BBC Newsnight: Ian Paisley says “Absolute cobblers to your programme”
by Archbishop Cranmer:
The election of Edwin Poots to the DUP leadership has caused a slight ripple in the media, with journalists focusing not so much on his policies or plans for getting rid pf the Northern Ireland Protocol, but wondering from which Dickens novel he might have emanated, and scoffing at the fact that he is a ‘young earth’ creationist: that is, he believes the planet to be about 6,000 years old. This was the starting point of the BBC’s Newsnight on Friday 14th May, which didn’t go down very well with Ian Paisley MP:
You may disagree fervently with the social conservatism of the DUP; indeed, you may think them to be a load of sectarian bigots whose Protestantism belongs to a bygone age. And you may think Edwin Poots’ belief in ‘young earth’ creationism to be quite absurd, if not showing him to be utterly foolish. But Ian Paisley is absolutely right to rebuke Faisal Islam here, because this was their starting point of coverage of Edwin Poots’ election (along with the fact that he opposed gay men donating blood). Ian Paisley simply and quite reasonably makes the point that Newsnight (or the entire BBC) would never subject an elected Muslim politician to such disdainful coverage (or, indeed, a politician of any other faith).
If the BBC is going to lampoon one politician’s religious beliefs, there needs to be parity of scrutiny and equality of scorn. Of course Edwin Poots’ belief that the earth is 6,000 years old is patent nonsense when all the science suggests it is 4.54 billion years old (plus or minus 50 million years). But it is equally absurd to believe that Mohammed flew through space on a winged horse:
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