Dogmatic and fundamentalist – but who?

The charges of 'hate speech' brought before The NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal against Steve Price and John Laws of radio station 2UE should be an example of the rigidity of the promoters and implementers of political correctness.

After that great bigot word of 'homophobia' is enunciated to silence those speaking out against the homosexual campaign comes the charge of 'fundamentalist'. 'Fundamentalist' in the mouth of the political correct denotes in reality people who hold a system of belief that departs from the dogma of political correctness. And the political correct elite, as is demonstrated by the Price/Laws case, are unrelenting and unforgiving when it comes applying their dogma and exacting penalties for those transgressing. The foremost example of fundamentalism and dogmatism in modern society is in fact the politically correct class.

The Catholic Church's Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has made a similar point a number of times recently, particularly with regard to blocking of Rocco Buttiglione as a commissioner of the European Union for his Christian beliefs. This is some of what Cardinal Ratzinger had to say as reported by Zenit Newsagency:

'The world's cultures are profoundly adverse to the extreme secularization that has consolidated in the West. They have the conviction that a world without God has no future...

'Our very multicultural condition calls us to be ourselves ... we still don't know where Europe will go, but the Constitution of the European Union might be a first step toward a new conscious search of its soul...'

Asked if the recent rejection of Rocco Buttiglione as a commissioner of the European Union is the expression of a hostile opposition to Christians' contribution to the building of the Union, the cardinal replied: 'It is above all a sign of the way in which the neutrality of the state sphere, in regard to the view of the world, is about to be transformed into a sort of dogmatic ideology.'

As a result, 'laicism is no longer the guarantee of many convictions, but establishes itself as an ideology that imposes what must be thought and said; for example, it no longer ensures the Christian's public presence...I believe it is a phenomenon that should make us reflect...What seemed to be a guarantee of a common freedom, is being transformed into an ideology that is turning into dogmatism and endangering religious freedom.'

It seems very optimistic of Cardinal Ratzinger to think that 'the constitution of the European Union might be a first step toward a new conscious search of its soul'. Despite encouraging signs of the role of a Christian and traditional moral consciousness in the US and Australian elections, all the signs in Europe are of a consolidation of a deep anti-Christian bigotry and a pathological antipathy to ideas of traditional morality. As I have pointed out a number of times in these comments, anti-Christian bigotry is now the state-approved bigotry. In this respect, Western society is in step with the Islamic world.