It has been a tough week for Scientology.But His Grace would like to know why it is perfectly in order for an MP to say that Scientology is 'intellectually difficult and religiously rubbish' but a councillor may not call it 'stupid'?
Do they not amount to the same thing?
Parliamentary privilege aside, why can the Roman Catholic convert John Gummer insult the sincerely-held beliefs of thousands of Scientologists, while anyone who dared to express the view that Roman Catholicism was 'intellectually difficult and religiously rubbish' would doubtless soon find themselves called a 'bigot'?
Is papal infallibility 'intellectually difficult and religiously rubbish'?
Is the Anglican Settlement?
Why should Tom Cruise and John Travolta be pilloried for believing in Lord Xenu while Yusuf Islam and Baroness Warsi may believe in Mohammed with impunity?
When it comes to state funding or tax subsidy of religious organisations, what constitutes a 'dangerous cult'?
Councillor John Dixon has now been cleared of breaching the code of conduct for councillors after he tweeted that Scientology was 'stupid'.
He had been reported to the standards and ethics committee earlier this year by the Public Services Ombudsmen for Wales. But members on the standards and ethics committee have found no evidence of a breach of the councillors' code of conduct, ruling out the possibility of a hearing for the case. The committee concluded Dixon was not acting in his capacity as councillor at the time.
Apparently he was tweeting 'in a personal capacity'.
Yet Mr Gummer clearly made his comments in his capacity as a politician.
What is it that MPs may say about religions that councillors may not?
One wonders if the standards and ethics committee would have absolved Cllr Dixon quite so quickly and absolutely if his comment had been directed at another minority faith group.
Perhaps we need a quota of Scientologists in Parliament.
