There's a lot of bigotry about. Often from those who reckon to be against bigotry. Some examples:
1 Today in London a demo demands that a ballerina of the English National Ballet should be sacked because an undercover reporter from The Guardian discovered her membership of the BNP. So far as I know she has not used her position to advance BNP views, not worn a placard on stage saying "expel all non-whites". Indeed her husband would fall foul of such an edict. What a victory it would be for the BNP if she were sacked.
2 A group of fundamentalist Christians demonstrate against an anti-discrimination bill because they believe it would illegalise their discrimination against homosexual people.
3 As surely anyone can see, that is a minority Christians viewpoint. But Polly Toynbee, a stalwart defender of toleration, except when it concerns Christian activists, uses it to argue that "the faiths use their greatest firepower not to challenge gross inequality …. but other people's sexuality. … Given an ounce of power they use it to deny basic liberties." (Guardian 9th January)
4 A few days earlier (Guardian 3rd January) Neal Lawson, an atheist, had noted that much good work in the community is done by faith groups: "if they preach the cause of the poor and the needy in our bloated materialistic world, then they are my people". Dear Polly calls such words "backsliding" and a torrent of angry letters from secularists was published.
Liberals or bigots?