The posture of victimhood

Unsurprisingly, Lydia Playfoot, the 16-year-old English schoolgirl who took her school to court after she was banned from wearing a 'purity ring' at school, has lost her case. The High Court ruled that Millais School in West Sussex had not violated the girl's human rights by preventing her from wearing a ring, even one symbolising her commitment to chastity until marriage. The verdict is sensible enough: school dress codes are surely best left to schools rather than fought out in the law courts. But the fact that the case did require judicial arbitration says a lot about contemporary society's confusion over both free expression and sexual morality.

It does perhaps seem odd that the school refused to tolerate such an innocuous piece of jewellery, but it is even more bizarre that rather than accepting the decision with good grace - turning the other cheek, you might say - Lydia and her family chose to turn the affair into a national media circus, even claiming that this was an example of the persecution of Christians. First of all, 'the silver ring thing' is hardly a tenet of the Christian faith, but rather a recent innovation of the American evangelical movement. Second, and more importantly, in turning this into an issue of self-expression and martyrdom, the Playfoots actually detracted from the moral purpose supposedly so close to their hearts.

Just as we hear more about the victimisation and demonisation of Muslims than we do about the virtues of Islam, we now hear more about the 'persecution' of Christians than the persecution of Christ and the moral message associated with it. We do hear a lot about the spiritual emptiness and moral decadence of contemporary secular society, but much less about what religion has to offer as an alternative. Instead, whenever things come to a head, religious groups are all too ready to adopt the all-too-secular strategies of crying victimisation and going to court. Indeed, when asked about her belief in chastity, Lydia highlighted the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy rather than invoke Biblical morality or spiritual concerns. Even this libertarian atheist can think of more profound reasons than those to be wary of sexual licence.

If Christians and other religious communities have a moral critique to make of secular society, they would do better to spit it out and let us all debate the matter, rather than hiding behind made-up religious symbols and the posture of victimhood.

Dolan Cummings