Council Prayers

The National Secular Society launched in April a legal challenge against Bideford Council of starting meetings with prayers. After a complaint from a councillor it appears that a case is being made that it breached his 'human rights.' I think there are two dangers here which need to be firmly challenged. First, the way in which the concept and philosophy of human rights is being so abused and diluted that it no longer has much meaning. People are now claiming for example that access to the internet is a human right. Anything, any moan or complaint, becomes a breach of human rights. Surely we are made of bigger stuff than this?

Secondly, how the exercise of prayer can be so offensive goes beyond comprehension? This especially with the British history of tolerance and pragmatism. This smells of someone having a grudge against faith and prayers. I would have thought it would be reasonable for a non-believer in such a situation to simply respect the situtation. On the same light presumably the NSS would have prayers in Parliament stopped, Remembrance Sunday scrapped, church bells stopped, Christmas and Easters holidays banned, etc, etc?