The Catholic Church in Scotland is sounding the alarm. The country of the thistle could in the near future be deprived of a pool of experienced and talented civil servants if the most convinced Christians continue to be victims of discrimination in public service.
Concern has been mounting since the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon on February 15, 2023. Kate Forbes – hitherto finance secretary – seemed best placed to take over the reins of the Scottish government. However, this decision was coming without considering her religious convictions. She is a member of the Free Church of Scotland, a Calvinist variant of Anglicanism – which the media finds disturbing.
Indeed, Kate Forbes did not hesitate to affirm her opposition to homosexual marriage as well as births outside marriage, and her defense of the traditional family. An outcry ensued in the press and social networks, to the point that the promotion of the finance secretary could be jeopardized.
“In a interview with The Herald, Catholic Church spokesperson Peter Kearney claimed that in Scotland’s ‘pursuit of diversity we have embraced conformity’” in public life.
For Peter Kearney, “There is absolutely an intolerance of certain types of difference. We are less tolerant of people’s religious orientations. Some of the things that have been said about religious opinions leave a lot of Catholics and a lot of Christians feeling marginalized.”
“No freedom for the enemies of freedom,” Saint-Just howled in 1793, when he sent innocent royalists to be beheaded by the sinister “national razor.”
The Scottish Catholic Church claims to be surprised that religion, especially the Christian religion, is not protected as much in the public space as the so-called rights of “sexual minorities.” Peter Kearney explains: “As a society, we will be guilty of hypocrisy if we don’t everyone’s right to freely hold, manifest and express their religious beliefs.”
“He brought up the recent Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which would have made it easier to obtain legal recognition of a change in birth gender, including lowering the age to 16. Most of the major parties in Scotland refuse to allow members to vote their conscience on the bill,” a reform that could not be more progressive and destructive of society.
“The danger here of not allowing individuals to vote according to their conscience is that it will dramatically reduce the pool of people who want to go into parliament. People will believe that their views won’t be respected. We run the risk of denying ourselves people with talent and ability,” warns Peter Kearney.
It must be added that Members who agree to vote against their conscience are prepared to compromise, which is nothing other than politics, and thus participate in the perversion of political life. They are complicit in serious violations of the divine law and human.
Fortunately, despite the outcry in the media sphere, which, in Scotland as elsewhere, remains largely under the control of progressive lobbies, Kate Forbes retains the support of the population in the polls: 28% of her party's militants – the SNP, Scottish National Party – want her to succeed Nicola Sturgeon.
