From top left – SNP hopefuls Lorna Douglas; Tony Giugliano; Caroline McAllister; Karen Conaghan; Scott Lafferty and Jackie Baillie MSP.
NOTEBOOK by BILL HEANEY
They haven’t gone away you know. Bigots, the kind of people who would never vote for a Catholic or a Protestant unless the candidate was “one of theirs”.
These people are, on both sides, Scotland’s shame – that great divide which has polluted Scotland for the past 150 years.
They would rather give up their democratic right to vote than cast their ballot for someone whose religion they oppose.
Their bitterness manifests itself in marching bands and colourful parades and rallies, which happen every year in July and August.
More sinister than these however is the discrimination against people seeking employment – or even leisure.
Dumbartonians know there were particular trades in the whisky and shipbuilding industries in which Catholics were not allowed to work in the more responsible (and better paid) jobs. No Irish need apply.
Bowling clubs discriminated against Catholics, allowing only a few of them access to their manicured greens and private bars.
There were golf clubs too where Catholics were purposely made to feel uncomfortable, and where only a few “token Tims” were given membership.
Our town’s most famous author, world famous AJ Cronin, was ignored for years because he was Catholic.
I was myself black balled by Dumbarton Bowling Club despite the fact that I edited a newspaper which devoted a full two pages weekly during the bowls season to coverage of the game, the main purpose of which was to encourage people to take it up.
I covered all their Burns’ Suppers, St Andrew’s Nights and club dinners, but that cut no ice with them.
Catholics were at it too, of course. One man who was lucky enough to be promoted by the local Council (not West Dunbartonshire Council, but one of its predecessors) was found sitting as his desk tearing up job application forms and throwing them in the bin.
When a colleague asked him what he was doing, he said the forms were all from Protestants – “What they did to us,” he said, “I am now doing to them.”
A fundamentalist Orange parade through Dumbarton. Picture by Bill Heaney
Election time for the Scottish Parliament and local councils is just eight months away and the United States election is even closer.
Veteran journalist Kevin McKenna wrote at the weekend: “If the lamentable standard of discourse at the first presidential debate is a fair reflection then the most powerful country in the world has become infantile.
“In the 21st century it’s come down to this: two elderly, super-rich white men: one spouting racist views; the other an emotionless, uncultured automaton: each reaching for the nation’s moral high ground.”
Morality is one thing, but stupidity is quite another. Ignorance can be cured by education and information, but stupidity is forever. It can be sinister.
And that’s why McKenna’s point that one of the geographical kinks of US politics is that a relatively small but disproportionately influential alliance of Christians may hold the key to the outcome.
He writes: “It’s an accepted dynamic of presidential elections that Catholic voters have become crucial in deciding the outcome in swing states.
“This year they could provide a lifeline for Donald Trump if he can persuade enough of them to discard all other moral and ethical considerations and base their vote on abortion rights.
“The President purports to be pro-life (although his empathy for other humans seems to end as soon as they emerge from the womb).
“His supporters insist that authentic Catholics simply can’t, in all conscience, vote for Joe Biden, owing to the Democratic nominee’s support for abortion.
“It is an intellectually barren approach which fails to understand 2000 years of Christian belief and the complex array of cultural and philosophical influences that have shaped it.
“Thus Catholics are being urged to ignore the President’s treatment of women; his pathological tendency to lie; his pandering to the rich at the expense of the poor; his neglect of God’s creatures, just because he says he is anti-abortion.
“Many influential Catholic bishops who seem more comfortable in the arms of big business and the embrace of the country-club golf set have urged their flocks to back Trump. Their sympathies aren’t shared by Pope Francis.”
It could be that here in West Dunbartonshire, we will have people voting in our elections in the 21st century still on whether the candidate is Billy or Dan or straight or gay or trans or abortion or pro-life.
McKenna writes that in Scotland the Catholic Church “wisely has chosen not to adopt such a reductive approach to secular politics.”
My own impression is that since the Church of Scotland is opposed to abortion most of its members, most practising Catholics, will vote for Pro-Life candidates.
McKenna adds that this works both ways, however.
He writes: “There is a growing sense of resentment among Catholics that merely to believe in the fundamental sanctity of human life from conception is now deemed unacceptable and tantamount to criminality.
“There is an inference that Catholics who are faithful to all of their church’s teachings are to be considered unfit for public office.
“We are on dangerous and sinister territory here in which Catholics and Christians in the reformed traditions may soon feel forced to vote according to an exclusively religious agenda simply to protect the status of their faith.
“Modern Scotland has managed thus far to plot an intricately inclusive course and to reject the manipulation of religious belief evident in Trumpian America.
“It would be a tragedy if this were to happen here owing to the shrill intolerance of a secularist inquisition.”
We can only wait and see what will happen in Dumbarton constituency next May, which Jackie Baillie holds at present for the Labour Party.
Ms Baillie is expected to go forward for the seat unopposed by her local party members.
It will not be the same for the SNP though.
Candidates are lining up for selection. They include gay and trans rights campaigner Toni Giugliano who threw his hat in the ring in August; Scott Lafferty, who is favourite for selection, works in Glasgow and lives in Dumbarton East with his same sex partner; Karen Conaghan, a local woman who chairs the Education Committee on West Dunbartonshire Council; Caroline McAllister, who represents the SNP for a Vale of Leven seat on the Council and Lorna Douglas, who represents a Helensburgh seat on Argyll and Bute Council.
Although Helensburgh and Cardross are for voting purposes within the Scottish Parliament constituency, they are in Argyll and Bute for local government purposes.