the club are man made and mostly are made to control other men. In Islam, you are apparently guaranteed a place in heaven if you become a suicide bomber. Just in case anyone should disagree with this rule or raise common sense objections to whether or not there is a God, then they seem to have another rule to eliminate any opposition entirely: Religion has been responsible for most of the wars in history and sadly it shows all the signs of doing so again in the future. To those that indulge in it, religion is very much like a dangerous drug - the more you take then the more you get hooked on it. So the last thing you would want to do would be to get your child hooked on it - would you??? Sadly of course, religious people do just that. Imprint it on an impressionable mind that has no choice in the matter. Hence religion should not be mentioned to children and it has no place in school (except in the general knowledge context and the historical context of who killed who). Therefore there would be no religious dress code problems in school and no PC Dress Police to make a fuss about it. When the children become adults at 18 they can make their own (now non-prejudiced) minds up as to the value of it. Watch this short film below to see the horrors of mixing religion and children.
and for a more rational take on the subject, read this article by Johann Hari here I'm sure that the politically correct amongst you will see nothing wrong in that film but would nevertheless be horrified and shouting racism from the rooftops if the roles of Muslims and Jews were reversed. One man's victim group is another man's oppressor. That is the stupidity of political correctness.
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