It is better to be an atheist than a hypocritical Catholic, said Pope Francis during his improvised comments at his private morning Mass at his residence on Thursday, the Reuter reported.

"It is a scandal to say one thing and do another. That is a double life… "There are those who say 'I am very Catholic, I always go to Mass, I belong to this and that association'," the Pope said, according to a Vatican Radio transcript.

The head of the 1.2 billion strong Roman Catholic Church added that some of these people should also say "'my life is not Christian, I don't pay my employees proper salaries, I exploit people, I do dirty business, I launder money, (I lead) a double life'."

"There are many Catholics who are like this and they cause scandal," he said. "How many times have we all heard people say 'if that person is a Catholic, it is better to be an atheist'."

Since his election in 2013, Francis has often told Catholics, both priests and lay people, to practice what their religion preaches.

In his often impromptu sermons, he has condemned sexual abuse of children by priests as being tantamount to a "Satanic Mass", said Catholics in the mafia excommunicate themselves, and told his own cardinals to not act as if they were "princes".

Less than two months after his election, he said Christians should see atheists as good people if they do good.

The unconventional Pope has often spoken empathetically about the gay community, exploited women and children, the arms industry: "I believe the church should apologise not only to the person who is gay whom it has offended, but has to apologise to the poor, to exploited women, to children exploited for labour; it has to ask forgiveness for having blessed many weapons".

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Rainbow laces have become a symbol of football’s struggle against anti-gay prejudice. EPA/Tal Cohen

But more concerning, the survey also found that 8% of football fans would stop supporting their club if an openly gay player were signed. Graeme Le Saux, a straight player who was subjected to homophobic abuse on and off the pitch for years, responded with a note of optimism about the situation – and said that “If that 8% are so appalled at the thought of a gay player being on their team then we should ask them to step forward, own their views and we can just ban them. They’re not welcome in football.”

This data is just the latest evidence that homophobic views are still present in football. A 2013 report issued by the Brighton and Hove Supporters Club (BHASC) and the Gay Football Supporters’ Network (GFSN) revealed that Brighton fans and players are consistently subjected to or witness homophobic abuse while observing or playing football. More recently, Stonewall published a report, Leagues Behind, which examines sports fans’ attitudes towards LGBT people. It highlights that seven in ten football fans have heard homophobic abuse while watching sport.

In a particularly telling finding, Stonewall reports that young people are twice as likely to rationalise homophobic abuse as “banter”, normalising discrimination, thus fostering the sort of environment in which players are put off coming out. To illustrate the point, one in five of the 18- to 24-year-olds Stonewall talked to said they would be embarrassed if their favourite player came out.

If this unpleasant situation is going to change, the institutions of professional football need to get on board. As Ruth Hunt, Stonewall’s Chief Executive, put it:

While the majority of people see homophobic chants and abuse as a problem, and want to see sport become more welcoming of lesbian, gay, bi and trans players and fans, there is a persistent minority who believe this sort of abuse is acceptable … We need high profile sports clubs and personalities to stand up as allies and help make sport everyone’s game by showing that homophobic abuse has no place in sport.

So where are the people to do this – and how can they be encouraged to speak out and be supported when they do?

Gay footballers and straight allies

As the most recent findings emerged, Greg Clark, chairman of the Football Association (FA), warned that it would be impossible for a gay premier league player to come out because of the abuse they’d receive. Looking back over recent history, it’s not hard to see why he’d think this.

Back in 1990, Justin Fashanu became the first English footballer to come out, but he tragically took his own life in 1998 at the age of 37. Since then, no professional male player has come out while competing in the English game. A few amateur footballers have spoken openly about their sexual orientation while competing – Liam Davis, for example – but in the professional male game, players have almost exclusively come out after retiring (such as Thomas Hitzlsperger).

The upshot is that no “out” gay male footballers are currently competing in the English Premier League. Estimates of the proportion of LGB people in the British population vary from the low to mid single digits; considering that there are 92 professional football clubs in England and Wales with between 30 and 50 players contracted to each, the absence of gay footballers diverges drastically from the figure in the general population.

But it need not be this way. And despite Greg Clark’s words, there have been some encouraging signs that things could be changing.

While they may not be at the top of the game, some of those who have chosen to be open about their sexuality seem to have received more support than abuse. One paper looking into the online reaction to Hitzlsperger’s coming out reported “an almost universal inclusivity through the rejection of homophobia”. It found that of 6,106 online comments, just 2% of comments contained “pernicious homophobic content”.

In another example, England women’s captain Casey Stoney described overwhelming support for her choice to come out in 2014.

Perhaps even more encouragingly, inclusive attitudes are also presented by “straight allies” who campaign for the acceptance of openly gay footballers. One particularly vocal ally in professional football is Joey Barton.
 

Joey Barton has spoken out. EPA/Guillaume Horcajuelo

Given his “bad boy” reputation, Barton is perhaps an unlikely straight advocate for gay rights, but he’s nonetheless spoken openly about gay footballers, offering an insider perspective on the importance of accepting diversity. As he himself has written

It’s all well and good speaking about an idyllic culture, but how can we get it? The way I see it is simple, you’re not only responsible for what you say but what you don’t say. People with social impact need to speak up.

Similarly, in direct response to FA chairman Greg Clark’s comments concerning homophobia in football, ex-footballer Chris Sutton has said there’s never been a better time for a footballer to come out.

It seems there isn’t really a consensus on the situation either inside or outside the football establishment. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find ways to improve it – and identifying points for useful intervention should be at the centre of our efforts.

Forward and back

Previous research into the climate of English (male) professional football has been awash with dominating and subordinating masculinities. The picture is more complex, and we could be on the edge of a progressive and inclusive turn.
 

Longtime bullying target Graeme Le Saux. PA/Mike Egerton

We ourselves are conducting research with adolescent male academy footballers in which we explore player attitudes toward homosexuality in football. The boys we spoke to expressed progressive attitudes, but it was clear that their feelings and experiences were far from stable. While they expressed inclusive attitudes, they also told stories of witnessing and becoming complicit in a range of homophobic incidents – whether implicitly accepting homophobic language or staying passive when witnessing homophobic behaviour.

In short, their attitudes are still malleable when subjected to peer pressure. There is a crucial lesson here. We may be on the verge of what some researchers have called “the doorstep of equality”, but we could also be just a few backward steps away from a return to a harsh orthodoxy where outright homophobia remains the norm.

The latest research and the conflicting responses discussed point to a critical tipping point in the promotion of positive attitudes toward homosexuality in football. As Graeme Le Saux noted, it all comes down to changing the culture of the game. People should be able to play or watch football without witnessing or experiencing abuse.

That means working with the next generation of players to close the gap between their private attitudes and their behaviour among their peers. And everyone invested in the game, from fans to players to clubs to the media, has a crucial role to play.

(Emma Kavanagh, lecturer in Sports Psychology and Coaching Sciences, Bournemouth University; Adi Adams, lecturer in Sport, Bournemouth University; Daniel Lock, senior lecturer in Sport, Bournemouth University.)

This article was first published on The Conversation.
 

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As shocking as they are, mass shootings have become as 'American as apple pie'. Rather than looking for external reasons behind Florida shooter's behaviour, the country needs to do some deep soul-searching.

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Two worlds? Minaret in Brick Lane, East London. Andy Sedg/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Governments in Britain have tended to treat Muslim citizens much like colonial administrations treated their subjects. Intermediaries – tribal leaders or religious figures – are found to establish communication between the empire and its people.

One positive thing about a recent ICM poll of British muslims is that it offers an alternative. The survey, carried out for a Channel 4 documentary, was never going to be able to reflect the complexity of British Muslim life accurately, but it does signal a shift by engaging directly with Muslim citizens.

How poll data is used is one way to test how colonialism’s legacy might linger on. The Daily Mail chose for its headline the quote: “Muslims are not like us and we should just accept that they will not integrate …” while Sky News highlighted that: “Half of British Muslims want homosexuality banned.”

Few media outlets rushed to use the headline that “86% of Muslims feel strong affiliation with UK, higher than the national average", although this too is one of the findings from the survey. It is an “us and them” framework that fails to spark debate about who “we” might be and why “they”, with all their differences, might need greater integration with us, as the report has suggested.

We don’t have space here to discuss how the category Muslim may be broken up across class, regional or ethnic background. Nor will we get into comparisons with others: whether, for instance, British Catholics, or for that matter, members of the Conservative Party, might have similar sentiments towards homosexuality.

Same stop. Same destination? Kamyar Adl/Flickr, CC BY

I want to focus on a more pervasive but implicit idea that allows the obsessive focus on difference. It is what Trevor Philips, the former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and presenter of the documentary, has called everyone else’s “centre of gravity”. A key aspect of that is the concept of secularism, which many take to mean the separation of church and state.

State of affairs

There is an underlying assumption that Islam as a religion is uncomfortable with secularism and that Muslims require “integration” to be able to live in secular states. This assumption finds forceful evidence in the desire expressed by 23% of the Muslims polled for some form of sharia law in UK. Critics who claim that Islamic thought and practice is uncomfortable with secularism may be right, but we need to pause and consider first what they mean by secularism. Is it the same thing that many Muslims might be uncomfortable with?

The most common assumption about secularism is that it is a separation of state and religion. This assumes a universal definition of religion as a specific set of ideas and practices that we can separate from other aspects of life. This definition is, of course, a product of a particular social historical context and not one that is universally true.

Part of life. The Koran. Mohammed J/Flickr, CC BY-ND

Colonialism was integral not just to exporting ideas about what constitutes a religion to other parts of the world, but on imposing that vision of religion on societies that did not demarcate the spiritual from the economic, the moral from the political.

Britain, a deeply Christian society right up to the early 1960s and where empire and Christianity were tied closely together in a “civilising mission”, imposed its definitions on its Asian and African colonies, actively reshaping religious practices. It is not widely discussed that the rigid codification of sharia, as well as Hindu practices, was a process started by colonial administration in India in the late 18th century.

In fact, the notion of religion as a compartmentalised aspect of human existence does not mean much for those who think of Islam, not as a set of specific practices or laws, but as a way of life, or “deen”, which has long been wrongly translated as “religion”.

More critically, the definition of secularism as a separation of church and state obscures a key reality. Historically, secularism has actually entailed the increasing control and management of religious thought and practice by the state. It is not a separation, but a relationship in which the state has increasing control.

In his nuanced analysis of secularism and its development within the European context, cultural theorist Talal Asad showed how this led not just to opening up of church property for market circulation, but also to a new closeness. Perhaps it is easiest if we think of secularism as an inversion of a previous relationship in the European context where the Roman Catholic church had extensive control over the state.

Saudi atheism

Within what we call the “Western” experience of secularism are many differences: the American constitution attempts to protect religious practice from heavy state intervention, leading to a highly religious citizenry. The French state has generally carried out very aggressive management of religious practice.

National Front posters in France highlight tension. EPA/CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON

Secularism as state management of religion is precisely the aspect that the vast majority of Muslims find alien. On the other hand, Islamists – by definition those who want to take over the state to transform society through their interpretation of Islam – find it an appealing prospect.

Unlike the Catholic church, which forms the bedrock of many European attitudes towards religion, Islamic practice has been fairly decentralised over the last 1,400 years. Sharia has been, for the most part, a set of guidelines rather than a set of laws, enforced not by the state but self-imposed through believers deciding to follow the scholarly opinions of particular muftis.

This self-imposition has allowed Islamic thought and practice much more entrenchment in social and political life. That Islam is not reliant on state imposition is precisely what makes it much more accessible to believers than the structured hierarchy of European churches.

Where states such as in Saudi Arabia have pursued state imposition, the level of disaffection with religious practice is very high. In recent decades, atheism has seen significant growth in the kingdom. So many have declared their atheism that the government last year passed a law against it.

Secularism, apparently a cornerstone of British values, is then something quite different from what mainstream understanding would suggest, as is the relationship of Muslims with it. Insisting on integration, without any questioning of dominant assumptions and beliefs, values and ideas, carries strong echoes of colonialism. How and why the UK’s “centre of gravity” came to be defined through its opposition to Muslims needs to be opened up if this report is to be an exercise in bringing us all together.

(This article was first published on The Conversation.)
 

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