The wrong reason to attack Tim Farron.
Like the vast majority of political activists in Cumbria who are members of parties other than the Liberal Democrats, I am definitely not a fan of Tim Farron M.P.
His own electorate appear to love him because of his enormous skill at appearing to, as the saying goes, "be nice to everybody." He has practically eliminated the Labour vote in Westmorland & Lonsdale by coming over as a progressive alternative to the Conservatives while persuading many people in the constituency of a broadly Conservative persuasion that he thinks like them.
And some of the tactics by which the Lib/Dems have achieved this have, shall we say, not been exemplars of the highest possible standards of truthfulness.
However, I have not been impressed by the manner in which, during the campaign for Lib/Dem leader, and since his election, Tim Farron has been relentlessly attacked by people making out that because he is an evangelical Christian he must have ambiguous views on gay rights.
This amounts to an attack on Christians in the name of tolerance. There are many sound reasons to criticise Tim Farron but this is a wrong one.
It is not unknown for Christian Lib/Dems to struggle with this issue. When a gay priest was appointed as Dean of St Albans Cathedral you might have thought that the political party least likely to object would be the Lib/Dems, yet in fact the chairman of St Albans Council's cabinet, the Reverend Councillor Robert Donald, who was also an Anglican clergyman, publicly distanced himself from the appointment.
You could make the argument that Farron has probably not helped himself in this respect by declining to answer the question of whether he personally considers expressions of gay sexuality to be sinful. Unfortunately there is little doubt in my mind that the press would never in a million years have appreciated the nuances of what I suspect might be his actual position.
My attitudes to gay people moved on from the Rowan Atkinson "you're going to have a rotten life" parody of Christian attitudes to gays long before that episode of "Not the Nine O'clock News" was broadcast several decades ago. There certainly passages in the bible which can be interpreted as justification for the opposition of most churches and many Christians to equal marriage and other aspects of gay rights, but there is nothing in Jesus's own words which backs up that view, and He was always ready to forgive even when he judged someone to be a sinner - which He was markedly less quick to do than anyone around him.
Other people have a different attitude. But the key thing is, are they willing to accept that everyone has a right to their own opinion and their own lifestyle, or are they going to impose it on other people?
And the answer to that question is quite clear from Tim Farron's answer when he was asked if being gay was sinful:
"Somebody who is a Christian does not go enforcing their views on other people. It’s not our views on personal morality that matter, what matters is whether we go out and fight for the freedom of every single individual to be who they want to be – and that’s what makes a liberal. To understand Christianity is to understand that we are all sinners…Every minority, every individual’s rights matter."
Now I could truthfully just have said "No" but Farron obviously felt unable to do that. However, his answer does make abundantly clear that whatever he thinks about whether being gay is sinful, he respects the right of gay people to make life choices different from his.
But the fuss which has continued over his answer suggests this is not enough for some people. There was a time when being tolerant meant letting other people get on with their lives. We have a problem here in that for some people, "tolerance" now means you have a right to insist that people approve of you.
I call that intolerance in the name of tolerance.
Life will be a lot better for all of us, if gay people, straight people, those Christians like myself who don't have a problem with gays, those who have old-fashioned views but are willing not to enforce them on others, muslims, atheists, agnostics and everyone else just puts up with the fact that there are lots of people on the planet with different views and let them get on with it.
Nick Cohen, whose views on many issues are diametrically opposite to mine, makes a similar point from an opposite perspective here.
His own electorate appear to love him because of his enormous skill at appearing to, as the saying goes, "be nice to everybody." He has practically eliminated the Labour vote in Westmorland & Lonsdale by coming over as a progressive alternative to the Conservatives while persuading many people in the constituency of a broadly Conservative persuasion that he thinks like them.
And some of the tactics by which the Lib/Dems have achieved this have, shall we say, not been exemplars of the highest possible standards of truthfulness.
However, I have not been impressed by the manner in which, during the campaign for Lib/Dem leader, and since his election, Tim Farron has been relentlessly attacked by people making out that because he is an evangelical Christian he must have ambiguous views on gay rights.
This amounts to an attack on Christians in the name of tolerance. There are many sound reasons to criticise Tim Farron but this is a wrong one.
It is not unknown for Christian Lib/Dems to struggle with this issue. When a gay priest was appointed as Dean of St Albans Cathedral you might have thought that the political party least likely to object would be the Lib/Dems, yet in fact the chairman of St Albans Council's cabinet, the Reverend Councillor Robert Donald, who was also an Anglican clergyman, publicly distanced himself from the appointment.
You could make the argument that Farron has probably not helped himself in this respect by declining to answer the question of whether he personally considers expressions of gay sexuality to be sinful. Unfortunately there is little doubt in my mind that the press would never in a million years have appreciated the nuances of what I suspect might be his actual position.
My attitudes to gay people moved on from the Rowan Atkinson "you're going to have a rotten life" parody of Christian attitudes to gays long before that episode of "Not the Nine O'clock News" was broadcast several decades ago. There certainly passages in the bible which can be interpreted as justification for the opposition of most churches and many Christians to equal marriage and other aspects of gay rights, but there is nothing in Jesus's own words which backs up that view, and He was always ready to forgive even when he judged someone to be a sinner - which He was markedly less quick to do than anyone around him.
Other people have a different attitude. But the key thing is, are they willing to accept that everyone has a right to their own opinion and their own lifestyle, or are they going to impose it on other people?
And the answer to that question is quite clear from Tim Farron's answer when he was asked if being gay was sinful:
"Somebody who is a Christian does not go enforcing their views on other people. It’s not our views on personal morality that matter, what matters is whether we go out and fight for the freedom of every single individual to be who they want to be – and that’s what makes a liberal. To understand Christianity is to understand that we are all sinners…Every minority, every individual’s rights matter."
Now I could truthfully just have said "No" but Farron obviously felt unable to do that. However, his answer does make abundantly clear that whatever he thinks about whether being gay is sinful, he respects the right of gay people to make life choices different from his.
But the fuss which has continued over his answer suggests this is not enough for some people. There was a time when being tolerant meant letting other people get on with their lives. We have a problem here in that for some people, "tolerance" now means you have a right to insist that people approve of you.
I call that intolerance in the name of tolerance.
Life will be a lot better for all of us, if gay people, straight people, those Christians like myself who don't have a problem with gays, those who have old-fashioned views but are willing not to enforce them on others, muslims, atheists, agnostics and everyone else just puts up with the fact that there are lots of people on the planet with different views and let them get on with it.
Nick Cohen, whose views on many issues are diametrically opposite to mine, makes a similar point from an opposite perspective here.
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