“But my dear, why do you complain so – this one has such a large lily – give it time and you will come to want to kiss it, I’m sure.”So the Sikh community should welcome this play instead of calling for it to be banned. Then they can join with other religious groups and with the secular layers of society in trying to get truly offensive culture banned – Dido, Changing Rooms, Titchmarsh, whatever Noel Edmonds is doing these days, anything with Linda Barker, there’s so much to keep us busy
More from Mark Steel. It must be true-u, I’ve become a guru.”Or a Sikh pantomime, in which the life of a young peasant girl is transformed after her parents wander through a forest arranging a frog for her to kiss. Because the alternative is to create a Sikh version of the most rotten aspects of Western culture.

Then you’d end up with Ben Elton and Andrew Lloyd Webber collaborating on Golden Temple – the musical,” with Elaine Page singing: “I’m underwater, yet I’m not short o’ breath. So apart from anything else, the play performs the service of creating a thoughtful Western Sikh culture, which must be the best compliment to the religion there is. One Sikh leader quoted in this paper condemned the play because “I have never heard of such incidents taking place in gurdwaras.” What can you say to that, except: “Maybe you haven’t, but it’s a play.”I hope he doesn’t waste his money on a panto or he’ll start picketing that as well, complaining: “I’ve known loads of keen gardeners and not one has had to flee a giant down a beanstalk.” In any case, you’re on dodgy ground insisting on plausibility, when the belief you’re claiming is offended was founded on the word of a bloke who could live underwater.The specific abuse in the play may not have happened, but it can only appear as a threat because many Sikhs would recognise the issues of abuse that it raises. Or does God think: “The devil in all its forms is easily vanquished, but fictional dialogue is the one thing I can’t cope with.”Because once visions of God are introduced, it becomes impossible to conduct a rational debate. We propose amendments should be made to the script as, in certain circumstances, this could cause offence.”Anyway, seeing as gods can create and destroy at will, surely a play can’t present much of a threat. And I tell you what – I’m buggered if I know how it started.” Then they all decide that instead of building a temple, they’ll spend their evenings inventing the fridge freezer.And it could be tempting for non-religious people to arrange a huge protest outside any place of worship.

It would start with a press statement saying: “The story being read in this performance refers to those who don’t worship (fill in name of relevant deity) as lacking in morality, possessed by demons, liable to be struck down by disease, thunderbolts or leeches, and destined to spend eternity in unimaginable spiritual misery and physical agony. Maybe it was pressure from the producers for crowd-pleasing special effects, but once the tired old ‘miracle’ formula was introduced it was hard to take the plot seriously.”Why didn’t anyone start a rational religion, whose prophet is a 13th-century trader who wanders into the desert, then returns to tell his people: “I have been contemplating the nature of the universe. But then Nanak went for a bath in the river, disappeared underwater for three days and came back full of visions of God. If you were a critic reviewing religions, you might write: “This faith started full of promise, but then they had to go and spoil it. For example, a Daily Telegraph editorial says they represent a “lethal new intolerance” that “threatens our way of life.” Yet it only takes one councillor to send out Christmas cards saying “Happy winter greetings,” and that lot are screaming about the insult to baby Jesus.

So you can imagine how tolerant they’d be if the Christmas Day episode of The Vicar of Dibley ended in a display of sexual abuse in Westminster Cathedral involving the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ghost of Thora Hird.Even some of the less hypocritical articles have exaggerated the scale of the issue, claiming “a threat to turn back the ideals of the enlightenment” etc. It began with Guru Nanak, who apparently opposed the rituals of Hinduism, supported the rights of women and believed all religions were equal in the eyes of God. It’s unlikely that in a few years we’ll be executing anyone who insists the planets don’t travel in perfect circles, with some of us lamenting: “This all started when they cancelled that play in Birmingham.”Nonetheless, one tragedy of the current furore is that the origins of the Sikh religion appear naturally tolerant and rational. You would think the people who should be most offended by this Sikh play that depicts sexual abuse inside a place of worship would be the Catholics. As he said at Labour’s conference: “There was not a third way this time Believe me, I tried to find one”. This was his big mistake, his attempt to reconcile impossibly conflicting positions.As for Mr Blunkett, he was an infatuated politician seeking to please and help his lover.