Rings

A West Sussex schoolgirl is taking her school to the high court because she has been told that she cannot wear a "chastity ring". The ring is a symbol of the American "Silver Ring Thing" movement, which promotes abstinence outside marriage, and quotes 1 Thesolonians 4:3 to justify the stance. I find the whole ring thing philosophy deeply nauseating, and while I have no problem with abstinence, I have an enormous problem with people telling me about it. That could be just a personal problem of course. But all that is just background information. The important point here is that Lydia Playfoot, the 16-year-old in question, is claiming that the school is discriminating against her as a christian because muslim headscarves and sikh bangles (do they have a special name?) are premitted.

As usual I have an opinion. I can't understand why anyone would want to wear religious paraphernalia of any kind, but these things are clearly important to some people, so I don't care much if they chose to wear them. I therefore don't care much if schools allow sikh bracelets. I don't care much about muslim scarves and veils either, though I have to say, veils do scare me in some way I can't really pinpoint, but that's another story. The chastity ring however is not a fundamental part of the christian faith. It's the symbol of some movement that happens to be christian. I don't think it's a big issue however, and if I were making the rules, I'd probably allow them in schools. That said, I don't think Miss Playfoot has a legal leg to stand on, and she's going to lose her court case.

I think of this chastity thing a bit like I think about drug taking. I don't really care if you want to do it, I just don't want to know about it. Why do you think I would be even slightly interested in whether or not you're intending to have sex with anyone? Are you under some false impression that abstinence is difficult? When I was 16 I found trying to avoid abstinence much more of a challenge. And incidentally, the high court is not the best, or cheapest solution to this problem. What you need is imagination. Remember a year or so ago a school banned girls from wearing thongs, and I suggested they simply remove them? A similar solution is required here. Miss Playfoot, I suggest you get your nipples pierced an wear the damn ring there. No teacher in this age of political correctness is going to admit knowing anything about it.