The proper limits of government

Once again I find myself with many things to write about, but I am drawn to a press report on the case of a prison chaplain called Barry Trayhorn who is taking HMP Littlehey in Cambridgeshire to an employment tribunal because they objected to him reading out loud a passage from The Bible concerning homosexuality.

My first reaction is to wonder what the point is of having chaplains in prison if they are not allowed to quote the book which is after all foundational to their religion.  I also wonder what the prison's reaction would be to an imam quoting an Islamic source about homosexuality.

However what really interests me here is one of the comments left on the website of a national newspaper, which reads as follows:

If the Bible contains text that breaks the law, it should be removed from sale and public viewing, so should any other religious book that does the same. Why should people be subject to abuse by medieval practices and literature.

An immediate response is that this comment is a classic example of Britain's ongoing slide into communism. If communists do not like a text, then no one should be allowed to read it.  As it happens I do not like The Koran, but I do not seek to ban other people from reading it, although I have previously advanced a case for banning it from prisons.

I then found myself pondering the question of the proper limits of government.  In Britain, governments enact laws with the support of parliament.  On the whole I feel that laws are there to be obeyed, even if I do not agree with them.  Nevertheless there may be exceptions.  For example it is illegal to beg in public, but I wonder how many people would refuse to beg if they had no other source of income.

So far as I am aware, it is not currently illegal to give money to a beggar.  If it were, I wonder how many of us would never break that particular law?

If people are expected to obey laws, then it is perhaps reasonable that governments should tend not to enact laws which people are unwilling to obey.  A failure to understand this simple point appears to be one of the hallmarks of a communist.

Update: Barry Trayhorn's employment tribunal claim was unsuccessful.  I merely observe the fact.

Related previous posts include:
Now ban The Koran