Bishop of Winchester warns Christians may have to give up public sector jobs because of secular agenda
By Martin Beckford, Telegraph
The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, told peers that councils, police forces and judges are wrongly using equality and diversity rules to punish churchgoers.
He said that some in society now view religion as “undesirable” and want churchgoers to keep their faith “in a little box” rather than express it in public or at work.
The bishop, the fifth most senior prelate in the Church of England, spoke in support of an amendment to the Equality Bill that would ensure worshippers are not accused of discrimination simply for celebrating Christmas, displaying Bibles or saying prayers.
He said in the Lords debate on Tuesday: “Religious faith and practice appears to be viewed in many places as abnormal, exceptional, deviant, as if it alone is ideological and controversial and, for a whole range of reasons, undesirable.
“Your Lordships may think that that is wildly exaggerated, but that is how very many people of faith, Christians and others, feel.
“It seems to be a thread that is at risk of running through the equality and diversity agenda. In fact, in my observation it does run through it; that fundamentally admirable agenda is often popularly followed out in many a town hall, in a significant element of the lower echelons of many police forces, at the more rarefied level of parts of this Bill, in Parliament, and even, if I dare say so, in some of the judgments handed down by the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
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