[Charryith]

We have to be careful not to base our views on human rights: those are things of the world. (It is human rights law that says homosexuals have the right to 'Gay Pride' marches, the banning of which in Moscow is so abhorrent to human rights activists.) As Alex Haig rightly says, prejudice can play no part in this. We have, rather, to base ourselves on Christian witness. The interesting question is, where is the balance between an active Christian witness and turning the other cheek? (Yes, I realise they can be the same thing.) Is violation of the English sense of 'fair play' something the Christian should react against? Christians who suffer persecution in Pakistan and Bethlehem are clear enough cases. But what of us who live in what is still predominantly a Christian country? Do we turn the other cheek - whatever that may mean in our situation - when a few members of a group (Islam) which is only 3% in society are hostile to us? St Paul tells us (Romans, chapter 13) that the civil authorities are the instruments of God against evildoers. If the Christian majority elects those authorities who then fail to have regard to our legitimate concerns, do we let them get away with it? Is turning the other cheek only a personal injunction for the individual Christian? Does a Christian community in a (relatively) free country having available to it proper means of protest do nothing?