Row over religious appointment to council committee
Councillors have slammed the appointment of a religious representative to the education and families committee, calling the process “archaic” and “absurd”.
John Rollo was appointed to the committee at Wednesday’s full SIC meeting, with voting rights, following a nomination by the Shetland Churches Council Trust.
But councillor Stephen Leask wanted to defer the appointment – arguing councillors should be able to question religious representatives on their stance on issues such as LGBT rights and equal rights for women.
He said he was frustrated that councillors were “democratically elected to get voting rights”, while religious representatives “just walk in the door”.
Mr Leask called the appointments “unconstitutional and undemocratic”.
Governance manager Jan Riise argued however, that the SIC were constitutionally bound to make the appointment and give each person voting rights.
Councillor Gary Robinson agreed with Mr Leask, calling the appointments “quite frankly ridiculous in the 21st century”, and adding he would rather see MSYP’s get voting rights on the committee.
But he proposed they appoint Mr Rollo, “not because we want to but because we are required to”.
Shetland Central representative Ian Scott called the religious appointments “absurd”, and fellow member Moraig Lyall said she would be “completely happy” to see them “done away with”.
Councillor Bryan Peterson agreed, saying he did not think it was appropriate.
He added, however, that the most recent appointments – Mr Rollo and Ellen Weir – were “good people”, and he argued their characters should not be called into question.
Alex Stone
A question. Why can’t you just say no to religious ‘walk in the door” appointments?
It’s the 21st century. Most of the rest of us have evolved beyond man made superstitions, and, for some, the need to worship oracles.
This……taboo about questioning religious organisations getting special treatment on councils, or tax exemptions on anything to do with religion, is out of date. Taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidizing these organizations at all.
Time to evolve.
Steven Jarmson
First point, Stephen Leask is wrong, if the constitution says a religious adviser must be appointed, it would be unconstitutional not to appoint according to the constitution.
Second point, the vast majority (according to census) believe in religions and describe themselves by religious terminology when asked.
Just because a very noisy minority don’t have belief in anything doesn’t mean they have the right to over rule the majority, nor dismiss what they can not understand.
But, that is the modern thing, tiny minority groups claiming things that are easily disputable but the majority are told to sit and be quiet.
Whilst, I agree, no one should be let into positions without due scrutiny, facts need to be used in creating the argument against them.
Simply saying, it’s undemocratic would suffice, bigoted views about religion and other belief systems, simply shows a lack of inclusive values which are so prevalent amongst so called “progressives.”
What would be more worrying would the new religious movement of “progressives” getting a place on the committee and thrusting more of their spurious lies upon our children and society.
As a rural island group, I really hope we never ever become either “metropolitan” nor a “metropolis!”
Avalina Kreska
I couldn’t agree more with Stephen Leask’s position. Apart from the wider ‘issues’ that might fly in the face of Shetland Christian Churches, to make Shetland a truly cosmopolitan metropolis that it aspires to be, it’s essential that ‘all’ faiths are recognised to have a say, as this affects the way of life of ‘all’ people in Shetland. Or, disallow the ‘one view’ religious representative to swing voting for their own ideologies.