AC Grayling over at The Guardian:
It is time to demand of believers that they take their personal choices and preferences in these non-rational and too often dangerous matters into the private sphere, like their sexual proclivities. Everyone is free to believe what they want, providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others; but no-one is entitled to claim privileges merely on the grounds that they are votaries of one or another of the world's many religions.
And as this last point implies, it is time to demand and apply a right for the rest of us to non-interference by religious persons and organisations - a right to be free of proselytisation and the efforts of self-selected minority groups to impose their own choice of morality and practice on those who do not share their outlook.
Read more here.
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You don't have a right to be free of proselytisation. Ridiculous.
I posted (with very precise citation) the entire article on my blog for my forum friends to read.
You don't have a right to be free of proselytisation. Ridiculous.
It depends on the context. If I'm on private property owned by those who proselytize it is there right to do so and I will gladly leave when they start. But I don't think that religious groups of individuals have any inherent right to use public property as a vehical for proselytization, as would be the case with mandating ten commandments statues in courthouses, schools, etc.
True. Unless you're going to stomp on freedom of speech, the religious have every right to proselytize. That does not, of course, mean that anyone has to listen to them.
I certainly agree with Grayling on a lot of other of his points, though.
Not exactly. They should have no more or no less right to use public property than anyone else. As far as mandating religious views on courthouses, for example, that is a very different beast. That is the putting the imprimatur of the state on specific religious views.
That AC Grayling is a supernumary fellow, if I do say so myself.
Hmm, supernumary is not even listed at dictionary.com.
This what you were looking for? Assuming definition #2
su·per·nu·mer·ary
1 a : exceeding the usual, stated, or prescribed number b : not enumerated among the regular components of a group and especially of a military organization
2 : exceeding what is necessary, required, or desired
3 : more numerous