Wednesday 28 March 2007

Fundamentalism ... a modern 'demon'?

Since starting in post, I've been receiving regular mailouts from LifeLeague, an organisation that seems to fancy themselves as the upholder of all things moral in the U.K. (another moral defender). Their publicity material is always calling for the reader to campaign their government about issues surrounding abortion and - more recently - to stop the government bill allowing same-sex couples equal adoption rights.

Their publicity is deliberately inflammatory and alarmist, for example using phrases such as, "Parliament launches unprecedented attack on our faith. Church faces biggest threat in years." Now, to my mind, statements like that are unhelpful and uneducated. Surely global warming, 3rd world debt, poverty, 'ethnic cleansing' policies by certain countries, AIDS and things like the abuse of power by tyrant politicians are greater threats ... endangering the lives of millions of people globally, and threatening the planet.

Besides, abortion is never a clear black-and-white decision. There can be extenuating circumstances, such as rape cases, or life-threatening issues. It's not always the comfortable financial decision that organisations like this would panic us into believing.

And the issue of same-sex couples being allowed to adopt ... surely the responsible thing to do would be to look at a couple's parenting ability, and make sure a child goes to the best home possible. Bearing in mind, of course, that statistically there are more cases of child abuse in 'straight' households, and that same-sex couples probably make a much more informed and prepared decision to adopt ... after careful consideration.

So, because I think their unsolicited mailouts are uninformed, unnecessarily alarmist, miss the point, and are not worth the paper they're printed on, I sent them a simple request that they stop sending them, as follows:

> Dear Sir / Madam
>
> The concerns and campaigns of LifeLeague do not reflect the concerns of this office.
>
> Please refrain from posting further correspondence to the address you currently have on file as ... [address supplied]

Their response was as follows:
> Well Andy, they SHOULD reflect the concerns of your office.
>
> Your address has been removed in accordance with your wishes.

I guess I ought to be really thankful that they educated me in what I should be doing. Or is it more of a case that they were trying to force their agenda on me. Hmmm ... unsolicited, inflammatory, alarmist mail (and while we're all focusing on the 'green' agenda ... a waste of trees), and now an attempt to force me to comply with their own agenda. Nice.

My reply to them was as follows:
> I would prefer not to end up in a slinging match, thank you. It was a simple request. Thank you for complying.
>
> Regards

Not heard a word since ... thankfully. Let them just try and bombard me with publicity, now that I have on file a request to stop it, as well as their acknowledgement of my request and agreement to comply.

The less you hear from people and organisations like that, the better!

2 comments:

  1. "Well Andy, they SHOULD reflect the concerns of your office."


    Of course they should - and boy do I wish they did relect the concerns of your office Andy..

    Sadly instead they've chosen to reflect the concerns of the office of some scarmongering, manipulative, hate-full bigot........

    Always best avoided.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andy, this is really terrible. Click on the following link and look at what they've been saying about you.

    http://www.uklifeleague.com/enews/070402%20e-newsletter.htm

    ReplyDelete