Britain: Blair and his Opus Dei Secretary Ruth Kelly block gay rights

From British weekly The Observer:

Cabinet split over new rights for gays

· Blair backs Ruth Kelly in church row
· Faith schools seek equality opt-out

Gaby Hinsliff, political editor

Sunday October 15, 2006

The cabinet is in open warfare over new gay rights legislation after Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, who is a devout Catholic, blocked the plans following protests from religious organisations.

See also here.

“Devout Catholic” is an euphemism.

The real problem is that Ms Kelly is a member of far Right Opus Dei, founded by an ally of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who had Federico Garcia Lorca, the greatest poet of twentieth century Spain, murdered for being gay, along with many hundreds of thousands of others.

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, was so angry with the move that he wrote a letter to Kelly three weeks ago, telling her that the new rights should not be watered down.

The battle between what is being dubbed the government’s ‘Catholic tendency’ and their more liberal colleagues centres on proposals to stop schools, companies and other agencies refusing services to people purely because of their sexuality.

Tony Blair, who sent three of his children to Catholic schools, is said to be anxious about the impact on faith schools and faith-based adoption agencies, which are demanding to be exempt from the law.

Update: here.

Update July 2007: here.

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Britain: Blair’s Opus Dei Secretary Ruth Kelly promotes bigotry

From London daily News Line:

Monday, 28 August 2006

OPUS DEI SPEAKS OUT FROM THE CABINET

ONE of Opus Dei’s members in the Labour Cabinet, Ruth Kelly, yesterday made a call to close down Muslim schools that promote ‘isolationism’.

Opus Dei is the reactionary Catholic secret group that seeks to drag society backwards towards the ‘glory’ of the Catholic Church’s feudal past, which was shattered by the Reformation, the execution of Charles I, and the forced emigration of James II.

At the same time, news has been released that before he departed for his summer holidays, Prime Minister Blair attended a private mass, officiated over by a Franciscan monk, a Father Seed, at 10 Downing Street.

The forces of open counter-revolution are gathering.

Following her recent announcement that the era of multi-culturalism in Britain was over, and that there were non-negotiable rules that all would have to obey without question, Kelly’s latest pronouncement carries more than a whiff of the crusader about it.

Kelly said that the government had to ‘stamp out’ Muslim schools which were trying to change British society to fit Islamic values.

She cried that ‘They should be shut down’, and that ‘Different institutions are open to abuse and where we find abuse we have got to stamp it out and prevent that happening.’

The image of Opus Dei stamping on ‘uppity’ Muslims is as old as the inquisition itself.

Jack Straw and anti Muslim bigotry: here.

On the “Islamofascism” tenet: here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

Islamophobia and queer rights: here.

Oriana Fallaci: anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-Semitic.