CHURCHES WILL BE FORCED TO RECRUIT GAYS
Tuesday 26 May, 2009
UK
Politics
By Charles Gardner
The gagging of Christians has reached a deeper level with reports that churches will be forced to employ homosexual staff under new anti-discrimination laws.
They will be banned from turning down ‘gay’ job applicants on the grounds of their sexuality, a Government minister has said, and will in effect be forced to accept homosexual youth workers, secretaries and other staff, even if their faith holds same-sex relationships to be sinful.
Only those leading worship and teaching will be exempt. But what, I ask, is the practical difference in terms of influencing people with Christian doctrine between a church minister and a youth worker?
Christian organisations fear that the tightened legislation, due to come into force next year under the Equality Bill, will undermine the integrity of churches and dilute their moral message.
It comes amid growing concern that Christians are being unfairly targeted by discrimination laws while the Government argues that the state has a duty to protect people from unfair treatment.
Campaigning lawyer Andrea Williams, director of Christian Concern for our Nation, said: “This is a new attempt to impose the state’s secularist agenda on the Church and gag Christians from teaching and living out what the Bible says about sexual ethics. The Government thrust is that Christians should largely be free to follow Christ in private, as long as it doesn’t affect their working life.”
And she added: “While Christians believe in the innate worth of every human being, the Bill undermines basic Christian freedoms to adhere to biblical values in the area of employment.”
She said recent cases taken up by the Christian Legal Centre illustrate the point. Teacher Kwabena Peat spoke out against homosexual propaganda on a school training day and found himself suspended while David
Booker, working at a homeless charity, was also suspended after answering questions from a colleague about his views on homosexuality.
And now a nurse with over 40 years’ experience has been sacked after suggesting during a training course role play session that patients might go to church to relieve stress – action described by Mrs Williams as “the first fruits of a closed society”. The nurse concerned, Anand Rao, was taking part in simulated situations as part of an exercise in palliative care.
Religious leaders had hoped to lobby for exemptions to the Equality Bill but Maria Eagle, the deputy equalities minister, has now indicated that it will cover almost all church employees.
“The circumstances in which religious institutions can practice anything less than full equality are few and far between,” she told delegates at the Faith, Homophobia, Transphobia and Human Rights conference in London.
Under existing equalities legislation, any roles deemed to be necessary “for the purposes of an organised religion” are excluded from gay rights protection.
But the Equality Bill for the first time defines this as applying only to those leading worship and teaching.
A spokesman for the Christian Institute accused politicians of hypocrisy.
“It would be absurd to pass a law demanding that the Labour Party employ card-carrying Conservative members, but that is effectively what churches are being told to do. We just want the same exceptions as political parties,” he said.
“Christians are sick to the back teeth of equality and diversity laws that put them to the back of the queue. We are quite prepared to accept that people will take a different view to us on moral and ethical questions, but that should not mean we have to withdraw from public life.”
Recent cases including the nurse suspended for offering to pray for a patient and the British Airways worker sent home for wearing a visible cross have left many believers afraid to go public with their faith at work.
Roman Catholic barrister Neil Addison said: “This is a threat to religious identity. What we are losing is the right for organisations to make free choices,” he said.
A Government Equalities Office spokesman said: “The Equality Bill will not force a church to accept someone as a priest regardless of their sexual orientation or gender.
“Churches, synagogues, mosques and others will continue to have the freedom to choose who they employ in jobs which promote their religion. But where they provide services to the public they will have to treat everyone fairly.”
Photo: Luke Wilson Photography
Ian Walsh wrote:
It would seem that British politicians, bent on silencing Christians who want to take a Biblical stance on sexuality, suffer seriously from Chritianophobia. This in itself is discriminating and hypocritical… they accuse the church of being homophobic and transphobic, but are blind to their own prejudices… prejudices that deliberately target freedom of choice, speech and religion.
Alan Rees wrote:
I guess it all depends on what you call ‘church’. If you meant the ‘professional organisational denominational type’ - then they have a problem certainly. And it is of their own making. But if you are referring to the ‘Body of Christ’ who to my knowledge and understanding never ‘employed’ anyone in 2000 years, then there is no problem!
Alex Woods. wrote:
This will in effect force the real believers underground.
Hard to believe that the country which sent out so many missionaries in the past has come to this.
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