Thursday, November 09, 2006

Like a white rag to a bull

Funny how it is that for this left-winger it is the the antics of other left wingers that is more likely to raise the blood-pressure than anything the other side can produce.

Today's example is Ekklesia, a progressive Christian group who seem to have a problem with our annual Poppy appeal.

Like most successful campaigns it's simple - every year we give money, some wear a poppy, some go to church, but mostly a bunch of money is raised to support people who were damaged protecting the freedom we're currently taking for granted.

Now this Ekklesia bunch want to get into the old, tired argument that the poppy should be white and not red.

As an atheist I'll not take a swing at their quote that the white poppy is "more Christian", but I know Mrs. Stan will probably have something to say on that.

The head of Ekklesia is Jonathan Bartley, who is an endangered species - an outspoken Christian who is anti-gay-bashing and anti-Christian-Jihad when it comes to "Jerry Springer, The Opera". The man is a national treasure, but today he didn't have a good day with me. I hope today was just an opportunist piece of shameless publicity and that tomorrow Mr Bartley will go back to fighting the intolerance and chauvinism in his church, which is where he is needed.

Repeat after me - the colour doesn't matter. The Poppy appeal does very little harm and an enormous amount of good - both in raising money and in the annual remembrance.

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