Tonight there will be an hour long debate in the House of Lords to consider Democratic Unionist Party peer Lord Morrow’s motion to annul The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006, which came into force on 1 January, and which will also be the subject of a High Court case in March.
Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006
Lord Morrow to move that a Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Regulations, laid before the House on 24 November, be annulled. 3rd Report from the Merits Committee (Dinner break business, 1 hour)
Written Answers in the House of Lords on this topic on 13 December were as follows:
7 CommentsEquality: Sexual Orientation
Lord Lester of Herne Hill asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 would require all schools actively to promote homosexual civil partnerships to children from primary school age to the same degree that they teach the importance of marriage. [HL447]
Lord Rooker: No. The regulations are not concerned with what is taught in schools. That is rightly a matter for the Department of Education, Northern Ireland.Lord Lester of Herne Hill asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 would require a printing shop run by a Christian to print fliers promoting gay sex.[HL448]
Lord Rooker: No. It would be entirely within the spirit of the regulations for a printing shop run by a Christian to refuse to print fliers promoting gay sex, so long as that printer also refused to print fliers promoting heterosexual sex outside the realm of marriage.Lord Lester of Herne Hill asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 would require a family-run bed and breakfast to let out a double room to a transsexual couple, even if the family consider it to be in the best interests of their children to refuse to allow such a situation in their own home.[HL449]
Lord Rooker: No.Lord Lester of Herne Hill asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 would make it illegal for a heterosexual police officer, fire fighter or member of the Armed Forces to refuse to join a Gay Pride event promoting the homosexual way of life.[HL450]
Lord Rooker: No.Lord Lester of Herne Hill asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether they have received representations from Coherent and Cohesive Voice, a network of Christian leaders about the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 (SI 2006/439); and, if so, when; how many representations have been received; and in what form.[HL451]
Lord Rooker: We have received no representations from this group.
An attempt by religious groups to delay the introduction of The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 on 1 January was rebuffed in the High Court. See this BBC report, Gay rights objectors lose action, and this earlier: Go ahead for gay rights challenge.
Last week, an attempt in the Northern Ireland Transitional Assembly to pass a motion calling on the government to withdraw the regulations was defeated by the narrowest of margins. See the earlier BBC report, Assembly clashes over gay rights.
For more background, read William Crawley’s blog, Will and Testament, in particular these articles:
21 Dec New Gay rights law gets the go-ahead
20 Dec Church leaders meet the minister over new gay rights law
18 Dec Christian groups challenge equality legislation
13 Dec The Equality Act
There is also this rather odd press release from the Church of Ireland.
The government’s analysis of the many responses to its consultation can be found in html format here.
Further links to government material here.
My earlier analysis of the religious exemption provided in the regulations is here.
6 CommentsAccording to the Independent this morning, in Kelly rejects call to extend Ulster gay rights to the rest of Britain:
A row has broken out in the Cabinet over how far the Government should go in outlawing discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, has pushed through regulations in the province that will be tougher than the Government plans for England, Wales and Scotland. He has defied a call by Ruth Kelly, the Cabinet minister responsible for equality, to hold fire until a common approach has been agreed…
Meanwhile, the Tablet has a news report (only available to subscribers) about what the RC bishops in Northern Ireland said, and a leader column which you can read in full here: When tone matters.
According to Anglican Mainstream government telephones are besieged with phone calls from people concerning these proposals.
The Lawyers Christian Fellowship has published a press release concerning a survey of public opinion which it commissioned, and another press release summarising their view of progress: Opinion Poll Results Show Widespread Opposition To Sors; Annulment Of Sors Sought In Commons And Lords
51 CommentsThe Sun newspaper came to the support of the Bishop of Rochester: Gay law is bashed by bishop.
Two columns on Comment is free do not support the bishop’s point of view:
Andrew Brown The view from the inside (the URL is more descriptive than the title) and the strap is:
When religions discriminate against a minority group, they are also fighting for something fundamental about the freedom of religion.
and Theo Hobson Divine judgment on religion
The church is meant to signify unity between Christians, but the gay crisis has completely undermined this concept.
Meanwhile, the Evangelical Alliance has issued a Call for consultation, Andrew Marr interviewed Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor on BBC TV on Sunday, and the Christian Institute issued this briefing on the Northern Ireland regulations (PDF file).
The latest statement from the Lawyers Christian Fellowship is here and also here. This Word document here is slightly older but is the source of some material attacking the regulations seen elsewhere, such as the Christian bookshop and Christian printshop examples of alleged difficulty.
30 CommentsDespite the extensive scope of the “religious exemption” provided in the Northern Ireland regulations, attacks on this legislation, and on the presumed extension of it into the mainland UK, continue from the Daily Mail, from the usual conservative Christian lobby groups, but also from various Christian leaders.
The paid advertisement in The Times yesterday can be seen in full here (PDF file). The group that sponsored this is Coherent and Cohesive Voice. This is an alliance of Black church leaders (“a network of hundreds of Christian leaders in the UK representing hundreds of thousands of voters”) including many names which can be found here.
Complaints about this advertisement can be made to the Advertising Standards Authority.
This group also issued a Briefing Paper last July which can be read here. Both documents contain statements about the effect of these regulations which are just not true.
Tomorrow’s Times carries several letters to the Editor about this matter. One of them is from the Minister for Equality, Meg Munn:
Sir, The Government is seeking to strike a balance between protecting the rights of religious groups and preventing discrimination against lesbian, gay and bisexual people.
This is a Government, and country, that has a proud record of tackling discrimination wherever it exists. But it is also a country that has a proud record of respecting people from all faiths and none.
No one is proposing that schools will have to promote homosexuality or that a priest will have to bless same-sex couples. But at the same time, it is wrong for gay teenagers to be refused emergency accommodation after being thrown out of their family home on the ground that they had chosen to tell their parents about their sexuality, or for lesbian and bisexual people to be denied access to essential healthcare.
MEG MUNN
Deputy Minister for
Women and Equalities
And in an interview, Meg Munn said:
16 Comments“It is right that there should be a public debate on these complex and difficult issues, but that debate should be conducted in a calm and measured way rather than through inaccurate and wild speculation.”
Update
There is an Anglican angle too: Daily Mail Steve Doughty Anglican bishop threatens to close youth clubs in protest at gay rights. And sidebar Seven out of 10 say beliefs should not be abandoned over gay rights
The bishop is Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester.
There are several reports of what RC archbishop Vincent Nichols has been saying about what he perceives as the government’s intentions in bringing in the proposed new regulations discussed here previously.
Daily Mail Steve Doughty Don’t impose your morality: Catholic Archbishop attacks gay rights bill and editorial comment Blair and the moral backlash
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Archbishop warns of gay rights backlash
Universe Church Fires Broadside Over Government’s Moral Neutrality
Catholic Herald Gay rights law threatens Catholic adoption agencies
It’s rather difficult to see what justification exists for most of these concerns. The Northern Ireland regulations are clear in providing religious bodies with an exemption from almost all the requirements placed on everybody else. The effect is that discimination by a religious organisation, in respect of sexual orientation. is permitted:
(a) if it is necessary to comply with the doctrine of the organisation; or
(b) so as to avoid conflicting with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the religions followers.
which should be easy for the Roman Catholic church to meet. Charitable bodies, whether or not religious, are also exempted, provided their actions are taken by reason of or in pursuance of their charitable instrument.
The two principles from which there is no exemption provided in Northern Ireland are:
Postscript: there was a full page advertisement in The Times today placed by a group called Coherent and Cohesive Voice, self-described as “a network of hundreds of Christian leaders in the UK representing hundreds of thousands of voters”. Follow this link to read the text of the advertisement. Several claims made in the advertisement are quite false.
79 CommentsAnother item from the BBC Sunday radio programme:
New think tank for animal rights opens
What rights, if any, do animals have? What’s described as the world’s first academy, to enhance the ethical status of animals, opens in Britain tomorrow. The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics will act as an international think tank with its own online course, research initiatives and publications. It’s focusing in particular on the relationship between animal abuse and human violence. More than 100 academics from ten countries have agreed to become advisers in an attempt to put animals on the intellectual agenda. But, with many conflicting views on such issues as experimentation and organic farming, how effective will the centre be? Mike Ford reports from Oxfordshire.
Listen (6m 9s)
BBC Religion & Ethics – Animal ethics
The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics
Evening Standard Think tank aims to spark animal ethics debate
There is also a Church Times report about this which I will link when it becomes public.
The government consultation on this legislation in Northern Ireland was based on this document (PDF – warning very large document, 2.6 Mb), and this questionnaire. It generated 373 responses, some of which can be found here, and this analysis of the responses (PDF – very small). The analysis is well worth reading.
The Evangelical Alliance Northern Ireland, issued this press release on 23 November:
Evangelical Alliance Northern Ireland (EANI) today responded to new equality legislation designed to outlaw discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation in the provision of goods, services and facilities.
Responding to the new regulations Stephen Cave, General Secretary, said, ‘During this ‘Anti-homophobia Week’ Evangelical Alliance Northern Ireland recognises that unfortunately homophobia can and does occur within faith based communities. We renounce any homophobia which manifests itself in terms of victimisation and abusive, demeaning or other violent attitudes and behaviour.’
Commenting on the details of the legislation he went on to say, ‘There are serious questions which must be addressed about the rushed nature of the consultation process and quick implementation of the regulations. However EANI acknowledges the work done by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in listening to the concerns of religious organisations and subsequently providing exemptions to ensure that core doctrinal beliefs are not undermined.
We also note the introduction to the legislation of a harassment clause offering those of different sexual orientation protection against violation of dignity or the creation of an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. In keeping with the spirit of laws against discrimination we would caution against any potential use of this legislation which would curb freedom of speech or curtail religious liberty in Northern Ireland. We would also hope that it will not be long until the same protection against harassment is afforded to people of faith across the community.’
The harassment clause mentioned, which as the analysis explains was requested by many who responded, reads as follows:
(3) A person (“A”) subjects another person (“B”) to harassment in any circumstances relevant for the purposes of any provision referred to in these Regulations where, on the ground of sexual orientation, A engages in unwanted conduct which has the purpose or effect of —
(a) violating B’s dignity; or
(b) creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B
This needs to be read in conjunction with:
(4) Conduct shall be regarded as having the effect specified in sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) or paragraph (1) only if, having regard to all the circumstances, including, in particular, the perception of B, it should reasonably be considered as having that effect.
Religious Exemption: for a comparison between the wording of these NI regulations and the text of the Equality Act part 2 relating to Religion and Belief, see this page.
10 CommentsArticles from 10 June and from 30 June and 20 August reported on the Getting Equal consultation conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry.
More recently, I reported on 15 October, that action had been delayed until next April.
My earlier Church Times article is unfortunately not available at present from the CT archive, so is reproduced below the fold.
This week, the government has taken action earlier than that, but in Northern Ireland. See this report in the Telegraph Gay rights law ‘being forced through’.
Today, there is a further report in the Daily Mail Vicars could be sued for refusing to bless gay weddings, fears Church which claim may well be unjustified.
Anglican Mainstream and The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship have become even more hysterical than usual about this, and the latter’s public policy website, Christian Concern for our Nation contains yet another plea for its supporters to deluge politicians to stop all this action.
The proposed regulations for Northern Ireland, which have been published by the Northern Ireland Office, can be read here: The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006. The document is described as follows:
Made 8th November 2006
To be laid before Parliament under paragraph 7(3) of the Schedule to the Northern Ireland Act 2000
Coming into operation 1st January 2007
The wording of these regulations contains some material that is specific to Northern Ireland, but is presumably broadly consistent with the government’s intentions for the whole UK. Watch out for further analysis of this soon.
52 CommentsJonathan Petre has a report in the Telegraph Leave Christmas alone, say Muslims.
The statement reported comes from the Christian Muslim Forum whose website, which is in English, Arabic, and Urdu, carries the full text of the statement only as a PDF; it is reproduced below the fold here.
38 CommentsUpdated Tuesday
A new religious British think tank was launched this week, named Theos. Its website is here. Its first published report is titled “Doing God”: A Future For Faith in the Public Square and it can be downloaded as a PDF file here (warning: over 1 Mbyte).
Press reports of this launch event:
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Majority views religion as force for good
Guardian See the leader listed here yesterday. And on Comment is free see Madeleine Bunting, Martin Newland, and AC Grayling.
BBC Leaders back faith in public life
The Times Ruth Gledhill Archbishops back campaign to promote religion and Wise men of the churches set out to keep Christ in Christmas
Ekklesia Theos think tank ‘gives hope to humanists’. Here is the BHS press release mentioned.
Theos has also published this article by Alister McGrath The Dawkins Delusion
The BBC radio programme Sunday covered this launch too, listen to Christopher Landau here (Real Audio, 5 minutes 46 seconds).
22 CommentsA Channel Four television programme with this title, lasting two hours, airs in the UK on Saturday at 7.15 pm. The presenter is Mark Dowd. The official publicity blurb reads:
Former Dominican friar Mark Dowd travels the world to explore the origins of and reasons for religious fundamentalism. Examining five different faiths and a century of history, Dowd strives to discover who fundamentalists are, what their common attributes might be, and why a literalist approach to the religious text is so important to them.
Mark Vernon who has seen the programme, has written this preview:
50 CommentsThe Fundamentalists – Channel 4, Saturday 9th Sept
Would you know a fundamentalist if you met one? A black hood and Kalashnikov might rouse your suspicion. But what of the peaceful sort, in regular clothes. What would give them away?
Four individuals featured in Mark Dowd’s film, ‘The Fundamentalists’, shatter preconceptions. For one thing they are women – a Hindi nationalist in India, a settler wife in Israel, an evangelical grandma in the US, and a Palestinian mum in Gaza. These four are also of four different religions – Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Fundamentalists are as likely to be Buddhist too, particularly if you live in Sri Lanka where they wear saffron robes. You needn’t go abroad for fundamentalism either. I recently spent the day with a fundamentalist from the home counties. He is white, middle class and a minister in the Church of England. We drank tea as he told me homosexuals are at risk of burning for all eternity.
From its origins in America, modern media have given the word fundamentalist global recognition in a few short decades, as Dowd shows when it is instantly recognised by people across four continents. Inspired by American fundamentalists, all sorts of people who feel politically embattled and/or personally unsure now turn to it for security. What fundamentalists have in common is breaking with the past: they do religion without tradition; something written or spoken two or three thousand years ago can be directly and unproblematically applied to today.
How should liberals respond to fundamentalism? Dowd shows how it is partly a political problem but it is also a spiritual problem. This leads him to make some pertinent suggestions. First, recognising that fundamentalism is here to stay, it is important to be savvy about their sense of the sacred to ensure that peaceable fundamentalists stay peaceable. Second, and more aggressively, it is important to challenge them religiously, particularly on the break with tradition: for example, as Jonathan Sacks puts it, God’s word without interpretation is like nuclear fuel without insulation. Third, we must strive for more spirituality enlightened times: the spiritual crudity of fundamentalism is a reflection of the spiritual crudity of materialism. As Dowd concludes, ultimately, only towering spiritual figures can lead fundamentalists away from their fears.
In June, I linked here to the article for the Church Times that I wrote about the latest DTI consultation Getting Equal on outlawing discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation throughout the UK in the provision of goods and services.
Since then, the Roman Catholic Bishops of England and Wales also published their response to the DTI consultation. You can read it here (PDF ) and also the covering letter (another PDF). It is far more restrained in its language than the response from Anglican Mainstream or the even more extreme response of the Lawyers Christian Fellowship.
One specific RC concern is to do with child adoption services. This week, The Tablet has an interesting article which discusses how this issue has been handled by Roman Catholics in the USA: Dilemma of gay adoption by Terry Philpot. (Access to this PDF article is free, but requires registration.)
There is a related news report (only available on the web by subscription) concerning opposition to the anticipated regulations from the Scottish RC bishops on this score. But there is no mention there of the English RC objections which are contained in the document linked above. A Scottish RC press release is here.
The DTI response to the consultation is expected 12 weeks after the closure date of 5 June. That could be next week. This response will then be followed by the publication of draft regulations for parliamentary approval in October.
1 CommentOn the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme last Tuesday 28 March, the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed his concerns over the issue of climate change.
A full transcript of the interview is available on the CofE website. (Also on Lambeth Palace and ENS sites.)
You can also listen to the interview (Real Audio required) on the BBC website – 17 minutes total, but the archbishop comes first in sequence, and this lasts about 9 minutes. The other person interviewed is Margaret Beckett who is the UK Secretary of State for the Environment.
Church Times Dr Williams: Billions could die from climate change by Pat Ashworth
BBC Archbishop urges emissions cuts
A few nuggets on what the Church of England is doing about this itself can be found here.
1 CommentUpdated Friday 10 March
First, the text of the draft Nigerian legislation that has been under discussion here and elsewhere is reproduced below the fold.
Second, this legislation was endorsed explicitly by the following statement:
The Bill against Homosexuality:
The Church commends the law-makers for their prompt reaction to outlaw same-sex relationships in Nigeria and calls for the bill to be passed since the idea expressed in the bill is the moral position of Nigerians regarding human sexuality.
This occurs in the MESSAGE TO THE NATION / COMMUNIQUE from the meeting of the Standing Committee held in Ibadan on 22-25 February, signed by the Primate, and posted on the official provincial website. That meeting was several days before the recent claims that he had made no public statement on this matter. Amended Wednesday 15 March
The PASTORAL LETTER TO THE CHURCH from the same source, dated 25 February, does not mention this topic.
Hat Tip: Mark Harris.
Addition Friday 10 March
The US Department of State issued this Press Statement back on 1 February: Nigerian Legislation Threatens to Limit Rights of Sexual Minorities.
Christianity Today’s weblog has comprehensive reporting of the Nigerian disturbances, and that includes a link to this annotated map showing where each reported event has occurred.
Hat Tip to GetReligion for this.
Update Saturday
‘The Americans are breaking international law… it is a society heading towards Animal Farm’ – Archbishop Sentamu on Guantanamo
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has joined in the growing chorus of condemnation of America’s Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Read the BBC News report Tutu calls for Guantanamo closure and listen (Real Audio – 8+ minutes) to the Radio 4 Today interview:
6 CommentsArchbishop Desmond Tutu has been very critical of Britain’s way of dealing with the threat from terrorism and he too, along with Kofi Annan and many others, supports the mounting pressure to close Guantanamo Bay.
The BBC radio programme Sunday has several items of Anglican interest today. Real Player required.
Rowan Williams is interviewed about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
It’s easy to understand why Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian, is a hero, even a saint, to German Christians. Unlike so many of their religious leaders, Bonhoeffer’s opposition to the Nazis was unremitting and he paid for it with his life. He was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler and was executed in the last weeks of the war.
But what relevance does he have for non-Germans in the 21st century?
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has no doubt of the theologian’s importance. He has travelled to Germany and Poland to attend celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of Bonhoeffer’s birth.
Listen (5m 22s)
And two items previewing General Synod debates this week.
Rural churches
Perhaps next Tuesday afternoon’s debate at the General Synod should be held not in the chamber of Church House in Westminster but in a draughty parish hall in a remote country village. They’ll be talking about rural churches – something we might take for granted, but which in many places are facing crisis – just like every other kind of rural service. The synod debate follows an internal report on rural churches which often lose out on grants from government and other funding agencies.
Listen (6m 32s)
Slave trade
Next year will see the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Colonies and next week’s General Synod will debate a motion calling on the Church to help mark the anniversary and use it as an opportunity to campaign for an end to human trafficking and other modern forms of slavery. But an amendment to the motion will also be tabled. It will call on the Church of England to recognise the damage done by its own involvement in the Slave Trade. It will also urge the Church to address the legacy of the slave trade and offer an apology to the heirs of those who were enslaved.
Listen (4m 11s)
0 CommentsThe Guardian today carried three items:
A news report by Stephen Bates Vatican rules firmly against gay priests
A magazine article by Emily Wilson How gay is too gay?
A leader: Distinctly without prejudice
Update see also Thursday’s letters to the editor
The Independent had a report: Pope restates ban on gay priests and says homosexuality is ‘disordered’
The Times had this: Pope’s gay priest ruling is hailed by moderates by Ruth Gledhill and Richard Owen
And in the Telegraph Jonathan Petre reported under the headline Vatican call to weed out practising gays
7 CommentsEarlier this week, the Roman Catholic Church issued somebody in Rome leaked a long-expected document about homosexuality and the RC clergy, or to give it its official title:
Instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education Concerning the Criteria of Vocational Discernment Regarding Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of their Admission to Seminaries and Orders
Original PDF in Italian released by the Italian news agency Adista
full web page copy of text in Italian
Unofficial translation from Italian into English by Robert Mickens of The Tablet
Update Official translation into English in PDF file as released by UCCB (hat tip to the Loggia again)
Article about it in The Tablet by Timothy Radcliffe Can gays be priests?
Article about it by John Allen in the National Catholic Reporter Vatican document bans most gays from priesthood and also this here.
Ruth Gledhill comments, Vatican bans gays from seminaries.
34 Comments