On Thursday March 21st (The day of the Spring Equinox) Lord David Alton will
join forces with long-time Witch-Hunter Valerie Sinason to kick start
another Satanic Panic in the U.K. They are hosting a meeting of
'like-minds' in the Jubilee Room at the Houses of Parliament about Satanic
Ritual Abuse. Thirteen years after Sinason helped create the previous
panic she is back again with her obsessive and persistent tales of Satanic
Ritual Abuse. Why has David Alton given his support to this new push
for mediaevalism? Because he is a Christian activist who is
using his political position to further the interests of the Christian lobby
at the expense of pluralism of the U.K. At a time when confidence
within minority cultures in our land is at its most sensitive; when Islamic
fanatics are being rightly ostracised by ordinary Moslems in favour of a
united society, it appears that White Christian fanatics are trying to seize
the middle-ground by depicting Black ancestor worshippers as Satanic Murderers.
(The Thames Torso Case - See here
Is David Alton ignorant of what went on before? - Certainly not.
Is he unaware of the failure of all 84 previous claimed cases of SRA? -
Can't be.
Does he know that Valerie Sinason, the woman who has helped organise
his conference, was involved in the earlier failed claims and has a track
record of making failed claims about Satanic Ritual Abuse? (see here)
Is he aware that the Department of Health refused to publish Valerie Sinason's
official report on the subject? (See here)
Is he aware that Valerie Sinason told an Independent Reporter that she had
found evidence of Cannibilism on the Internet which resulted in a full page
expose which the reporter had to apologise in print for afterwards because
it was NOT cannibalism? See Here.
Does Alton know that Valerie Sinason works with Maverick Christian Activist
Andrew Boyd who broadcast untrue claims about supposed Satanic Ritual Abuse
Videos, to the nation? See Here.
One would have thought that Alton would know enough to be careful, after
all one of the first Manic Satanic Ritual Abuse mass-lift cases occurred
on his own patch in Liverpool in 1990 ,when eleven children were
mistakenly taken into care and like the Rochdale, Manchester and Orkney
cases, fell apart in the end, having had no substance whatsoever.
Could it be that Alton's world-view is coloured by his personal sectarian
interests? Well, YES!
After all he is a Christian activist . He used to write a column for the
Catholic Herald and the Catholic Universe. He gave up his seat in
Parliament because of the conflict of his beliefs on abortion and that of
his party. He was one of the founders of the Christian Movement for
Democracy, launched try to impose 'Christian Values' on politics.
For a time there he was seriously moving towards starting a Christian
Democratic Party.
Can Alton really be accepted as an unbiased commentator when it comes
to claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse? Or is it possible that Alton has
stepped into the shoes of the late MP for Saddleworth, Geoffrey Dickens,
Christian Lay preacher and hypocrite, who worked with the Satan Hunters last
time to promote the idea and ended up looking like a fool? Study Alton's
own actions and statements for the truth of the matter:
In a telling article in the Christian Magazine New
Consciousness Alton said:
The Green Movement has very strong paganistic elements and a fascination
with the New Age. Because Christianity has not been central to the debate
many young people in search of non-materialistic values can easily be lured
in to those forces.
What pray, are 'those forces'
In May 1992 Alton reviewed Andrew Boyd's pot boiler Blasphemous
Rumours on Satanic Ritual Abuse in The Catholic Pictorial.
Alton concluded
'Andrew Boyd's carefully researched book contains statement after statement
from credible and professionally qualified people...I defy anyone to read
'Blasphemous Rumours and to be neither disturbed nor indifferent to this
issue.'
But Boyd's book was discredited almost immediately it was published with
the main 'victim impostor' admitting that she had lied about her claims of
Satanic Ritual Abuse in order to get help. His research was then undermined
totally when a video he claimed showed actual ritual abuse occurring turned
out to be a ten year old little known piece of performance art instead.
One of the largest contributors to Boyd's book was Valerie Sinason who shared
much of the material for her duff Devil Report for the DoH. This was
eventually ditched by the DoH. who said
'In the governments view the conclusion of the earlier study (which
found there was no such thing as satanic abuse) has NOT been rendered invalid
by the Hale and Sinason study.
The Independent newspaper put it this way:
'In other words, the claims about Satanic abuse are to say the least , dubious. See Here.
Thirteen years of sensational claims, failures and inaccuracies. How
could David Alton find Boyd's work valid unless it was what he WANTED to
believe in?
Yes folks the fundies are at it again. That's exactly what the first government
report concluded, and that's exactly what is happening now. Prejudiced, ignorant
Christian activists going for the easy target and creating social stress
and discord in the process in order to supplant political pluralism with
a theocracy. Alton may not have actually aided and abetted these
troublemakers, yet - but he is not ignorant of the status quo as the following
chronology illustrates.
In November 1990 Alton's Movement for Christian Democracy (MCD) issued The
Westminster Declaration, a political manifesto which hid Christian holy writ
within acres of hyperbole and which was intended to polarise Christians from
all parties in the House towards a fifth column of Christian-favoured policies
and activities. It's six major points read:
-
'the MCD takes it's bearings from Christian convictions about the person,
society and political authority', Human beings are created in the image of
God',
-
'The Kingdom of God is heralded by a community in which ALL are to be
reconciled in Christ Jesus'.
-
'ALL authority is from God and must be exercised in accordance with Divine
ordinances',
-
'to encourage awareness of our accountability to God in all aspects of
public and private life.'
-
'The evaluation of decisions in terms of how they affect our individual
and collective relationships with god',
-
'to make resources available so that parents may effectively exercise
their right to have children educated in conformity with their own religious
and philosophical convictions,'
Of course they fulfilled this last one perfectly; hence Tony Blair's muted
tolerance of Christian Schools replacing the Theory of Evolution in
science classes with mythical tales of God making the earth in six days!
In June 1992 in his column for the Catholic Universe, Alton wrote 'The
'Darwinian Tendency' will be rejoicing at their victory in reducing
these questions (on embryo research) simply to a matter of science.
Ipso Facto that must mean if science conflicts with religious myths
then science is unquestionably wrong! As when in the same month Alton
demanded that Christian parents should have the right to remove their children
from science classes which taught about Aids and HIV as it involved the use
of condoms which he inferred was a religious matter and nothing to
do with science.
Six months after Alton launches the Movement for Christian Democracy he appears
on a rostrum to celebrate its success with Chris Williams, a member of the
MCDs 'steering committee' . Williams is also billed as the Pastor of New
Life Church, Loughton.
Would this be the same New Life Church which has as its mouthpiece
the New Life Christian outreach newspaper which features the headline:
Ye Shall Have No Other Gods'
in an article about prophecies concerning Britain coming under God's judgment
'for its worship of foreign gods',
New Life Magazine also features an article about how Christian Evangelists
in Baghdad converted Muslims to Christ during the Gulf War as the bombs were
dropping.
And how a Spanish woman was healed of AIDS by praying British Christians,
It covers Tory MP in Waiting John Taylor glorying that he had become a born-again
Christian through Clive Calver, leader of the Evangelical Alliance,
They carry the story about the Bradford preacher who they claim raised the
dead 14 times,
Perhaps their most wacky article is the one about scientists discovering
the Gates of Hell. It claims geologists have drilled through the earth's
crust in Sibera and found a hollow section through which they heard human
voices screaming in pain. Hellfire and damnation indeed!
No, it probably isn't THAT New Life Church. Or is it? Please
correct us Mr Williams.
Alton's prejudices in favour of Christianity over other non-Christian beliefs
are clear but he is not slow in complaining when the boot is on the
other foot. In April 1993 he complained publicly about the Muslim
government in Egypt 'persecuting' Egyptian Christians. He claimed
that
'all children, regardless of faith, are forced to learn the Koran.'
Such hypocrisy from the lobby which worked to reform the 1988 education act
to enforce 'majority Christian religious education', in British Schools and
which has spent years trying to modify religious education to their benefit.
In November 1993 Christopher Graffius, co-leader of the MDC reports on the
progress of the 3 year old Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, where MPs
from across all parties 'meet every Monday lunchtime to study a reading
from the bible and pray'. He brags that the PCF will this year organise a
Prayer Breakfast at the Houses of Parliament which will be attended by over
eight hundred Christians. Yet another example of the religious fifth
column in British politics.
The Catholic Times reported in February 1994 that the MCD had plans
to train up Christian politicians by seeking to provide the opportunity for
young Christian people to spend a year studying Christianity and politics.
Insidious or what? Can you imagine the outrage if Moslems did
the same thing?
February 1994: The Catholic Times reports that the MCD collected 47,500
signatures from Christians to present as a petition to the Lords and
successfully killed off the Euthanasia bill. (forgive the pun)
In Spring 1994 the MCD was reported in the Catholic Times as 'welcoming Alton's
victorious campaign against gratuitously violent videos. The campaign
was planned and launched at a meeting at the MCDs conference in January together
with The Evangelical Alliance. (ed: The EA was founded by
fundamentalist Christians and its leaders were involved in the promotion
of the idea of Satanic Ritual Abuse during the early 1990s)
It's April 1994 and Christopher Graffius, a leader of the MCD, writes
bullishly about the Christian Axis in European politics.
'The Christian founding fathers of the European Union saw their task as the
destruction of the system of competing national self-interests.'
About the European Flag he says
' The stars refer not to the countries of the Union but the twelve stars
that crown Our Lady in the Apocalypse.'
And at a stroke lays claim to the entire European continent for
Christianity.
He has need to be confident - the majority of seats in the Euro Parliament
are owned by the various Christian Democratic Parties of Europe, all
of which the Christian Fifth Column is closely in touch with.
In July 1994: David Alton clashes with Baroness Chalker over claimed
subsidies to two family planning organisations in China which , he says,
results in torture, violence, murder and slavery.
'Large numbers of baby girls are murdered every year by parents wanting their
only child to be a son..'
Is it me being over-sensitive , or does anyone else see the overtones
in this statement? Does it infer to you what it infers to me? That
the Chinese are all atheists who wouldn't think twice about killing their
offspring? Perhaps if they were converted to Christianity they mights
spare a few eh? Shades of Chinese Satanic Abuse perhaps? I would
be interested in seeing evidence to corroborate these claims.
It's August 1995 and The Church of England Newspaper reports that the
MCD is campaigning for a new law to force women who choose to have an abortion
to sign an official form giving permission
'for pain to be caused to the foetus'.
The piece reported Alton as believing that foetal pain can be detected at
nine weeks, the point when most abortions take place. The law is seen as
an last ditch attempt to tighten up the abortion laws before he ceases to
be an MP. The BMA and the Birth Control Trust opposed Alton's attempts
to change the law saying that it was
'insidious and intended to introduce an element of guilt both for doctors
and women seeking abortions'.
1995: The rich and influential political lobbying organisation Christian
Action Research and Education (CARE) which exists to link together pan-European
Christian Democracy politicians and political action, admits to having funded
research and work for David Alton and Michael Alison (the co-founder of the
MDC)
In January 1995 Alton addressed the MDCs Epiphany Conference and said that
Christian values had already risen on the political agenda thanks to the
MCD, he called on the movement to
'remember its prophetic role as Christians'
and issued five challenges to members the main one of which was to
'remember the centrality of God to their work and the centrality of his
agenda.'
In October 1995 Alton launched into an attack on the National Lottery
calling for its abolition calling it an ' expensive and dangerous folly'
Alton had campaigned against the Lottery when he was a member of the
Commons Standing Committee and claimed his worst fears had come true and
that there had been a 17.5 per cent increase in calls to Gamblers' Anonymous
since the lottery began!
February 1996: the MCD publishes and distributes to Church and
non-Christian schools a Statement of Christian Inspired Values to be used
in religious education.
In 1996 Alton is awarded a fellowship by the Centre for Philosophy
and Public Affairs at St Andrews university for his work on Citizenship
and the Role of Judaeo Christian Values in Modern Society. (ed:
This is probably just one of those strange synchronicities but the producer
who made that abominable and now discredited Cook Report, The Devil's Work,
on the subject of Satanic Abuse, got a first in Theology at St Andrews) .
In October 1996 Alton jumped to the high moral ground by penning a column
in the Guardian headed Cleaning Up The Sleaze in the wake of
the Cash for Questions affair. He probably wasn't aware at
that time that the journal of the organisation he founded The Movement for
Christian Democracy) had accepted a whacking £200,000.00 donation from
Mohammed Al Fayed, owner of Harrods. In the dry humour of the British
Press this became known colloquially as the Cash for Christians affair.
One thing is for sure, you can do a lot of political lobbying with
£200.000.00 and that is exactly what most of the work of the MCD journal
is, rallying Christians countrywide to affect the political status quo.
In November 1996 It was reported that Alton admitted to having backroom
discussions with Christians from all political parties with the possibility
of setting up the Christian Democrat Party. David Hunt MP refused,
reportedly saying that he did not want to be associated with a 'God-squad
organisation'.
This is just a small sample of David Alton's continuous Christian
Campaigning. No doubt he wants to avert the suffering of small children
wherever it occurs, just as much as everyone else, but equally he cannot
deny that he is driven by a biblical world view which decries all other religious
beliefs as inferior, and which is more ready to accept stories of Satanic
Ritual Abuse than otherwise would be the case.
The point is this: David Alton is a Christian Activist, seeking to
impose a Christian View on us all. When the Christian fifth column has finished
off the Satanists, who will they start on next? The Jews? The
Moslems? The Buddhists? Moonies? Atheists? Scientists?
In Alton's Satanic Ritual Abuse conference on March 21st, the British Populace
will be told tall tales of shock-horror ritual abuse; but what
they won't see is the institutionalised religious bigotry and abuse of human
rights forming itself within British Democracy.
Ends
(c) John Freedom, Mortlake March 20th 2002
www.saff.org.uk