More anti-discrimination laws on the way

Briefing: not content with the SORs, the Government wants to go further. See the end for the danger that the Church could be legally forbidden from establishing the real sex of people applying to be priests or nuns.

From CFNews: The Government have published their Discrimination Law Review (DLR) which proposes the biggest ever shake-up to UK discrimination law. It proposes to take every single piece of existing legislation relating to discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age, and put them all into a 'Single Equality Act' which will be overseen and enforced by a new body called the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.

The Government are proposing to make it illegal to harass someone on the grounds of their religion or belief. However, the definition of harassment is extremely broad, and substantially depends on the perception of the person who makes an allegation of harassment and not the intention of the person accused of harassment. So, a Christian that went to a largely Muslim area to hand out tracts which said that Islam was a false religion, could be sued if a particular Muslim felt that the tract had either 'violated their dignity' or put them in an 'offensive environment'.

The Government have also brought back one of the most controversial proposals that they previously tried to bring in via the Sexual Orientation Regulations only a few months ago. They are proposing that it should be made illegal to harass someone on the grounds of their sexual orientation. Again, the problem is the really broad definition of harassment. This proposal would mean that although a Church is free under the SORs to gently refuse membership of the church to an unrepentant practising homosexual, that person, if they felt that they had been put in a 'humiliating environment' could sue the Church. Similarly, a homosexual could sue a church if they heard a sermon about sexual morality that included condemnation of homosexual practices.

The Government are also consulting on whether there should be a duty on public authorities to promote sexual orientation equality. This will mean that local authorities and other bodies will take active steps to ensure that all sorts of organisations do not discriminate based on homosexual practices. The danger is that this will be taken too far and will mean that Government funding is removed from Christian projects or that support is given to projects promoting homosexuality.

The Government are further consulting on whether there should be a duty on public authorities to promote religion or belief equality. There is a similar danger here that the sort of politically correct decisions (like local councils banning Christmas cards) that increasingly make the headlines, will be multiplied, with public funding being focused on promoting 'minority' religions like Islam and Hinduism.

Another part of the consultation paper seeks views on whether Churches should be able to treat people differently because they have had gender reassignment. If the Government subsequently decided not to allow churches to do so, then a church would not be able to object to a male member of the congregation, who had a sex change (taking on the appearance of a woman), from attending a women's retreat weekend.

The Government are further proposing that the law should protect transsexual people from practices that require them to disclose the fact that their actual sex differs from their physical appearance. So, for example, the Government would allow a man that has had a sex change operation, to be able to keep it secret that he has had that operation.

These are just some of the main provisions of the DLR that are of concern to Christians. The Discrimination Law Review consultation http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/frameworkforfairnessconsultaation

On the transexual priests and nuns issue: Leaders of the Catholic Church in England and Wales have accused the Government of using new equality laws to force them to ordain transsexuals as priests or allow them to become nuns. The bishops of England and Wales said that proposals to ban 'indirect discrimination' against people who have had gender reassignment operations would take away their right to check baptismal and confirmation certificates which would show if candidates for the priesthood, religious life or marriage had a hidden past. The Government plans to change the law so that such records are altered when a person has such an operation. Requesting an exemption, the Archbishop of Cardiff, the Most Rev Peter Smith, said: 'Many Christians believe, on strongly held religious grounds, that gender is given before birth and cannot be changed.'