Varadkar accuses the left of "wanting to turn religious people into pariahs"

hatrickpatrick

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas/varadkar-attacks-left-for-making-pariahs-of-the-religious-1.3528463

Mr Varadkar accused socialists of wanting to turn religious people into pariahs.

He said that, while he believed in separation of Church and State: “I do not believe in the socialist ideology, which is to push religion out of the public space and force people who are religious to be ashamed they have religious convictions.

“The policy of socialists is to take away that funding because they do not just believe in the separation of Church and State - they want to turn religious people into pariahs, put them in a corner and hide them and take away funding from institutions.”

He said they wanted to “hide” religious people “in a corner and to defund bodies and take public funding away from bodies such as the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice, the Society of St Vincent de Paul, Crosscare, Trócaire and Concern”.

This is a despicable conflation of two entirely separate issues. Varadkar accuses the left of wanting to make pariahs out of religious people, then lists all the ways in which the left wants to attack religious institutions and in particular, force a total and complete separation of those institutions from the state, by not giving them any government assistance whatsoever and by nationalising vital services currently provided by religious institutions.

I'm massively disappointed in Varadkar over this, to be honest. Surely he knows that it's entirely disingenuous to accuse those attempting to force the Church out of public life and into private life where it belongs, of actually attacking people who happen to be religious? The two are entirely separate and different issues, with totally different motivations and consequences. I'm a religious person myself, and I absolutely want to see the church entirely purged from all aspects of society other than those which people choose privately and of their own free will to participate in, and which do not involve the provision of vital societal systems such as education or health.

To claim that the left is attacking "religious people" is despicable. It's perfectly possible to attack the institutions without attacking individuals, just as it's possible to attack the criminal justice system without attacking rank and file Gardai.

Massively disappointed to see him making a comment like this just when I thought he was on side with purging religious values from the state itself. I guess Fine Gael is back to being a socially right wing party now that they've got the referendum feather in their cap. :mad:

Graces7

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas/varadkar-attacks-left-for-making-pariahs-of-the-religious-1.3528463

This is a despicable conflation of two entirely separate issues. Varadkar accuses the left of wanting to make pariahs out of religious people, then lists all the ways in which the left wants to attack religious institutions and in particular, force a total and complete separation of those institutions from the state, by not
giving them any government assistance whatsoever and by nationalising vital services currently provided by religious institutions.

I'm massively disappointed in Varadkar over this, to be honest. Surely he knows that it's entirely disingenuous to accuse those attempting to force the Church out of public life and into private life where it belongs, of actually attacking people who happen to be religious? The two are entirely separate and different issues, with totally different motivations and consequences. I'm a
religious person myself, and I absolutely want to see the church entirely purged from all aspects of society other than those which people choose privately and of their own free will to participate in, and which do not involve the provision of vital societal systems such as education or health.

To claim that the left is attacking "religious people" is despicable. It's perfectly possible to attack the institutions without attacking individuals, just as it's possible to attack the criminal justice system without attacking rank and file Gardai.

Massively disappointed to see him making a comment like this just when I thought he was on side with purging religious values from the state itself. I guess Fine Gael is back to being a socially right wing party now that they've got the referendum feather in their cap. :mad:

Varadkar is right on this; you are seeing it through your own ideas. Which are very narrow. "Faith without works is dead,"

Kermit.de.frog

Communism is a lie OP

Yer Da sells Avon

"Holy Joes of Ireland, don't mind those godless reds... we're still on your side"

Just Fine Gael being Fine Gael - a fundamentally socially conservative party. They might have brought Ireland's abortion laws in line with the rest of the western world, but they don't want to throw the foetus out with the bathwater either.

JupiterKid

Just Leo speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Nothing new here...

What’s he doing about the housing crisis?

_Kaiser_

Varadkar is trying (badly) to appeal to both sides here. I'm surprised you're surprised OP.. One thing Leo has proven surely is that he HAS no real convictions - he'll go with whatever he thinks will get him the best media coverage and likes on social media :rolleyes:

The guy is so populist and weak that I half think he confused FG with FF when he signed up. In some ways he's worse than Enda who may have been arrogant and out of touch (and similarly all about himself and his 'legacy'), but who rightly or (generally) wrongly, usually stuck by whatever position he'd take on an issue.

hatrickpatrick

Graces7 wrote: »

Varadkar is right on this; you are seeing it through your own ideas. Which are very narrow. "Faith without works is dead,"

How is he right to conflate the expulsion of religion from public life with an attack on religious people themselves?

EdgeCase

It's just Fine Gael trying to ensure they don’t alienate the % of conservative voters they have and also getting a dig in to the left for the sake of it too.

There is a difference between secularist and anti-religious views though.

For example, I would consider myself a secularist and I don’t think the church or religious should be running schools and hospitals or any kind of public services that are state paid for, but I would support someone’s right to be as religious or non religious as they want to be.

The state should be neutral on such matters but, the Irish state is still full of remnants of a bygone era when we pretty much had a de facto established church.

NinetyTwoTeam

This is just BS for his spin machine, trying to get back into the good graces of the old Catholics so as not to lose the 'grey vote'.

No one is making religious people into pariahs we're just not letting organized religion control us.

He thinks he's being clever playing both sides of the fence. he really sickens me, and I voted Yes in both referendums.

Ubbquittious

There has been many a thread in this very forum proposing to turn religious people into pariahs. I thought people would be cheering for him

Kermit.de.frog

No matter who was running Ireland people would moan and complain.

Ultimate Seduction

People were complaining for years about our abortion laws, blasphemy laws and about marriage equality. Fine Geal have been doing everything the whingers asked and there still whinging.

This is a great period in our history especially after the 6 or 7 years of misery we had

Ubbquittious

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

People were complaining for years about our abortion laws, blasphemy laws and about marriage equality. Fine Geal have been doing everything the whingers asked and there still whinging.

This is a great period in our history especially after the 6 or 7 years of misery we had

Yet we still have USC and property tax and we could still be landed with water charges in some roundabout way. All those things you mentioned don't really have much impact on one's daily life but they're supposedly great for boasting the outside world how unbackward we have become. If that kind of thing is important to you


FG are still cunts

Kermit.de.frog

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Yet we still have USC and property tax and we could still be landed with water charges in some roundabout way


FG are still cunts

The economy has to grow so the state has the money to deal with those things. That takes time.

The way some people go on you would think a finger can be clicked and everything is fine.

Lucy8080

A reading of social media/ hot topic debates, which include religious positions, will give folks an insight into intolerance on both sides.

To be fair, it seems to me that the pendulum has swung from religions having too much input...to others having too much spitefulness towards religion/blaming everything on religion.

If Leo wants to protect the space that can include both positions (soft or hard), I really can't find an argument here.

It is the space that allows all to vent , and live side by side, and maybe grow to understand each other better.

All sides can keep their sword sheathed in such a space, and new information can thrive without fear or favour.

He's a darling when for yes votes,and a demon when including space for religion,it seems.

He is most likely neither,I'm for the space .not Leo or any other .

Protect the space, and use your vote likewise. Don't worry about the personalities/parties, and try and include the one who seems "other" to you,as fair as you can.

Jamiekelly

I think Leo has been getting a little too comfortable with his image as Taoiseach. He may have been elected through an internal leadership contest but he hasn't considered what a general election would be like for FG with him as leader, especially after calling and campaigning during the abortion referendum.

The more I hear from him, the more spineless he appears to be. A consensus politician at heart. He's trying to convince the solid conservatives that FG is still their party despite the fact they despised him calling an abortion referendum to begin with, let alone celebrating the outcome.

hatrickpatrick

Lucy8080 wrote: »

A reading of social media/ hot topic debates, which include religious positions, will give folks an insight into intolerance on both sides.

To be fair, it seems to me that the pendulum has swung from religions having too much input...to others having too much spitefulness towards religion/blaming everything on religion.

If Leo wants to protect the space that can include both positions (soft or hard), I really can't find an argument here.

It is the space that allows all to vent , and live side by side, and maybe grow to understand each other better.

All sides can keep their sword sheathed in such a space, and new information can thrive without fear or favour.

He's a darling when for yes votes,and a demon when including space for religion,it seems.

He is most likely neither,I'm for the space .not Leo or any other .

Protect the space, and use your vote likewise. Don't worry about the personalities/parties, and try and include the one who seems "other" to you,as fair as you can.

There's a difference between "space for religion" and "religious involvement in how our society and its vital services are run". Varadkar seems, with these remarks, to be defending the latter. That's why it's a problem.

Anything less than a complete and total segregation between religions institution and public services represents a fundamental compromising of separation between church and state. That's why Varadkar's comments that he supports the latter but seems opposed to the former don't make any logical sense, at least to me.

Shunning religious people in public life would involve discrimination against individuals who hold religious beliefs. Absolutely nobody that I've seen has suggested doing this. What the left is saying is that religious organisations - churches, orders, etc - should have literally no input (absolutely none whatsoever) into any aspect of Irish life outside their own doors, and those which their followers choose to personally submit to. All aspects of education should be entirely secular, as should all aspects of healthcare, policing, transport, etc. Religious organisations should have no special influence whatsoever beyond the fact that their members have all the democratic rights of the average citizen.

Varadkar making these remarks specifically in response to demands that education and healthcare be forcibly secularised - something which should have happened a long, long time ago if we're to live in a properly democratic society - is bizarre, and seems to indicate that he doesn't actually support a full separation between church and state, even if in the very same speech he clearly states that he does. The two statements are fundamentally incompatible.

end of the road

he has a point, all be it
1. i don't believe he is genuine and is trying to play both sides (which will backfire hopefully)
2. the left as a whole most certainly aren't guilty of it.

hatrickpatrick

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas/varadkar-attacks-left-for-making-pariahs-of-the-religious-1.3528463



This is a despicable conflation of two entirely separate issues. Varadkar accuses the left of wanting to make pariahs out of religious people, then lists all the ways in which the left wants to attack religious institutions and in particular, force a total and complete separation of those institutions from the state, by not giving them any government assistance whatsoever and by nationalising vital services currently provided by religious institutions.

I'm massively disappointed in Varadkar over this, to be honest. Surely he knows that it's entirely disingenuous to accuse those attempting to force the Church out of public life and into private life where it belongs, of actually attacking people who happen to be religious? The two are entirely separate and different issues, with totally different motivations and consequences. I'm a religious person myself, and I absolutely want to see the church entirely purged from all aspects of society other than those which people choose privately and of their own free will to participate in, and which do not involve the provision of vital societal systems such as education or health.

To claim that the left is attacking "religious people" is despicable. It's perfectly possible to attack the institutions without attacking individuals, just as it's possible to attack the criminal justice system without attacking rank and file Gardai.

Massively disappointed to see him making a comment like this just when I thought he was on side with purging religious values from the state itself. I guess Fine Gael is back to being a socially right wing party now that they've got the referendum feather in their cap. :mad:

Two things:

1. The so-called "Left" today would have been considered rightwing in this country in 1980. Yes, Joe Higgins is genuinely left wing but that's about it in modern Ireland. Smoked Salmon Socialists are the order of the day in the so-called Labour Party and the "slush-fund" lovers in SIPTU.

2. What Varadkar has done is that insidious tactical equation of "Liberal" with Leftwing - which is an obnoxious equation lifted straight from the United States of America. Portray a section of rightwing opinion as being "Leftwing" and you can move further to the right. Some of us still notice these things. Yet another sign of that shift of "mainstream" Irish political opinion to the right.

HandsomeBob

end of the road wrote: »

he has a point, all be it
1. i don't believe he is genuine and is trying to play both sides (which will backfire hopefully)
2. the left as a whole most certainly aren't guilty of it.

I do feel he made a fair point as some of the instututions such as Crosscare and SVP do ppay a valuable role for the vulnerable in our society, but it is indeed clear as day what he's trying to do here......and it's fairly cringey.

Leo on damage control and laying on the schmoozing thick to the people he would have been dismissing a couple of weeks ago.

dav3

Leo is back on the side of religion. Good to see he hasn't lost his Fine Gael roots.

Meanwhile, blasphemy referendum incoming. Damn those leftists! Damn them to hell!

Graces7

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

How is he right to conflate the expulsion of religion from public life with an attack on religious people themselves?

Do you really not understand? You cannot split people from faith like that. Nor can you ban the actions of faith with words like "expulsion" .

He speaks of the good the faith groups do. Can you not see the mistake you are making here?

The difference between control and active constructive participation in the life of the country, inspired by faith?

_Kaiser_

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Yet we still have USC and property tax and we could still be landed with water charges in some roundabout way. All those things you mentioned don't really have much impact on one's daily life but they're supposedly great for boasting the outside world how unbackward we have become. If that kind of thing is important to you


FG are still cunts

Exactly.. All these socially progressive referenda are (genuinely) great and all, but do very little to improve the day to day lives of most.

Things like the aforementioned housing crisis, health care, childcare costs, high costs of commuting for those who can't afford to live close to work, high costs of living generally, poor public transport (especially outside Dublin but within it too), waste charges, and of course the increasing gap between the haves and have nots in this country, have continued to get worse as the economy has improved.

All of these things have to be paid for of course but the costs vs the return for those charges/taxes (especially where state services are concerned) is ridiculously unbalanced and getting worse under FG's policies of privatising and selling off everything. With FG you'll pay at least twice for essential services - first through general taxation, and then again through service charges or levies

_Kaiser_

dav3 wrote: »

Leo is back on the side of religion. Good to see he hasn't lost his Fine Gael roots.

Meanwhile, blasphemy referendum incoming. Damn those leftists! Damn them to hell!

It's a distraction from their inaction on/piss-poor reactions to the far more significant issues and problems the country faces, nothing more.

But there are those who'll fall for it clearly.

_Kaiser_

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The economy has to grow so the state has the money to deal with those things. That takes time.

The way some people go on you would think a finger can be clicked and everything is fine.

Oh please! Have we not been told repeatedly over the last year or so about how the economy is growing at the fastest rate again and indeed may overheat if we're not careful.

Or is it another "keep the recovery going" pr spin story that people saw through last time out at the polls?

Can't have it both ways

JMNolan

Leo seems to have learned from Trump, throw out a controversial comment every few days and everyone will be too outraged to scrutinize your performance closely

JohnnyFlash

Hapax Legomenon wrote: »

"Holy Joes of Ireland, don't mind those godless reds... we're still on your side"

Just Fine Gael being Fine Gael - a fundamentally socially conservative party. They might have brought Ireland's abortion laws in line with the rest of the western world, but they don't want to throw the foetus out with the bathwater either.

More of the usual claptrap from yourself. Your need for a right wing boogeyman in your life is unusual. Let’s all look at your late night pronouncement in more detail shall we?

Abortion legislation - FG government
Gay marriage legislation - FG Government
Divorce legislation - FG Government
Apologies to laundry survivors - FG Government
Citizens Convention - FG Government

I’d also refer you to the Just Society manifesto produced by Declan Costello, and to famous feminist social reformers within the party such as Gemma Hussey.

Might be time for you to stop the continuous ‘fight da powah’ stuff, pause the Rage Against the Machine playlist, and apply some critical faculties to your thinking.

Mrs OBumble

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I'm a religious person myself, and I absolutely want to see the church entirely purged from all aspects of society other than those which people choose privately and of their own free will to participate in, and which do not involve the provision of vital societal systems such as education or health.

What religion are you, that does not see feexing the hungry, caring for the sick, educating the ignorant, etc .... as a core requirement of living out that religion?

looksee

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

What religion are you, that does not see feexing the hungry, caring for the sick, educating the ignorant, etc .... as a core requirement of living out that religion?

I think you know perfectly well that this is not relevant to the discussion.

Religious people can do all these things, the problem arises when they have the right to do them within their own terms of reference and ignoring whether the non-religious wish to be cared for, educated etc on those terms.

I have little enthusiasm for religious beliefs. I do accept that they play a valuable role for some people in coping with their life, certainly they should be able to pursue their beliefs. It is absolute nonsense to talk about making people into pariahs simply because of their beliefs. I don't have a great deal of enthusiasm for football, or fashion either but I do believe people are entitled to dedicate their lives to these interests, if they wish.

However if those beliefs impinge on my life, and if the government chooses to allow and even sponsor this then I do have the right to protest.

If an individual feels that they have been personally rejected because other people do not fall in with their beliefs and demands, then so be it; that is a matter of maturity and social awareness on the individual's part.

This is rather pathetic populist bleating on Varadkar's part, presumably he is cashing in on a hoped for religious revival associated with the pope's visit.

Berserker

A clever move by Leo. FG's support for abortion would have alienated some of their voting base. A "big-up" for religious values will turn their heads back in FG's direction.

Hapax Legomenon wrote: »

Just Fine Gael being Fine Gael - a fundamentally socially conservative party. They might have brought Ireland's abortion laws in line with the rest of the western world, but they don't want to throw the foetus out with the bathwater either.

Support SSM, euthanasia and divorce also. If that is a socially conservative party then I'd love to know what a left leaning party is.

Wanderer78

JohnnyFlash wrote:

Might be time for you to stop the continuous ‘fight da powah’ stuff, pause the Rage Against the Machine playlist, and apply some critical faculties to your thinking.

Rage rock though in fairness