For the background to this, see bishops oppose repeal of Waddington.
The relevant bill reached the House of Lords this week, and as the Independent reports,
Peers today defeated the Government’s attempt to overturn a “free speech” defence to the law on homophobic hatred.
The move by Tory former Home Secretary Lord Waddington to uphold the provision was passed by 186 votes to 133, majority 53.
Read ‘Free speech’ defeats incitement laws by Nicholas Randall and Anthony Looch, Press Association.
The BBC also reports it as Labour defeat on incitement laws.
Riazat Butt has written a comment article on Cif belief Free speech or homophobia?
9 Comments…The Bishop of Winchester, a senior Anglican cleric, said: “What is at stake is whether this House and this Parliament intends to outlaw, among not just Christians but others, open discussion and teaching of views that differ from the currently dominant political orthodoxy.”
Some peers, as well as the Ministry of Justice, were disappointed with today’s result, saying the free speech provision would be used as a defence by those looking to incite hatred towards gays and lesbians.
In what was portrayed as a battle for free speech, a coalition of Anglican bishops, Conservative peers, Labour malcontents and leading crossbenchers united to block the proposals…
The previous report on this matter is at RC adoption agency loses appeal.
The latest development is that the Charity Tribunal has given approval for an appeal to the High Court against some of its recent findings.
The full text of its decision on the appeal is here: Ruling on Catholic Care’s request for Permission to Appeal (6 July 2009)
Charity Finance explains:
Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) has been granted leave to appeal to the High Court against certain parts, but not all, of the Charity Tribunal’s recent decision not to allow it to discriminate against gay people.
As the case is believed to have been the first in which a court or tribunal was asked to consider the correct interpretation of regulation 18 of the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, the Tribunal said the case “raises a point of law of public importance which it would be appropriate for the High Court to consider on appeal”.
…But now it has said that Catholic Care can take the case to the High Court to argue seven of its 14 grounds for appeal. The seven that are allowed collectively raise the same point of law, namely that the Tribunal erred in its interpretation of the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 and its interpretation of regulation 18 in particular.
However, it will not allow the charity to appeal against the other seven points raised, concluding that these were “misconceived”.
Third Sector also has a report.
Any appeal will presumably also be of great interest to the Scottish Charity Regulator, which appears to have allowed a Scottish RC agency to make similar changes to its trust deed.
1 CommentUpdated Tuesday
This week’s edition of The Tablet has a news report, unfortunately subscriber-only until next Friday, that the Attorney-General, Baroness Scotland “has pledged to help the Church gain amendments to parts of the proposed Equality Bill.”
The essence of this report is however contained in the article published by the National Secular Society and titled Catholic Attorney General seeks to water down protections under Equality Bill.
There is some confused reporting here. It’s not clear whether the confusion is due to the reporter, or to what Mr Kornicki said.
The clause that deals with exemptions on the basis of Religion as the “protected characteristic” is Schedule 9, Clause 3.
This is entirely separate from Clause 2, which deals with exemptions on various other bases not including Religion, and which incorporates the new explicit definition of “the purposes of an organised religion”. The government contends that this definition is not a narrowing of the existing law, but the churches appear not to accept that view.
But in any case, that definition has no bearing on Clause 3, which reads as follows:
Other requirements relating to religion or belief
3 A person (A) with an ethos based on religion or belief does not contravene a provision mentioned in paragraph 1(2) by applying in relation to work a requirement to be of a particular religion or belief if A shows that, having regard to that ethos and to the nature or context of the work—
(a) it is an occupational requirement,
(b) the application of the requirement is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, and
(c) the person to whom A applies the requirement does not meet it (or A has reasonable grounds for not being satisfied that the person meets it).
Note that this exemption is available to any organisation “with an ethos based on religion or belief” and is not limited to “organised religion” at all.
So it is unlikely, I think, that what Baroness Scotland, Richard Kornicki, and Stephen Pound are concerned about is in fact to do with discrimination “against those who don’t share their faith”. It’s much more likely that they are concerned with discrimination on one or more of the grounds listed in Clause 2.
Tuesday update
I have now heard back from the offices of both the Attorney-General and the Catholic Bishops Conference, and can confirm that:
– it is only Clause 2 which is the subject of concern
– Baroness Scotland does not intend to submit any amendment to the bill.
The Times reports today on a new survey of public attitudes in Britain to homosexuality.
See Church ‘out of touch’ as public supports equal rights for homosexuals.
And also Sizeable minority remains hostile to same-sex relationships.
A PDF file containing some of the survey statistics is here.
Update
Ruth Gledhill comments on this in Church ‘out of touch’ on gays, says Times poll.
The House of Commons committee stage continues, you can read the transcripts of all the sessions via this page, or via this page.
The discussion of Clause 12 can be found here.
The discussion on Schedule 9 starts here. See below the fold for an extract.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights also held a hearing on Wednesday. Read the written answers from the Solicitor General to the questions posed in advance by the committee in this PDF file. Several of the questions relate to Schedule 9. One in particular is of interest:
0 Comments37. Does the Government consider that the provisions of Paragraph 3 of Schedule 9 will permit employers in certain circumstances to make adherence by employees to religious doctrine in their lifestyles and personal relationships a genuine occupational requirement for a particular post?
Paragraph 3 of Schedule 9 permits organisations with an ethos based on religion or belief to require an employee to be of a particular religion or belief. The organisation must show that being of that religion or belief is a requirement for the work, taking into account both the nature or context of it and the ethos of the organisation – the requirement must not be a sham or pretext.
It is very difficult to see how in practice beliefs in lifestyles or personal relationships could constitute a religious belief which is a requirement for a job, other than for ministers of religion (and this is covered in paragraph 2 of Schedule 9). It is perhaps worth noting, however, that if an employee has been employed on the basis of an occupational requirement to be of a particular religion or belief and the employee can no longer be considered to be of that religion or belief e.g. an employee who has lost faith, then the employer would be able to terminate employment as the employee would no longer meet the occupational requirement.Is the position different if a religious organisation is wholly or mainly delivering public functions?
No.
The Public Bill Committee that held hearings reported earlier and also here, is now engaged in a clause-by-clause review of the text of the bill. The easiest way to follow their deliberations is via this page, or alternatively via TheyWorkForYou (which runs a little behind in its updating, but is more nicely formatted). To keep up with the amendments, you need to check that page.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has announced that it will also hold hearings about this bill. There is a Press Notice available here, which says:
The Joint Committee on Human Rights is considering the compatibility of the Equality Bill with the UK’s human rights obligations.
The Committee has decided to focus on a number of matters in the Equality Bill which it considers are capable of raising significant human rights issues. Further details of the Committee’s concerns are contained in its letter of 2 June 2009 to the Solicitor General Vera Baird QC MP:
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/Baird_Equality020609.pdf
During its recent review of its working practices, the Committee agreed that it would be helpful to engage relevant stakeholders in its legislative scrutiny work. Submissions of no more than 1,500 words on the human rights compatibility of this Bill are therefore requested by 17 June 2009…
Separately, the Government Equalities Office has launched a consultation on specific public sector equality duties. As explained on this page:
On Thursday 11th June 2009, a consultation document setting out policy proposals for the specific public sector equality duties was published. The closing date for comments is 30 September 2009. Please click below to view the document:
There is a lengthy press release which gives more background to this.
1 CommentUpdated
A comment article, written by me, appears at Cif belief.
See Equality, the church and discrimination. (They changed the title…)
“Unjust discrimination is fundamentally wrong.” So say the Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales in evidence to parliament on the equality bill. But doesn’t this terminology imply there might be another category of “just discrimination” which is slightly less awful, or even in some circumstances righteous?
Update
A news report, also written by me, appears in this week’s Church Times. This was filed on Wednesday morning, before the publication of the full transcripts of the Tuesday hearings.
See Churches argue for job discrimination.
REPRESENTATIVES of both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church told the House of Commons on Tuesday that their existing right to discriminate in cases of employment, on the basis of factors other than religion, would be unreasonably limited by the new Equality Bill. A scrutiny committee was taking oral and written evidence this week, before starting its clause-by-clause examination of the Bill, which is scheduled for completion in early July…
(Note that the last part of the article is from another journalist).
17 CommentsThe House of Commons committee continued its hearings on the Equality Bill yesterday.
The first session of the day (third session in total so far) heard first from the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church among others. You can read a complete transcript of the proceedings, starting at this page. This part of the session continues for four pages.
Update More user-friendly link to the transcript from TheyWorkForYou here.
The session continued with a second group of witnesses, from business and trade union organisations.
Later in the day, a further session was held, which can be followed from here. And the user-friendly link from TheyWorkForYou is here.
I will have my own comments in a while about the first part of the first session of the day, at which I was present.
There was no written statement from the Church of England. The written statement from the Roman Catholic bishops has been linked previously, and is here.
9 CommentsFirst, there is a Research Paper from the House of Commons Library concerning the bill, available as a PDF, see Research Paper 09/42.
Committee hearings have begun, and Hansard reports can be found linked from this page. A more user-friendly version can be found here at TheyWorkForYou.
Written evidence has been submitted by various organisations, all listed there.
Among them are these:
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales
Discrimination Law Association
Proposed amendments to the bill can be found here (click on Show+ Amendment Papers and Proceedings).
Ekklesia published on 2 June a study by Savi Hensman The Equality Bill 2008-9 and church responses to it.
21 CommentsUpdated again Saturday
Charity Finance reports Charity Tribunal dismisses Catholic adoption case
The Charity Tribunal has rejected the latest attempt by a catholic adoption charity to circumnavigate rules preventing it from discriminating against homosexual couples seeking to adopt children.
Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) had sought to take advantage of an exemption in the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, which suggests that discrimination can occur if it is in pursuit of charitable objectives.
In its preliminary judgment in March, the Tribunal had ruled the exemption could only apply if the charity’s activities were not made unlawful by other provisions.
But at the final hearing last month, the charity was unable to demonstrate that it could operate in such a way.
See also Third Sector Online reports (registration required)
Children’s charity Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) has lost its appeal to the Charity Tribunal against the Charity Commission’s refusal to allow it to change its objects to allow its adoption service to discriminate against homosexual parents.
The charity wanted to take advantage of an exemption in the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 that permits charities to discriminate on the grounds of “the provisions of a charitable instrument”, such as a governing document.
But in its first ever final judgement, the tribunal’s panel of three legal members, led by president Alison McKenna, concluded that Catholic Care would infringe other provisions in the regulations if it discriminated against homosexual parents and would therefore be operating unlawfully…
Two earlier reports from the same source:
Allow us to exclude gay people, Catholic adoption charity tells Charity Tribunal.
Adoption charities must justify equality law exemption
The decisions of the Charities Commission and the Charities Tribunal are all available online:
Charities Commission:
final decision (PDF) and summary here
Charities Tribunal: (all PDFs)
Directions Order with Ruling (7 January 2009)
Ruling on Preliminary Question (13 March 2009)
Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) v The Charity Commission for England and Wales decision (1 June 2009)
Other media reports:
Daily Mail Steve Doughty Catholic ban on adoption by same-sex couples is ruled illegal
Telegraph Catholic charities breaking law on homosexual adoption
Neil Addison writes at Religion Law Blog about this in Catholic Adoption Agencies lose case:
…What the agencies were trying to do was to change their objects so as to add the following
“The Charity shall only provide adoption services to heterosexuals and such services to heterosexuals shall only be provided in accordance with the tenets of the Church. For the avoidance of doubt the Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds from time to time shall be the arbiter of whether such services and the manner of their provision fall within the tenets of the Church”
They argued that this would enable them to operate because of the exemption for Charities under reg 18 of the Sexual Orientation Regulations 2007 which say
“18.—(1) Nothing in these Regulations shall make it unlawful for a person to provide benefits only to persons of a particular sexual orientation, if—
(a) he acts in pursuance of a charitable instrument, and
(b) the restriction of benefits to persons of that sexual orientation is imposed by reason of or on the grounds of the provisions of the charitable instrument”
Mr Addison goes on to explain where he disagrees with the tribunal, why even if the agency had won it would have been a pyrrhic victory, and he also offers an alternative solution that he had recommended, but which was it seems rejected.
The Catholic Herald has reported on this, Judgment seals fate of adoption agencies. This includes:
However, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator allowed St Margaret’s Adoption and Child Care of the Archdiocese of Glasgow to change its charitable objects to continue its policy of assessing only heterosexual married couples and single people as adopters.
That has prompted a complaint from the National Secular Society, see Scottish Charity Regulator lambasted for caving in to Catholic Charity over gay adoption.
See also SNP and Catholic Church’s secret plan to sidestep legislation on gay adoptions in the Glasgow Sunday Herald.
Ekklesia has reported on the English case, and refers to the views of the LGCM RC Caucus, see Gay Catholics welcome rulings against adoption agency discrimination.
The publication of the proceedings before the Charities Tribunal has publicised the actual drafting of the proposed charitable objects which the Leeds and Birmingham agencies wished to adopt.
Both draft instruments relied upon the following paragraph to gain the desired exemption: “The Society shall provide adoption services only to heterosexuals and only in accordance with the tenets of the Roman Catholic church”.
The Roman Catholic Caucus of LGCM points out that, contrary to the general press comment about the appeals by these adoption agencies, the agencies were not seeking permission to place children only with married couples. They were seeking to exclude all lesbian, gay and bisexual people from the ambit of their services, including those who choose to live their lives celibately in strict accordance with Catholic church teaching.
“This proposed object is blatantly contrary to Catholic church teaching,” comments the Caucus.
The Caucus says it also became clear in various discussions before the Charities Tribunal that the “adoption services” referred to include services to children who are to be placed or have been placed for adoption. The proposed wording would therefore have required the agency to ascertain the sexual orientation of any child who was placed for adoption as a condition of providing services to that child.
As the “adoption services” described include support after the child has been placed, this would also involve withdrawing after-care services to a family in which the adopted child comes out after the adoption has taken place. The LGCM Catholic Caucus says it considers that “most Catholics will find this proposal both offensive and contrary to the values of the Roman Catholic Church.”
The full text of the statement from the LGCM RC Caucus is available at Caucus reacts to Adoption Ruling.
120 CommentsRegulation 7(3) in the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 permits religious organisations, but nobody else, to claim an “exception for genuine occupational requirement” related to sexual orientation as distinct from a requirement to be of a particular sexual orientation. The latter exception is provided in Regulation 7(2), and may be claimed by any employer.
The Equality Bill now before Parliament proposes to alter this regulation, among others. In particular a specific definition of “the purposes of organised religion” has been added.
The adoption of the regulation in 2003 was not without controversy. I wrote extensively about this at the time and will review that history here now, for the benefit of those who were not following Thinking Anglicans six years ago.
Regulation 7(3) arose directly from a request made by the Church of England.
Here is the full text of the 23 January 2003 submission made by the Archbishops’ Council to the DTI consultation “The Way Ahead”. The crucial section reads:
…21. This does not mean that the Church challenges the principle that homosexuals should have full equality and protection before the law. On the contrary, we welcome the steps taken over recent years to combat all prejudice, to repudiate homophobic violence and to create new legal safeguards and protections. The new regulations are an important part of that process. Nevertheless, it is crucial that they do not encroach on the freedom which all religious organisations must have to set and enforce their own conduct rules in relation to those who work for and represent them.
22. What those conduct rules should be is a matter of continuing debate within the Church of England and indeed within many other Churches. The point is simply that however those internal debates are resolved, Churches and other faith-based organisations must not find themselves in a position where the law of the land is preventing them from conscientiously applying their own sincerely held doctrines and beliefs on moral issues.
23. The need to safeguard religious doctrine, belief and susceptibilities was, of course, recognised as long ago as 1975 by Section 19 of the Sex Discrimination Act. A corresponding provision was included by the Government in the Gender Reassignment Regulations of 1999. Our officials have already suggested to yours that the solution to our difficulties could be provided by a provision directly modelled on the earlier precedents.
24. We strongly urge the Government therefore to insert in part 5 of the Regulations the following provision:
“Nothing in parts II to IV of these Regulations shall render unlawful anything done for the purposes or in connection with an organised religion so as to comply with the doctrines of the religion or avoid offending the religious susceptibilities of a significant number of its followers.”
That proposal was based on what was at the time the wording of Section 19 of the Sex Discrimination Act.
The government did not accept this wording unchanged but did issue a revised draft on 7 May which included 7(3) for the first time. See here for a comparison of the two drafts. The first was what had gone out to consultation in October 2002, the second was issued on 7 May. There had been no prior notice of the changes being made to Clause 7. The text of the explanatory notes is here.
3 CommentsAs you can see from earlier articles here, there is a considerable fuss about certain clauses in the new Equality Bill. The main, but not the only fuss, relates to sexual orientation.
To understand this subject, you need to have the actual texts, not only of the proposed clauses, but also of the current legislation that they are intended to replace.
Current legislation:
Regulation 7 of the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003.
Amended version of Clause 19 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
Proposed legislation:
Equality Bill, Schedule 9, Clause 2. On this copy I have underlined those parts of the new wording that are, in my opinion, significant.
5 CommentsUpdated
There have been quite a few of these during the last week.
The Church of England Newspaper has a news report by Toby Cohen Churches warned over equality laws. In the paper edition the headline was Minister’s warning to churches on equality.
And Andrew Carey discussed it in his regular opinion column in the same issue, headlined A chilling strategy (reproduced at Anglican Mainstream).
Today, the Church Times reported (scroll down to end of article) on what the Christian Institute said about it, which is based on their press releases, linked earlier.
The Spectator published an article by Melanie Phillips entitled The sexualisation of heresy.
Christian Concern for our Nation published Equality Bill will force Churches to Employ Homosexuals. Earlier this organisation had published Equality Bill: An Unworkable, Muddled Hierarchy of Rights.
Update
Neil Addison at Religion Law Blog wrote Religious Freedom in England Today.
17 CommentsUpdated Tuesday evening
Update The text of the “Waddington amendment” can be seen in the context of the legislation it amends by going here.
Today’s Observer has a report by Jamie Doward headlined Bishops fight for right to criticise gay lifestyle.
Church of England bishops are on a collision course with the government over its plans to amend the incitement to hatred laws, claiming they will stifle what they believe is legitimate criticism of homosexual lifestyles.
In what is being portrayed in some parliamentary quarters as a battle for free speech, a coalition of Anglican bishops, Conservative peers, Labour malcontents and leading crossbenchers have united to block the proposals.
You can read exactly what the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham said over here.
For the background to this development, see these two TA articles from 2007:
The latter item contains a link to the statement issued jointly by the Church of England and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales at that time.
More recently (my copy undated, but was sent to me in March) the CofE issued a briefing note to parliamentarians which is reproduced in full below the fold. This shows that the CofE has changed its mind since 2007 about the adequacy of the legislation as originally proposed:
…While we were satisfied with the definition of the offence as it stood, we believe that the amendment successfully moved by Lord Waddington now provides a valuable safeguard…
(The relevant clause was numbered 58 in the original bill but because of other amendments has now becomes clause 61.)
32 CommentsThere have been several reports following up on the conference last Saturday.
Ekklesia was first onto the web with Religious and non-religious unite to combat homophobia and transphobia by Savi Hensman.
Telegraph Matthew Moore Law ‘will force churches to employ gay staff’.
The Christian Institute has Equality chief ‘regrets’ appointing evangelical as well as Government to force gay
youth workers on church.
Pink News has Trevor Phillips acknowledges ‘intense hurt’ caused by Evangelical appointment and Churches to be banned from turning down gay staff.
The Church Times has a report Equality exemption ‘narrow’, written by me. See text below the fold.
16 CommentsUpdated
This press release from the Faith, Homophobia, Transphobia, & Human Rights Conference held on Saturday:
UK GOVERNMENT WILL STAND FIRM AGAINST FAITH EXEMPTIONS ON LGBT EQUALITIES
Government Equalities Minister, Maria Eagle pledged that she and other Ministers would stand firm against any attempts by faith groups to get out of the demands of LGBT legislation and the forthcoming Equality Bill.
Addressing a cutting-edge UK conference, Faith, Homophobia. Transphobia, & Human Rights – building positive alliances for equality and sexual diversity, Ms. Eagle pointed out :
“Values of equality and social justice are held by many within as well as outside faith communities. The circumstances in which religious institutions can practice anything less than full equality are few and far between. While the state would not intervene in narrowly ritual or doctrinal matters within faith groups, these communities cannot claim that everything they run is outside the scope of anti-discrimination law. Members of faith groups have a role in making the argument in their own communities for greater LGBT acceptance, but in the meantime the state has a duty to protect people from unfair treatment.”
The Minister’s position was reflected in the views of other Conference speakers from a variety of faith, spiritual, and non-religious backgrounds. Bringing greetings from TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber, Peter Purton from the TUC Equality & Employment Rights Department, warned that people resisting progress towards rights for all “have stolen the language of religion.”
The full press release is published here as a PDF file and most of it is also available here, republished by Religious Intelligence.
Audio recordings of the speakers are also available:
More material is available here.
39 CommentsThe Equality Bill 2008-2009 had a second reading in the House of Commons on Monday. The Hansard record of that debate starts here.
The full text of the bill can be found in two PDF files, here, and here. For html formatted versions go here.
For background papers, this page is very useful.
See earlier article for my report in the Church Times on the Church of England’s criticism of the bill’s definition of the phrase “for the purposes of organised religion”.
The Mission and Public Affairs Council of the CofE issued a parliamentary briefing in advance of Monday’s debate. A PDF version is now on the Church Times website. An html version can be found here.
6 CommentsThe following article appears in this week’s Church Times.
(Reproduced with permision.)
Church criticises Equality Bill definition
THE Archbishops’ Council is unhappy that the new Equality Bill, which had its second reading in the House of Commons on Monday, has changed the scope of an existing exemption in employment law relating to sexual orientation. It has added a definition of the phrase “for the purposes of organised religion” without prior consultation.
The new definition says that the exemption applies only when “the employment wholly or mainly involves (a) leading or assisting in the observation of liturgical or ritualistic practices of the religion, or (b) promoting or explaining the doctrine of the religion (whether to followers of the religion or to others).”
Previously there had been no such definition, but it was widely believed that the exemption had been intended to have a very narrow scope, and primarily applied to clergy. The employment tribunal ruling on the case of John Reaney v. the Hereford Diocesan Board of Finance (Comment, 27 July, 2007) took a different view.
An Archbishops’ Council spokesman said: “This definition . . . was inserted in the Bill without our receiving any prior consultation or warning. It represents a substantial narrowing of the exemption.”
Referring to such posts of secretary general of the Archbishops’ Council or a diocesan secretary as examples of “senior posts representing the Church”, the spokesman said: “That could mean, for example, that the Church would not be able to decline to employ someone in a such a role on the grounds that that person’s previous marriage had ended in divorce as a result of his or her own adultery.
“We shall be raising the issue with the Government, and are likely to support the tabling of amendments that would preserve the status quo.”
Other parts of the exemption are preserved. As now, the discrimination must also be shown to be either: a proportionate way of complying with the doctrines of the religion; or a proportionate means of avoiding conflict with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the religion’s followers.
When it does apply, however, any of the following six distinct requirements (combining an earlier list relating to sex discrimination with the sexual-orientation clause) can still be imposed: to be of a particular sex; not to be a transsexual person; not to be married or a civil partner; not to be married to, or the civil partner of, a person who has a living former spouse or civil partner; relating to circumstances in which a marriage or civil partnership came to an end; related to sexual orientation.
The Archbishops’ Council’s Mission and Public Affairs Council says that the Church “supports the broad objectives of the Bill”, but it has issued a four-page briefing to MPs that details seven areas of concern. One of these is that the law should not be formulated in ways that improperly restrict the freedom of religion, belief, and conscience guaranteed by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The briefing says: “There is therefore potential for conflict when different protected characteristics give rise to claims of discrimination, harassment or victimisation. . . Guidance will be needed on how to resolve such conflicts, without leaving them to the adjudication of the courts, and that guidance must be religiously literate.”
20 CommentsThe Church of England Newspaper published an editorial last week which suggested the Equality Bill, which was published last month and had its second reading on Monday, was all part of an anti-Christian plot. The full text of this editorial is reproduced below the fold.
I will be reporting here on the progress of the Equality Bill through Parliament, with emphasis on those aspects which are of particular interest from a Church of England viewpoint, as I have reported on many previous items of anti-discrimination legislation.
Those who are looking for more material along the lines of this CEN editorial will find it at such places as the website of the Christian Institute and at the website of Christian Concern for our Nation.
78 CommentsI reported in February on the award made by the employment tribunal in the case of John Reaney. See Reaney awarded £47K and also Hereford: Church Times report.
At the time, we all thought that was the end of the matter. But it was not. As I reported in the Church Times last week:
3 CommentsHereford ends fight against pay-out
by Simon Sarmiento
THE Hereford Diocesan Board of Finance has withdrawn the notice of appeal it filed in March in the employment discrimination case involving John Reaney. Mr Reaney will now receive the full award, exceeding £47,000, directed by a Cardiff employment tribunal in February (News, 15 February).
In July 2007, the tribunal decided that the diocese had unlawfully discriminated against Mr Reaney because of his sexual orientation, when the Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Revd Anthony Priddis, refused to confirm his appointment as Diocesan Youth Officer in July 2006 (News, 20 July 2007; News and Comment, 27 July 2007).
The diocese did not appeal against this finding, and said in a statement in February: “We are glad we can draw a line under this unhappy situation.” Nevertheless, in March the diocese filed a notice of appeal against the major portion of the Remedies judgment.
Mr Reaney, who had been employed by the Weston Spirit charity, was made redundant earlier this year, as had been forecast in his submission to the Remedies hearing last December.