A plea for tolerance

The Weekly Worker (not a publication I generally recommend), carries two excellent letters in its current edition (No 656) - both on the sex industry. One, from T&G member John Perry argues for a class approach to sex workers and for unionisation and protective legislation for all "vulnerable workers", regardless of their legality.

The other letter might, at first glance, seem slightly less serious, but is actually very much to the point (and quite amusing, I think, into the bargain):

"According to the Weekly Worker, George Galloway objects to having strip clubs and lap dancing establishments close to places of worship ('SWP puritanism', January 11).

"In a way I can understand why some customers of these entertainments may not like having worship going on nearby. Worship is a deliberate degradation of the human spirit, by people who imagine there are tyrannical intelligences with power over human beings that people have to grovel to and appease.

"Although it is right that we should campaign to prevent children from being exposed to this "iniquity", in reality worship only damages the people who engage in it, and does not affect others in adjacent buildings. Therefore, customers of lap dancing and strip clubs should be more tolerant of religion going on nearby, however perverted it may seem to them.

"Angela Keene

"Hertfordshire".