Bishops force major defeat on Government’s Equality legislation
By Adrian Hall, CEN
BISHOPS in the House of Lords helped defeat the Government three times over proposals they feared would restrict the right of religious organisations to prevent gay people and women taking some jobs.
The Government had insisted the provisions in the controversial Equality Bill would maintain the status quo, but Christian groups argued they would narrow the exemptions given to them under legislation passed seven years ago.
Exceptions to the equality laws have preserved the right of the Church of England not to appoint practising homosexuals as priests and women as bishops and the right of the Catholic Church not to appoint married or female priests.
There had been widespread fears raised that despite the Government’s stated intention that it was not changing the position that the clauses of the new Bill as drafted would have forced churches to open up more positions, including even the clergy, to applicants they could previously have rejected.
But peers threw out a Government compromise that bishops argued would make the situation more complicated and open the Church up to legal challenges and instead voted through a series of amendments that supporters say will ensure the status quo is preserved.
The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, said during debate on the provisions: “You may feel that many churches and other religious organisations are wrong on matters of sexual ethics. “But, if religious freedom means anything it must mean that those are matters for the churches and otherreligious organisations to determine for themselves in accordance with their own convictions.”
The Government had argued that the new provisions were required to clarify the current situation, but Dr Sentamu asked: “Where are the examples of actual abuses that have caused difficulties? Where are the court rulings that have shown that the law is defective? If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”
The Bishop of Winchester, MichaelScott-Joynt, said: “Churches need to be able to appoint members, either of their own particular church or of some other, who are of good standing and whose ways of living and behaving advocate and credibly represent, rather than undermine, the Christian faith and the objectives of the organisation concerned – not… cleaners or people doing the books or whatever, but people representing those organisations according to one bullet point or more on their job description.”
He said the Government did not appear to be grasping the “sheer reality” in many parishes of the variety of roles carried out by people such as youth workers “I have a lay assistant, not a chaplain, who represents me in a whole range of ways; his job description notes that he does so,” he said.“Is it not entirely reasonable that he should be a Christian of good standing whose life tallies with his Christian profession and who is therefore able to represent me, not someone living in some quite other way so as to make his representation impossible and to undermine my own activity?”
The Bishop of Exeter, Michael Langrish, said that the Bill took the Church further from “self-determination” and in the direction of “state, court or tribunal determination in matters which touch the very heart of religious faith and life”.
Lords leader Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, for the Government, said she had listened “very carefully” to representations from churches and that the Government’s amendment was to provide “further clarification”. “The Government’s intention is not, and never has been, to narrow the scope of the exception,” she added. She said the Church could not turn down someone for a role under one of the exceptions if explaining or promoting the religion was not “intrinsic” to the job. “A church youth worker who primarily organises sporting activities would be unlikely to be covered by the exception. However, a youth worker whose key function is to teach Bible classes probably
would be covered, because explaining the doctrines of the religion would be intrinsic to the role,” she said.
In reply to Bishop Scott-Joynt she said the Bill as it stood would not “prevent a lay assistant to a bishop from being a Christian. It would allow the application of requirements related to sex, marriage and civil partnerships and sexual orientation”.
However, peers rejected the Government amendment by 195 votes to 174 and backed two amendments by the backbench Tory Baroness O’Cathain by 216 to 178 and 177
to 172.
Eight bishops, including Dr Sentamu, voted against the Government on all three occasions while the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, supported the Government all three times.
Earlier, Labour peer Lord Alli withdrew an amendment that would have removed the “sexual orientation” exemption from the list of grounds on which religious organisations can reject people for some jobs.
Bishop Scott-Joynt said that although the term “sexual orientation” was used in legislation it was actually “sexual conduct”, specifically sex outside of marriage, that was of concern for the Church.
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