The vast majority of those who describe themselves as chrisitan do engage in any regular act of worship, nor indeed tend to live their lives by any particularly christian code. If you go down to a shopping mall on a sunday and ask people their religion the majority would say christian, yet they are clearly requiring people to work on the day of rest, the lord’s day, the sabbath. how is that christian? how are such people represented by groups such as christian voice et al?

The public at large are not informed about swearing or supposedly immoral issues via the media, it is something that one does or encounters in one’s day-today life. Anyway, if you want ‘experts’ in broadcasting morality, the present system has them, with OFCOM, the ASA, the BBFC and the BBC governors (although most of them are hardly experts in broadcaasting and are merely appointed to represent the establishment).

As for representation, the print media, at least, has it’s fair share of illiberal commentators. I hardly feel that Richard Littlejohn, for example, could be called liberal by anyone to the left of Goebbels

(1) Most bodies are unrepresentative. The media are unrepresentative, being ‘biased’ (if you want to put it that way) towards educated liberal whites in their 20s-60s. The government are not fully representative – they represent the preference of 30-40% of over-18s, who can only choose the particular candidate that is put up in their own constituency.

(2) A grouping (Christians) that can claim 70+% of the population is more representative than most. How many groupings would claim more than this 70%?

Im surprised that you take the public to be a good guide to what is beneficial or permissible. (1) How many of the public are informed about such matters?
(2) Of those that are informed, how many get their ‘information’ from an unrepresentative media?

A variety of experts can debate things. The point is that experts do exist. If one wants one’s car mended one goes to the expert. If one wants one’s hair cut one goes to the expert. And so on.

elect a government who then make decisions … on the basis of what will win them votes

If it wins them votes, then it’s what the public at large wants.
Since we’re talking about what is allowed to be broadcast by TV or shown in cinemas, namely making things available that people can choose to watch or not, I’d say that the policy about what should or should not be shown should be entirely based on what the public votes for, ‘cos that’s what we want to have available, even if we are not interested in seeing any particular TV show or film.
After the government has made the policy, then a committee should review individual films, and it’s right that the committee should be appointed by the government to carry out the policy and do the details.

In your plan, where ‘experts’ debate the merits of free speech, who would be the experts? Church leaders, who have, by their position at god’s feet shown themselves to be experts in all possible things? Human rights lawyers who can debate the technical details of the acts which guarantee our freedoms? Self-appointed religious spokespersons, publicity hungry bullies and vainglorious fools?
If you really think that there’s a majority of public opinion who think that this is such an important issue, why not form a political party and put it to the test? I’ll lay pounds to pennies that you’d lose your deposit.

I know that you think this is some kind of fundamental wrong that should never be permitted, but you’re in a tiny minority, so why should your dislike of it stop other people having access to it?

Oh, and your line about me not liking minorities is ridiculous. First you accuse me of being a relativist and imply that I could support Hitler, then you accuse me of disliking minorities with all that that implies. It’s you who is the prejudiced bigot, not I.

Im not clear how you propose we decide what is right and wrong. You clearly dont like minorities, therefore perhaps you believe the majority is generally right (or perhaps you dont – just tell me what you do believe about this.)

I guess we need to be aware that the majority
(a) may not be informed about all the issues and factors;
(b) may get a lot of their information from the media, who (i) often deal in soundbites rather than much depth, and (ii) to a large extent represent a particular category of people with a particular background – i.e. are unrepresentative of Britain as a whole
(c) elect a government who then make decisions to some extent not on the basis of what is right but on the basis of what will win them votes.

Decisions have to be made somehow. I believe they should be made by experts on the basis of debate and argument (i.e. meritocracy). It’s not obvious (for the above-stated reasons) that the democratic view is better.

who are you to state that “certain things are right and others wrong” any more than the rest of us

because you stated in #6

No-one is judging anyone. We are stating that certain things are right and others are wrong

My conjecture is that minority pressure groups should not be the ones who decide what is right or wrong and to force their views down the throats of others, particularly those who vehemently disagree with them.
Your vision of a pure television, free of swearing or anything sexual or violent is a vision of a TV that does not represent a country that I recognise.
I don’t believe that swearing or blaspheming is fundamentally wrong. I am not a relativist any more than is anyone who disagrees with you.
And as for the swearing – we’ve already established that not swearing has to diminish your vocab by however many words you choose not to use. It’s not exactly rocket science, is it?

I suggest you come down from your pulpit for a while, and go and speak to some of those people people you are clearly demeaning here. You may find to your surprise, after a visit to the dockyards, or the pub that the people to be found there are more articulate, and culturally aware than someone like you would give them credit for… It is a disgrace how you debase some people, and clearly obvious to me, you’ve never taken any kind of steps to learn anything whatsoever about them.