Anglican Mainstream

The cabinet is in open warfare over new gay rights legislation after Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, who is a devout Catholic, blocked the plans following protests from religious organisations.

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, was so angry with the move that he wrote a letter to Kelly three weeks ago, telling her that the new rights should not be watered down.

The battle between what is being dubbed the government’s ‘Catholic tendency’ and their more liberal colleagues centres on proposals to stop schools, companies and other agencies refusing services to people purely because of their sexuality.

Tony Blair, who sent three of his children to Catholic schools, is said to be anxious about the impact on faith schools and faith-based adoption agencies, which are demanding to be exempt from the law.

Kelly has now delayed the introduction of the laws for consideration of what a spokesman said were ‘difficult issues’. Johnson is leading the opposition to watering down the laws. ‘His department has in the past taken the faith schools’ line but Johnson is saying they have got to be sensible about this,’ said a senior Whitehall source. ‘You can’ t have Satan worshippers going into the local church to have their annual meeting, but if there’s a publicly funded school and it wants to open its facilities to everyone else but not a local gay and lesbian group – that’s discrimination.’

[Read here->http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1922914,00.html]

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