Episode 14 The Big Questions

Privacy for public figures, power for Catholic women and turbans,

Today we're live from Bath Spa University in Bath.

Welcome, everybody, to The Big Questions.

John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, is on the front pages

again, following revelations from a soft pawn actress, saying that. A

single man with the right to a private life. So what?

On Friday an injunction preventing the reporting of one unnamed married

celebrity's sexual frolics with another couple was back in court.

The Sun on Sunday wants the injunction lifted,

citing widespread reports of the couple's names

on the internet and in Scottish, American and Irish papers.

Our public figures fair game or is this intrusion on deeply intimate

private matters? Do public figures have a right to privacy? Hello,

Lembit Opik. The John Whittingdale story today. Another woman, a former

pornography actress, a suggestion that he may have broken some

parliamentary rules. He tweeted the photograph of a lunch at Chequers to

her, which is apparently not allowed. And he showed her some of

the contents of his red box. Is that a story? There is a story here, but

the story is to go into public life and give up every hope of privacy. I

have seen nothing in the revelation today and what has gone before that

suggests that John Whittingdale has done anything to compromise his job.

What I am frustrated about, and I have been through this myself, is

that it is salacious and it sells newspapers but it corrodes what we

are meant to be as a free society. What was it like going through it?

Horrendous. It affects your life and your family and it corrodes your

ability to do your job because you are going through it every day, week

in and week out. I went through it for 18 months and it probably

affected my career. I didn't realise it. I probably would have been more

litigious if I had my time again. Unless you are a saint, think twice

before you go into politics. I am not a Conservative but I think John

Whittingdale has done a good job for the

country and now he is only talking about his private life. I don't care

who he has slept with and what he has done so long as he is a

competent Cabinet minister. Neil Wallis, it was horrendous for Lembit

Opik, it ruins people's lives, shouldn't you profession as the

former News of the World editor, concentrate on exposing serious

corruption in society? The tax exiles, tax avoidance, people

casting this country billions of pounds, rather than tittle tattle. I

think it is difficult to take Lembit Opik as an example of press

intrusion. I am not sure anybody intruded into his private life more

than Lembit Opik and his Cheeky Girl. Your newspaper attacked me

time and again. You libelled me when I tried to deal with it. You ignored

me. What was the public interest benefits talking about my private

life when I was trying to do my job? He can answer this specifics and

this does pertain to the general principle of the umbrella topic. We

shall concentrate on this first and then get on to the issue of the

Secretary of State and this unnamed celebrity couple. Just make this

point. I think it probably does speak to a point that some people

raise. People who invaded their own privacy. Neil Wallis? As I was

explaining, few have invaded their own privacy more than Lembit, who

sold stories to magazines, posed for pictures with his Cheeky Girl, and

with his weather girl, at every opportunity. Turned up at the

opening of an envelope, posed for pictures. He loved it when it suited

him. There are many celebrities like that, to broaden it out. There are

many and absolutely he is not unique in this. What Lembit did and how he

is now talking absolutely appertains to the celebrity injunction. It is

such a comparable situation. What about today's story with John

Whittingdale? It has moved on from the alleged affair with a

dominatrix. We now have a story of somebody who was being unfaithful to

a dominatrix with a soft pornography star. It is interesting and for some

people vaguely amusing but should it be in the newspapers? What do you

have, as a result of the way that the BBC trampled all over John

Whittingdale's privacy, that unleashes a world of further

activity. What you have seen today is a rather thin version that does

not change, that I can see in any way, from the original reason most

newspapers did not publish this story, which is that a single man

has a relationship with single woman, and that is it. But it has

gone beyond that. Well, the revelation today is actually a

picture of some distance of the outside of Chequers. It is not some

private meeting. It is some people wandering around getting some lunch,

one picture, and the suggestion that he showed her, well, she claims he

showed her private papers, but interestingly, she can't recall, if

you read the piece, anything that was in these private papers other

than to say that she saw a letterhead. Do you want to close

down any stories pertaining to somebody's sex life? Should that be

none of anybody's business? We can think of various examples,

politicians where it was important. I wouldn't close down that line of

inquiry if it is relevant to the public interest. To my amazement, I

actually agree with what you have just said about John Whittingdale. I

have done it! Lets go home! There is always a but. The difficulty is that

once the whirlwind rises, you can't get out of it. That is what I

experienced. You may have views about my interest in publicity. But

talking about John Whittingdale, I can't see anything that, misers his

ability to do his job, so in this situation, yes, the private life of

this Cabinet minister is nothing to do with the rest of us. Ditto Cecil

Parkinson, ditto John Major, ditto Prince Charles? Prince Charles

certainly. I don't think he has been inconsistent, but when there is

hypocrisy, you guys have the rights to expose it. We talked yesterday

about the famous photograph of Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal.

Where the press right to dig and take and was Sandra Wright to reveal

what was going on with Camilla Parker Bowles? Personally I don't

feel comfortable with that. It is a grey area for other people. For some

people it is open and shut. If you are not living up to certain

standards yourself, then you are guilty of hypocrisy. That is when

the media has a right to say you cannot save this or that. What is

your opinion on this, as a lawyer, about what is hypocrisy at what is

justifiable? I think we all accept that everybody is entitled to a

certain degree of privacy. The marital bed, in its broadest sense,

the hospital bed, the deathbed, the confessional. Those are areas where

we all accept that there should be privacy. But you can intrude even to

those areas, when there is a legitimate public interest. And what

we have today with the John Whittingdale story is on the one

hand a man who has never really said that he was anything other than a

single man who liked dating women, who appears to have had a

relationship with a page three girl, and she does not go into any detail

about what happened in the marital bed, properly so in my judgment, yet

there are two questions about the picture of the lunch table at

Chequers and also whether she did see anything in the red box, which

was relevant. Embarrassing details? Yes. Her nickname for him, and this

might be brought up, was sexy bottom. That is who he was on her

mobile phone. You can hear Dennis Skinner in House of Commons now

quitting. The beast Bolsover is going to go for it! And he referred

to his constituency as oiks, whether he did or not, that is what she

alleges and that is not good. It is part of the rough and tumble and

what a politician has got to deal with, but if you say that against a

celebrity couple who have always advanced their children, selling

pictures to celebrity magazines, and they have put themselves

relentlessly in the public eye, and they have presented themselves as a

happy, married, monogamous couple, and that really isn't the case, and

as a consequence of that, I think we are entitled to know who they are,

and come Monday I think we may well find out. The threesome business?

OK. Did you sell pictures to celebrity magazines? Yes, I did and

you are right to say I did that. Where you naive to do so? I was

naive in that I didn't realise it would be used against me to the

extent that it was but I was not guilty of hypocrisy. I think other

people should live their lives. And John Whittingdale hasn't preached to

other people as far as I can see. Where do you draw the line?

Everybody in this studio is on television and most people will not

be. Do we have the right to know what everybody in this juju has done

in their private life in case they make a comment? ! This studio. If

there is public interest. That is the point, that is the line that we

are treading here. I think newspapers have the right to report

on John Whittingdale but I don't think it is interesting, just the

latest rubbish, but I wouldn't take away their right to report on it. An

overzealous press can read people's private lives, a press that is not

robust enough corrodes our democracy. That is the price that we

pay? Yes. Look at the Panama papers. David Cameron try to say that the

revelations about his father's company was a private matter but

because we have got a robust press, it did not remain private and we got

the full details. They were not particularly scandalous as far as

David Cameron is concerned but if we lived in a country like France where

they have stricter privacy laws, I don't think we would have found that

out. In 1980s, President Mitterand was suffering from cancer and the

public in France was not allowed to know about it

because was seen as a private matter. I would argue that this is

something that potentially affected his ability to govern the country,

so it is all very well celebrities using... I don't think celebrities

want privacy. They want favourable coverage. You have got to take the

rough with the smooth. You can't use the media on one hand to sell

yourself and turn yourself into a celebrity, and on the other hand

whenever pictures come out that you don't like, or a story comes out

that is not favourable to you, try to complain and shut it down. That

is a very valid point. What I have learned is that you have got to

accept criticism. That is completely fair game. People can rubbish you

and ridicule you. It is when they start telling lies or doing things

that are not in the public interest. There are defamation laws. Libel is

a rich man's game. That is a problem. Not so much any more. It is

a different problem. Neil has made the intervention that libel is no

longer a rich man or woman's game. Surely it is. No-win, no fee. Ask

Mark about it. You can go to a lawyer and if he has a good chance

of winning, he will take your case and where he makes his money, and he

is entitled to 100% increase of his fees, if he wins the case. The great

irony is that the majority of people using this are not members of the

public. It is actually celebrities. Celebrities use this all the time.

Where is the line on public interest and someone's private life? Good

morning. The thing that has made me most uncomfortable about the John

Whittingdale case was the reason that it is shameful is because the

professions of the women that he had relationships with. And his defence

is that he broke up with a sex worker when he found out that she

was a sex worker and I think that is shaming the women for what they do.

It is 2016 and I think a lot of Parliament has used sex workers. Why

is this still a shameful thing to have had a relationship with a

working woman? Hello. We have got you. Very important thing to

remember for the people who are in power, celebrities, is that they are

ideals for young people. It is very important. In India, for example, in

China, for example, Xi Jinping was involved in the Panama reports, it

is important because we look at them. Somebody like me, I am not a

public figure and if I am involved in something messy, it is fine. But

if you are an ideal, a person who we want in our lives, like Sachin

Tendulkar, and then people see him in the reports involved in those

things, then it has a very detrimental effect for society.

Nobody is perfect. Any other comments? We will come here if we

can, I will continue in a second. Do you not think it depends on the

level of celebrity it is that different people should be obliged

different levels of privacy depending on how they use the media,

whether they use it to make a brand or if they are just in the public

eye due to their career, such as actresses, actors, obviously they

know they will be in the public eye but they are not, perhaps,

exploiting it as, say, other celebrities like Kim Kardashian? She

does make the most of it, doesn't she?! And good luck to her. What

about social media? That has changed the game, Mark Stephens? Let's move

on this celebrity couple proceeding with enormous care because I don't

want any of you wonderful people to go to prison. It is out of the bag,

isn't it? It is utterly futile to stop this information coming out in

this social media age? I think that is right. This particular couple has

effectively committed the parish pump heresy, we might call it, that

getting an injunction in England that applies to England and Wales

only, not Scotland, but they should have done, as when Ryan Giggs was

outed, was to register it up there, or perhaps in Ireland and America.

It leads you to this internationalisation. We have

different standards around the world. In this country, we have kind

of adopted and imported the standards of the French, you can't

know about a Prime Minister or a President's second family in France,

as we have seen. We have moved inexorably towards that. Is that a

good thing? I think not. The Commonwealth, who we gave our laws

to, do not have that. They have the idea that there is a certain minimum

standard. Then there was America, the home of social media, America

doesn't really have any privacy laws whatsoever. As a result, in this

particular case that we are talking about with the celebrity and a

couple of other folk, what you have is that the source told an English

newspaper and an American publication prior to the injunction.

So the cat was out of the bag, the genie was out of the bottle. Once

the information genie is out, it will be spread across the globe as a

consequence of social media. There is no stopping it, Lembit Opik? Ryan

Giggs, who allegedly had an affair with somebody from Big Brother, his

name has been mentioned 160 times a minute on Twitter. That is a

ridiculous situation? That was a super injunction, you are not even

to men -- you're not even meant to know there is an injunction with a

super injunction. You are right, the cat is out of the bag. The

difficulty is that there is a principle at stake. Element one, was

he being a hypocrite? It so, there might be public interest. Number

two, does he have a right to defend himself in terms of the River Sea? I

think he does. You are making the mistake of applying English law and

English values. This is a global values. Lets give up on Freedom and

privacy. I live in this country because of those values. Yes, but

you are in a global society. This is the is you which the judges are

dealing with. Because it is out, because the Americans will not stop

it, what do you do? Do you ignore it, pretend in a little England way

that it no longer exists? What you do is use stand-by principles, you

do not give up everybody else does. Call me old-fashioned, I think

pregnancy is not a dirty word, we have the right to privacy for public

figures -- I think River see is not a dirty word. If you are a global

individual with a global reputation, you have to play by global standards

and go to each country where you are major. They are huge in America. The

whole world can watch as programme through the Internet, you are a

global figure right now, by your logic you do not have the right to

produce the any more. Welcome to the world. -- the right to privacy any

more. I am willing to the fight -- to fight for the fact that we are an

island of privacy, hopefully we can get the genie into the bottle and

get people's privacy back. You are living in cloud cuckoo land, Alice

and Wonderland. -- Alice in Wonderland. And they are on the same

side! Is this a story? Why should we know this story about these three

people and the celebrity couple and the infidelity? They say themselves

that they are a committed couple, and that does not necessarily

involve fidelity, as far as they are concerned. Why is it any business of

ours? I'm afraid, for exactly the reason that Lembit has no defence

for what happened to him. This couple, as part of their bid for

world domination, have sold their privacy time and time and time

again. Go carefully. O'Dell but it is a huge part of their brand -- it

is a huge part of their brand that they are a perfect family. There is

no such thing. That is what they are trying to sell. When their children

were born, it was announced and they provided more detail about it than a

royal birth. It is hypocrisy. They are making money. It is not just the

notes of being on live television... Caroline, you are a committed,

faithful Catholic, and if somebody is in the confessional, here is a

thing, say a celebrity is a Catholic and they do something wrong, they

are unfaithful or something, they would go to the confessional and

have penance, yet they are still exposed to their hypocrisy, is it

right? If they are espousing a certain way of life then, probably,

I think it is. In that situation, a Catholic would be able to put their

hands up and exercise a bit of humility and say, yes, what I did

was wrong, I have been to the confessional and I am trying to make

amends. Honesty is key. It is interesting, Lembit was talking

about British values. The British do not like being treated as if we are

children, and we are being treated as if we are children by the judge

in this case. You mentioned Ryan Giggs, that his name was mentioned

160 times a minute. That is typical defiance, when we update you can't

know about this or say this. I am not going into details, but Neal is

right in that the celebrity couple involved, they have... O... They

have been hypocrite... OK... Inasmuch as they are espousing and

advocating certain values and it seems they are in contravention. The

judge has said that if you are in a loyal, committed relationship, that

does not rule out to... That does not necessarily include fidelity.

That is a massive important question for the public interest, what is

marriage? Is it about two people in monogamy? If they have changed

marriage to include... It is a Blu-ray listed world. If marriage is

about fidelity... These are moral judgments which may or may not have

a place. If you were a couple in a situation like this couple, they

came to you, how would you stop the News getting out, or, at the end of

the day, is it impossible? Final word? You take a one-day heads and

then bury all of this with good publicity which they are able to

generate through PR people and the enormous number of people that make

good publicity. It is a bigger story because it has been gagged. If we

take privacy away, like politicians and others, there would be no John

F. Kennedy, no Winston Churchill Admiral Francois Mitterrand and, two

of those people, at least, are very good politicians. That was good, we

got there. Thank you very much indeed.

APPLAUSE If you have something

to say about that debate, log on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions,

where you'll find links to join We're also debating live this

morning from Bath... Should the Vatican give

women more power? So get tweeting or emailing on those

topics now or send us any other ideas or thoughts you may

have about the show. Amoris Laetitia - The Joy Of Love -

is an exhortation from Pope Francis attempting to reconcile modern

family life with church teaching. It's long on sympathy for people

struggling with their conscience over being divorced,

or using contraception, But it hasn't changed any

of the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine on any of the key issues

that people or the planet And maybe this is not a surprise,

because The Joy of Love was based on discussions held over

the past three years, across the world, largely

between men, celibate men. Yet most of the worshippers

in Catholic churches every Their views and experience of modern

family life are more informed. But women cannot be Catholic priests

and none hold senior positions within the Vatican

or the worldwide church. Should the Vatican give women more

power? Caroline? We have a situation, Pope

Francis, a 79 you rolled, possibly a virgin, definitely celibate, what

does he or any of the other old virgins know about women? -- a

79-year-old. For a start, every single Catholic priest has got a

mother, haven't they, and they perhaps have sisters. You are making

an assumption that in order to know about women, you need to have had a

sexual relationship with them... Family life, having children?

Contraception? Of course they would have been brought up within a family

with women. The question assumes that Catholic doctrine is formed by

a political party think tank in the Vatican, and that if you have more

women in their then the church doctrine would change. That is not

the case, that is not how doctrine is formed. Catholic doctrine is

unlikely to change. When you talk about giving women more power, as

you say, women make up most of the congregations of the Catholic

Church. When I look at my parish and my diocese, arguably the most

important person in the diocese is the finance director that makes all

the decisions, the budgeting, the most important layperson in the

diocese. We have just got a new one, and she is a woman. But doctrine is

not immutable. Miriam Duignan, from Catholic Women's Ordination, you say

that women are treated as a different species in the Catholic

Church? Treated as a different species in that the ban on women's

ordination is not new, but it does not reflect the original teaching of

the Church and the original foundations of the face when women

were equal leaders are long with men, and it does not reflect the

teaching of Jesus, who went out of his way, totally against the norms

of his time, to ask women to speak on his behalf. We need for the

Church to reflect the Justice and equality that we teach. Not just the

finance directors, but the personnel all the way up in the Vatican

hierarchy, if they were to change and more accurately reflect society,

how would doctrine change? It would be easy to change the doctrine of

the church. What changes for the better would there be? You mentioned

the sign not, this recent document is a result of this, there were a

few women allowed in but they were very carefully chosen were only

allowed to talk about natural family planning -- you mentioned the synod.

All of the bishops were voting, there was not a single woman

allowed. It has real impact on the teaching in the world. There are 1.2

billion Catholics in the world, Church is the largest

non-governmental provider of education and health care in the

world, it real impact. When you are still saying in 2060 that artificial

contraception and medical contraception is banned, as a result

of discussions in the synod, because none of the bishops said they

believed that the Church's teaching has to change, there are real impact

for women not being able to participate in those discussions

with a voice and a vote, because it then spreads throughout the world

very large influence in the world on governments and the United Nations,

where there are real impact. Women suffer disproportionately from

violence, poverty, from abuse in the world. If the Catholic Church would

just say we want to restore you to full equality, we want you to have a

voice in the Church, as you used to, as Jesus modelled in asking you to

speak for him, it would lift up women and instantly change the

status of women around the world in the areas we are worried about.

APPLAUSE I would say that women do have roles

as leaders within the Catholic Church. I look at my particular

parish, I see women leading confirmation classes, catechists,

and we have women teaching in seminaries, who are in charge of the

formation of the priests. And you are assuming that a priest or cleric

is the only person who can exercise any power. Actually, the role of

priest in the Catholic Church, and my husband is one, is a roll of

servant. He is former Church of England Sophie had children and he

has come across. -- so he has come across and had children. Let me give

you this quote. The role of women in the like a dancing partner. The man

leaves and the woman follows, but the woman is the centre of

attention. -- the man leads. OK. But if somebody said that in politics or

the boardroom, they would be laughed at, and it would be seen as

fantastically patronising. Well, it is to do with Compton and charity --

it is to do with Compton mending each other. You talked about The Joy

Of Love, and how women were not included and it needed to be better.

He talked about the plight of women, where women had been enslaved, and

rejecting patriarchal cultures, and he said women were enslaved today by

the sex industry, by surrogacy. He said where women's emancipation has

led to equal access in the workplace and equal decision-making, that it

is the work of the holy spirit. It is about education. The countries

that have the most educated female workforce are the most successful in

the world. Anybody else in the front row or the audience? I work for a

group on psychological action and my boss is a woman, and the chair is

really powerful. If you said it is a man's world, you would be laughed

out of the organisation. My church in London, Oasis, would think it

unthinkable to judge who does what in the church on the basis of

gender. It is about faith and not body. I think we are getting

confused. The role of the priest, as a Catholic Church sees it, is a

vocation. It is not a job, not a secular job that is paid as

employment. It is to do with the church's theology. The church sees

herself as feminine, the bride, and Christ as the bridegroom. That is

why we have a male priesthood. Frank in a second, but Miriam is

contorting her face! The bridegroom theology is a bit troubling. It has

only been used recently. There was a commission in the Vatican in 1976 to

settle the question once and for all. Is there anything in the

Scripture that would exclude women from being priests and the Vatican's

own commission said there was nothing in Scripture that said women

cannot be priests so we need to come up with something else. The

development of the theory of the bridegroom has grown since then and

it started to be mentioned in the 1980s by John Paul II a lot. In one

of his letters it was mentioned. Is it not earlier than the 1970s?

Welcome, Joseph! It was not used in the Catholic Church. The church

banned women from the altar around 1150. That is complete fantasy.

There is not a theologian, a Scripture scholar, in the country

with a university of any reputation who would agree with that. It was

written into the code of canon law in 1024. You only need to ban

something when it is happening already. Complete fantasy. Joseph,

you are chairman of the Latin mass society, which you believe increases

the mystery of the sacraments. The Latin Mass? Yes. There is a good

deal of confusion here. Doesn't the Latin alienate people? No, it

doesn't, actually. What you do when you come into church formats, you

want to worship God. What is addressed to God doesn't have to be

in English. It have to be in something which has a certain

grandeur. And more males respond to it? This is something we have

observed. A lot of congregations are female dominated, which is

interesting. Why are women not being represented in the church? Hang on a

minute, another way of looking at it is where have the men gone? If this

is such a male dominated institution, an institution serving

only men, how is it that they have instituted a form of liturgy and

many other policies that actually turned men of to such an extent? Why

does it turn them off? Rain it is touchy-feely, and you are invited to

hug your neighbour and that sort of thing. I am exaggerating. We have

the situation where one third of congregations are male and they are

dragged there. You don't think there is a problem for women in the

Catholic Church at all. I do. Many problems. We have had people pushing

for female ordination which is confusing the issue of power in the

community with the question of ordination. Frank? You talked about

this or not, yes, the cardinals and bishops, gathered in Rome, yes, they

were male. Before the Synod, in 2014 and in 2015, the Catholic Church did

a consultation at every bishops conference around the world. The

call to action helped the bridge chips conference here and we had

responses. They don't make good reading for the Pope and the bishops

because they showed that 80% of British Catholics don't accept the

church's teaching on contraception and 90% of respondents believed that

divorced Catholics should be welcomed back into communion with

the church. The Pope admitted it, the church has not responded

adequately to the demands and needs of the laity. It is not just a

question of women. I understand the aspirations of women to have a

further role in the church. But actually it is about the 99% of the

Catholic Church who I lay members. The church is the laity, not just

the priests and bishops. What are women's position in the church and

reproductive autonomy? If I am a woman and I care about something,

fake, politics, health care, why should I not be able to rise to the

position that I want to? Whether it is the position of Pope. I should be

able to do that and I should have the autonomy to choose the

contraception for my health. You do. The Catholic Church preaches what it

preaches about contraception and for a very specific reason. You have

your own free will. The Catholic Church believes that sex is about

this and that, unity and procreation, two elements. But you

can reject that. The church is not imposing what she believes about

contraception are new. And the church does say to women... It does

not say that every time you have sex you must have a baby. There is the

concept of responsible parenthood which has been advocated. When it

comes to sex, yes, I have a choice about contraception that I use but

if you look at the wider teachings, I cannot go into the job that I want

within the church because of my gender. How is that fair or equal?

It is not a job. It has a sacred character. Why are women any less

sacred? APPLAUSE

The reason we are having this conversation is because after all

this discussion of the last three years, the Pope has said, actually,

boys and girls, I can't change the teaching. You think the paper has

all the power, but they can't change it. They are not able to. Kitty,

what would you say to Joseph? It is completely backwards. If people come

together, they can bring this about. I am not personally religious but I

get that it is a very important thing to a lot of people and I get

where that is coming from, but actually it comes down to how you

want your mother or sister to be treated. How do you want your

daughter to be treated? Do you want them to have this imposed upon them?

Actually, I want them to know the truth. I realise it is difficult for

people outside the church to understand this, but the whole point

of the Catholic Church is that we have this teaching that cannot just

be changed. The idea of voting on new teaching it's ridiculous. If

they did that, they would say they have been wrong all these years. And

then the Catholic Church doesn't exist. There has been a claim that

the Catholic Church was founded by Christ and it has existed

continuously and taught at the same thing, but if they say we were all

wrong, you are also saying that the Catholic Church doesn't exist. What

about the massive problems of overpopulation on the planet,

driving other species to extinction, incredible problems with resources?

Do we not need to think again about contraception? That is what they

were saying when they thought there would be a global ice age, and in

fact it hasn't happened. The global population will begin in a few

decades and then go into decline so it is a red herring. We're not

talking about science. We are talking about interpretation and the

Bible is an evolving story and you choose the bits that you seem like.

You choose the bits that you like! Joseph, I tell you what, is your

eardrum OK? My face is very wet and my eardrum is bursting! You are used

to the newsroom! I find this a staggering debate and I was

incredibly disappointed that a man I see as a good Pope so let down the

women of this planet. It is no coincidence that a week ago there

was this horrendous story of a woman prosecuted in Northern Ireland over

the fact that she underwent an abortion. This was about the

pressure of the Catholic Church. It is about the way that in vast areas

of the world, South America for instant, Panama, Southern Ireland,

the power of the male dominated Catholic Church means that this

young woman he could not live there and have control over her own body

and that is a scandal. If it continues, the rest of the world

will increasingly turn against the Catholic Church. We have got to

leave it there. Excuse me! You can join in all of today's debates.

Follow the links to the online discussion. And our next debate is

coming up. Next Sunday, we are not on. It is the London Marathon.

But we'll be back on May 1st from Salford's Media City.

If you'd like to be in the audience at that show,

Or you can apply to be in the audience at the special

we will be recording in the afternoon, asking, "Should

Then we'll be in Oxford on May 22nd and in London on June 5th.

On Tuesday it was World Turban Day, set up to remind Sikhs that wearing

a turban is a mandatory part of their religion.

Just as not all Muslim women wear a veil, or Jewish men a yarmulke,

or Christian women don hats in church.

It's just as much about culture as faith.

you, now Nav Sawhney? That is fantastic. I have 50. I need a

tartan one. There is a shop with a whole range? Yes, in India, and I

was like a kid in a candy store. I am celebrating what I wear and

exploring. Is it cultural or religious? It goes hand in hand. It

is very important for me and my identity to carry out this

conversation in my turban. It is like a beacon of what I stand for.

You can look at me and think, right, I know what the Sikh principles are

and what he stands for. But on the other hand, if a person wears a

great big turban and has a great big beard and doesn't uphold the Sikh

principles of selfless service, standing up for just causes, gender

equality, then in the eyes of the God, I think that person would be

less favourable. Can you be a totally observance Sikh

without the beard or the turban? I think that in the eyes God we are

all equal, it is not up to me all you to judge the person, it is up to

us to help each other along our journeys, whatever faith you are, to

follow a principle path. And so on and so forth. Shamsher Singh, is it

God or cultural identity? I don't think God cares what you wear. We

are taught that religious clothing is not a magical barrier to stop you

from being a hypocrite, you can wear religious clothing and be a

hypocrite. For us, the turban as part of our political identity in

the world, it is to show we are part of the Sikh nation, committed to

upholding the values we have been taught by the gurus. It has become

as much part of our culture and identity as well. I thought you were

going to come back from that? The turban is regarded as so important

that you can ride a motorbike without wearing a helmet, a Kazakh

country respect the importance of the turban. -- because our country

respect. I think we all dress according to cultural norms. I

understand what you say, it helps develop your faith, and everyone

should respect that. But what we wear and what we do does not prevent

us from being hypocrites, as I think there is an advantage to having that

kind of discipline, like with prior, like with attending a religious

event on a Sunday if you want to, but how far does it go? When it

becomes fundamentalist, the ending it self rather than an expression of

the end, that is when I think it might goes wrong? Amra Bone, does it

sometimes become the end in itself? For some people, yes. To me, wearing

modest clothes is important. God, God is perfect, right? What I wear

really benefits me, so in that sense God sort of cows. Why would the

creator of the universe and the heavens and the cosmos be remotely

bothered by what somebody wears? It is a bit petty. Woke up God does not

need my prayers all what I do. It benefits me, my way of dress

benefits me. I would not say that one has to dressed in a particular

way, it is categorical in that chronic teaching that you cover your

bosoms and your private parts, and private parts for men -- it is

critical in the teaching of the Koran. Some people want to cover

their faces. For me, it is the character that comes through. There

is a verse in the Koran which says we created you into men and women,

nations and tribes so that you get to know one another, but the most

honourable is who has the quality of the inner beauty and sincerity,

honesty, consciousness, that matters the most. You could be wearing

Reichs or ropes? In another place it says we have given you clothing as a

form of beautifying yourself, but the best form of beauty is, again,

the inner beauty. There is a balance, you wear something which is

modest, but at the same time it is balanced with your inner purity and

consciousness. Immodesty is the thing? James? Religious dress, if

you start from the principle that people should be able to wear

whatever they want, I think it is sound. Religious tresses fine, if

you want to wear it, that is fine. Sometimes it is a political

expression. If you want to dress modestly, that is your choice. But

the issue with modesty is that it is often men imposing what they believe

to be modest on women. APPLAUSE

There is very little in religious instruction... One second, there is

very little in religious instruction saying that men have to be as modest

as women, there tends to be an obsession about female sexuality,

covering up, extinguishing, sometimes, female sexuality and

forced not by God but by mail patriarchal dominant figures in that

community. That happens, does it not? It happens, but, on the whole,

in my experience, women want to show their independence and that is why

they want to cover up. Why do men not feel the same way? That they

need to do that to the same extent? Men to wear modest clothing... There

does not seem to be the same pressure on men. I will be with you

in a second. Time after time, if you live in London or travel in the

Middle East, and I was on holiday in Egypt where you see a woman company

dressed in black from top to toe, including the neck out, the face

veil, and a guy wandering along beside her with obscenely tight

short pants -- including the Fed, the face veil. It was 100 degrees.

Men dress as they want, they dress like peacocks, and worse. Not just

the women, you have seen increasingly, and this is completely

cultural, young children wearing burgers and headscarves at the age

of six, seven -- wearing burqas and headscarves. It is a manifestation

of the male idea that the woman should cover up. Let's be honest,

men and women... Men tend to be more visual creatures, OK? What does that

mean? OK, women have certain attributes which, obviously, catch

the male gaze. Men have certain attributes that, obviously, catch

the female gaze, you know? Men can control themselves. We will not jump

on something that is not covered up! A man should have self-control...

Attraction is mutual. But there is something about... When you are

dressed modestly... When you start drawing attention to your sexual

attributes, that sexually objectify is you, people can't help... Surely

that is subjective and in the eye of the person... This guy and his tight

jeans was clearly drawing Neil Taylor sexual attributes! -- drawing

Neil to his sexual attributes. You cannot go to work in a bikini, that

is not appropriate. Dr Mahinda Deegalle, not all Buddhist wear

robes, why do you? Input is, only the monastic is wear robes. It is

basically a uniform -- in orders, only the monastic people wear robes.

You do not change your different attire. There is sanctity with the

way the robes are made. It originally it was a symbol of

poverty and modesty and simplicity. What is the origin of how they are

made? What is the significance? The Buddhist tradition is quite

interesting, they introduced a recycling system so that discarded

clothes in cemeteries, wrapped up with the dead bodies and other

discarded clothing in the dustbins, they were processed and robes were

made out of that. Of course, there were luxury robes offered later.

Taken, cleaned and remade? Yes. You cannot accept valuable clothing, you

had to cut it and stitch together so it became valueless, so it is not

suitable. And it signifies that you are different from the laypeople

with a different way of life, you have renounced the worldly position,

you have given up the world. Lots is symbolised in the robe. You don't

have world interests, basically. That is a real statement of faith

rather than just what you are wearing. You asked whether God cares

what we wear, I don't think he cares what we wear to church, he cares how

we wear our faith. You have put this two brings together beautifully and

what you have just said. Joseph, if somebody came to one of your masses,

and it seems like stepping back to the time of mystery in the Middle

Ages when people were wondering what is going on, at the same time drawn

into face and mesmerised and inspired, if somebody turned up to

one of your masses in, I do know, a Leicester City top, would that be a

problem? No, it would not. Sometimes in the back of Catholic Church is,

not just wear traditional mass is being celebrated... A bikini top?

Little signs showing somebody dressed in each wear and a little

line through it, this is particularly true in Rome,

frequented by tourists, please don't turn up wearing a modest clothing,

because it is distracting to everyone, not just to the men, it is

inappropriate. There is such a thing as appropriate dress, inappropriate

dress, that is a cultural fact and people cannot like that if they

like. The Catholic tradition, women covering their heads, that is no

longer compulsory but it happens again now, there is a partial

parallel with the revival of interest in women in the Muslim

tradition. Why just women covering their head? There is a theology

which apparently nobody knew about until the 1970s about the

bridegroom... It is not just sexism, it is a male dominated Hegga many

and, as a consequence, I am so pleased that God conceded this male

dominated hegemony and will judge people when they come to the pearly

gates to decide whether or not they'll pressed women into wearing

inappropriate clothes. APPLAUSE

-- they'll pressed women. I am glad that God can see the strength of

somebody's faith whether they are wearing a bikini, tiny shorts or a

full face burqa, it does not matter. Women have been leading these

movements, and in Islam, back in the 70s and before... It has alienated

so many women from the church and religion, generally. Women wanted to

wear the headscarf, it is an historic fact. Do you think it

alienates people? Yes, particularly in the younger generation. For the

centre of the population go to church on a Sunday, that is a

ridiculously low number which tells me... But the mosques are full! In

1979 when General Khamenei came into power, before that the Shah had

people taking the shawls from women's heads and bodies. About 1

million newly -- 1 million women marched wanting to wear the scarves

and shawls. I believe we must never force people, in Turkey, when they

are not allowing women to wear the scar and women want to wear it. This

macro to whether scarves. When you take it off them, they want to wear

it, it is human nature. I personally believe it is part of humility, for

me, it is part of modesty, but I would never force that on anybody.

Women want to find independence in the mosques, they do not want to

show off their bodies to any Tom, Dick and Harry, they want to be

respectable. I know families where parents do not want girls to wear

the scarves, husbands say I want you to go out looking beautiful. Coming

from that background where I had seen a... Amra, you have had the

last word, and it was very good. As always, the debates will continue

online and on Twitter. It's the London Marathon next

Sunday, but we'll be back from Salford's MediaCity on May

first, so do join us then. BBC One's shaking up

your Saturday nights...