ANIMAL FORUM

Hunt enthusiasts call faithful to Free Church of Country Sports
By Daniel Foggo
(Filed: 23/05/2004)

A group of hunting enthusiasts is setting up its own church in an attempt
to stop the Government from banning their favourite field sport.

The founders of the Free Church of Country Sports, whose supporters
include a barrister, a publisher and several businessmen, claim that fox
hunting is part of their religion and that legislation to ban it would be an
infringement of their rights as a religious minority.

The Government is committed to banning hunting with hounds and is thought
to be intending to force legislation through Parliament before the end of the
year.

Members of the new church, who say that they are prepared to challenge any
law in the courts, intend to argue that they should be entitled to the same
protection as the followers of other religions.

They point to a decision by the Government last month to allow the ritual
slaughter of animals by Jews and Muslims to continue because a ban would
have discriminated against religious groups.

Ben Bradshaw, the animal welfare minister, said at the time that he was
acting out of respect for the religious freedoms and fundamental beliefs of
people in this country.

The founding fathers of the Free Church of Country Sports - Rod Brammer,
Vic Gardner, John Milne and Doug Ross - are now preparing a recruitment
drive designed to swell their congregation from several dozen to at least
7,000. The aim is to gain official recognition as a new religion.

Notices calling for people to join the new church are being placed in
shooting shops and distributed at country fairs. They state: The
proposition is that field sports can and do qualify as a religion.

We have been going into the legal requirements of having the Free Church of
Country Sports registered as a church. As a church, we could not be attacked
by a government. There would, of course, be a court case, which is what we
want.

Mr Brammer, who runs a shooting school at Shillingford, Devon, said:
There are so many parallels between country sports and established
religions: we also have regalias, we have our own language and our
own art.

Those in the Jewish faith blow a horn, the shofar, and so do we.

Hunting is a form of ritualised killing - in our case the odds of actual
killing are stacked in favour of the animal to escape.

We baptise our children by blooding them with the blood of that which
we kill. Is this any more strange than dressing them in white and totally
submerging them in water?

Although the group expects opponents of hunting to view its church with
scepticism, Mr Gardner, the publisher of The Countrymans Weekly, who lives
in Tavistock, Devon, insisted that it was genuine.

Ultimately all of us who were involved in the original concept believe that
the countryside is a religious experience, he said. What you fish and
shoot are some of the most beautiful aspects of life.

We are different from other people in our appreciation of the countryside
and its natural bounty. If you look at people who follow country sports they
have their own literature and our own art. It goes back centuries, with
great painters such as Stubbs and modern ones such as Mick Cawston.

If you look at it from a Race Relations Act point of view we are ethnically
and culturally different. We feel that there is a considerable element of
discrimination against us.

But we must emphasise that we are not taking the Lords name in vain. Many
of the people who follow country sports are Christians of great conviction
who if you sit down and talk to them will say that their experience of the
countryside is an important part of their religious belief.

All we have done is say that we are a church congregation apart. We are
different. We all get great spiritual inspiration from the countryside.

If the new church leaders do manage to force a court case, they are
expected to rely principally on the Human Rights Act, which was enacted in
1998 by the current Government.

It contains several articles that are relevant. Article nine states the
right to manifest ones religion or beliefs, while article 14 enshrines
peoples enjoyment of rights without discrimination on any ground such as
sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion.

The new churchs members claim that as well as fox hunting other field
sports, such as shooting and fishing, are part of their religion.

The churchs organisers admit that they have not yet completely resolved
some of the weightier theological considerations. Would people from all
religious backgrounds be eligible to join, for instance?

Mr Gardners answer was diplomatic. We all worship the countryside to some
degree, he said. If we have that in common it crosses all barriers. There
is something much bigger than all of us that has created the countryside and
if we worship that it avoids conflict.

Mr Milne, an agronomist from Winchester, said: Rod came up with the idea
for the church. He is the thinker. We think it is valid. We have plenty of
headed notepaper.

Simon Hart, the chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, expressed
surprise at the decision to set up a new church, but said tactfully:
Hunting is as important to a large number of people as religion is to
others.

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pearl wrote:
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Theyll get away with that as long as I would telling the police smoking
pots an important part of my religious beliefs.

Alan

pearl wrote in message
news:c8v89o$c8$1@kermit.esat.net...


Strange though it may seem this could be the saving grace for The Labour
Party, I firmly believe that they have no real intention of banning
Hunting With Hounds. If indeed The Free Church of Country Sports is
given recognition as a new religion they have a right to the same protection
as Muslims and Jews.

This will get the Labour Party off the hook.

I hope I am wrong.

Dont fancy posting to The Rev. Saunby.

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