There have been some rather odd articles about this bill recently.
Telegraph Simon Caldwell and Martin Beckford Minister predicts legal battles between churches and atheists over Equality Bill and later George Pitcher Equality legislation means our very right to believe is under fire
Catholic Herald Simon Caldwell Get ready to be sued, Minister tells Christians
And various repeats in the blogosphere, of which this is perhaps the most extreme headline: The Equality Bill: Will A New Law Essentially Outlaw Evangelical Christianity And Roman Catholicism In The U.K.?
Leading to items from the lobbying organisations:
Christian Institute MP: Equality Bill will lead to legal action against churches and Equality Bill could drive faith from ‘public sphere’
Christian Concern for our Nation Act to protect employment freedom for Churches
Much of this criticism is unjustified by the facts (I was present at the press briefing with Michael Foster), and I will write more about this soon.
Meanwhile, the BBC has published a helpful reminder of the main objectives of the bill: What the new Equality Bill means for employers
I’ve just blogged about conservative hysteria here: http://changingattitude-england.blogspot.com/2009/12/conservative-christian-desperation-2-in.html It follows a blog about the reaction from conservative Christians in Uganda. Ethics Minister Nsaba Buturo is claiming that three civil society organisations promoting homosexual activities in Uganda, Sexual Minorities Uganda, Integrity Uganda and Gay Uganda had been given $20m to promote the practice. Gug, Gay Uganda, a lone blogger, wishes it were true. Why the need to lie, and invent such falsehoods? Are conservatives in Africa and the UK united in their paranoia and insecurity? Do they really fear, despite their claims to the contrary, that their brand of Christian extremism… Read more »
These latest religious right narratives involve typical themes. Spin doctoring stands out; or, to put it more biblically, false witness against neighbors. Samples, patently typical, if not ubiquitous. Speaking of religion-phobia, by which ‘conservative flat earth religion phobia’ is clearly meant, once any reader does a common sense decode. When, if… we notice common sense terms being spin doctored right at the start, we probably have clues that a fishy, odd business is at hand. Conservative narrative neatly sidesteps the real, red hot intellectual-scholarship question: Why should any modern living religious person stake everything, simply everything (including imprisonment, death penalties,… Read more »
“Why the need to lie, and invent such falsehoods? – Colin Coward, Changing Attitude – Because, Colin, in the current climate of hypocrisy in the Churches, lying seems to be the conservative factions’ only way to convince ordinary Christians (and others) that there are ‘gays under the bed’ in every secular organisation – seeking whom they may devour. This partly derives from sheer ignorance of the true situation, but also from a desire to perpetuate the myth of ‘homosexual cockroaches’ which are apparently infecting Uganda – and blocking out from public scrutiny the more serious problems of graft, disease and… Read more »