I have long been irritated by the 'National Secular Society' (which will, no doubt, delight them). This week they have popped up in the news again in respect of trying to seek some sort of method of 'debaptism' (like anyone can turn the clock back and undo history - it's laughable!). Others have criticised this stance and I don't need to repeat their words, but I do think that the NSS needs to be examined a little closer for what they really are.

I have always found the NSS position to be demonstrably anti-free-speech and profoundly anti-democratic (something they would no doubt argue). They argue principally for the removal of religious influence in the public sphere: that is to say that one's religious belief should be left in a cupboard at home and all politicians should specifically ignore religion altogether when making policy.

Notwithstanding the fact that much, if not all, policy-making has its roots in moral decision-making and is thus permanently tied into belief structures of one form or another, it seems obvious to me that if large proportions of the population find their social and political opinions informed by their religious beliefs then it is natural for religion to be in the public sphere. Someone has to represent the people holding those beliefs at the despatch box and in public life. To leave religion inside the home is to deny the right to express opinions founded or influenced by a religious belief and to disenfranchise expressly anyone holding those opinions.

Of course the tactic used by the NSS (in a very 'Nazi-like' way) is to progressively 'demonise' public religious practices and so, in the end, to suppress religion altogether by fragmenting it to the point of non-existence. The steady drip-drip-drip of reducing the right of any religious opinion to be taken account of in public policy-making (no matter how many people adhere to it) will, if unchecked and if the NSS have their way, lead to the destruction of Christianity in particular and religion in general wherever the NSS's tactics hold sway. And it must be fought. Hard. We cannot go meekly into that abyss because once our descendants know nothing of our religious beliefs there will not be a way back.

I had hoped the NSS would remain a minor irritant, but it seems their drip-drip approach is paying dividends as religious opinion is frequently ignored in debates and decisions about our statutes, what with anti-discrimination legislation that actually and actively discriminates in and of itself, right-to-life being ignored and the abhorrent legislation allowing the production of animal-human hybrid embryos.

It's time to fight back and it's time to review the way we fight back. We need men and women of steel who understand the media, understand opinion-forming, and understand how to motivate those millions of people who instinctively rebel against such things but feel impotent in the face of their apparent powerlessness.