Seagulls are causing a bit of a nuisance; they swoop down and steal your chips, and they've attacked a tortoise and a dog. So maybe we should stop encouraging them?
So in Conwy, they thought about fining people who feed the birds. Which seems to me to be a reasonable response, although I doubt if it'll have much effect.
Actually, it'll have no effect, because they've decided not to implement the idea.
They made this decision because they thought it might offend some religions. They think that Jews and Hindus are encouraged to take care of animals. Now I don't know a lot about Hindu, but I'm pretty sure that Jews aren't going to take offence at being told not to feed the seagulls.
But, as a gastronomic Jew, I take *great* offence at being used as an excuse for not taking a measure that the council thinks would be useful. And as an Atheist, I take even more offence at being told that somethng isn't being done in case it offends religious sensibilities.
The right not to be offended, doesn't exist. But if it does, the Conwy council will have to plot the difficult course of between the Scylla of potentially offending Jews and Hindus, and the Charybdis of not offending me, and surely I have an equal right not to be offended to anyone else?
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