UK Early Day Motion: Free Pass for Religious Discrimination?
Fourteen MPs originally signed an early day motion (designed to raise the profile of an issue rather than seek legislative change):
“[T]his House welcomes the decision of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to intervene in support of four cases involving discrimination against Christians that are presently with the European Court of Human Rights; notes that this is a long overdue recognition of the need to defend religious liberty and marks an important development in relation to a better understanding of the role of faith in public life; and further welcomes the commission’s advocacy for reasonable accommodation in the workplace as an acknowledgement of the place of conscientious objection for those with religious belief.”
John Hemmings MP then withdrew his name with the following statement:
“I would like to apologise to the LGBT community for signing this EDM in error. My view has been quite clear in that I do not support a religious free pass for discrimination. It was, however, not clear from the words of the motion that this was what they meant.”
As I blogged about Laura Fotusky; the New York town clerk who resigned her job rather than suffer the horrors of having to officiate at same sex weddings, and despite recent bleating by some "Christians" that they are not "haters", it seems clear to me that civil servants need to serve the public regardless of politics, ethnicity, secuality, gender, etc along with the law. It is unacceptable for public servants to choose what services they will deliver to certain communities and not to others. It is extremely hard to see these actions as anything but ideological bullying: in the not too distant past, it would have been enough for an individual to cite Christian dogma but I am glad that this is increasingly questioned.
I'm surprised that the EHRC is championing this move: it is a body set up to challenge discrimination and equality, but it claims that Christians are being discriminated against because they are being stopped from discriminating against people who don't fit a certain set of criteria.
“[T]his House welcomes the decision of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to intervene in support of four cases involving discrimination against Christians that are presently with the European Court of Human Rights; notes that this is a long overdue recognition of the need to defend religious liberty and marks an important development in relation to a better understanding of the role of faith in public life; and further welcomes the commission’s advocacy for reasonable accommodation in the workplace as an acknowledgement of the place of conscientious objection for those with religious belief.”
John Hemmings MP then withdrew his name with the following statement:
“I would like to apologise to the LGBT community for signing this EDM in error. My view has been quite clear in that I do not support a religious free pass for discrimination. It was, however, not clear from the words of the motion that this was what they meant.”
As I blogged about Laura Fotusky; the New York town clerk who resigned her job rather than suffer the horrors of having to officiate at same sex weddings, and despite recent bleating by some "Christians" that they are not "haters", it seems clear to me that civil servants need to serve the public regardless of politics, ethnicity, secuality, gender, etc along with the law. It is unacceptable for public servants to choose what services they will deliver to certain communities and not to others. It is extremely hard to see these actions as anything but ideological bullying: in the not too distant past, it would have been enough for an individual to cite Christian dogma but I am glad that this is increasingly questioned.
I'm surprised that the EHRC is championing this move: it is a body set up to challenge discrimination and equality, but it claims that Christians are being discriminated against because they are being stopped from discriminating against people who don't fit a certain set of criteria.
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