About the National Secular Society

The National Secular Society is the leading pressure group defending the rights of non-believers from the demands of religious power-seekers. We campaign on a wide range of issues, including religious influence in the Government, the disestablishment of the Church of England, the removal of the (unelected) Bench of Bishops from the House of Lords and for the conversion of religious schools (paid for by the taxpayer) to community schools, open to all.

We campaign for a society in which all are free to practise their faith, change it or not have one, according to their conscience. Our belief or lack of it should be neither an advantage nor a disadvantage. Religion should be a matter of private conscience, for the home and place of worship; it must not have privileged input into the political arena where history shows it to bring conflict and injustice.

We fight to protect free expression from attacks by religious groups, often keen to restrict comment about, and examination of, their activities.

We campaigned hard and successfully for the blasphemy law to be abolished and we continue working to protect artistic expression from religious censors.

We lobby the BBC to reduce the amount of religious propaganda paid for by licence-payers, very few of whom are interested in it.

We want to ensure that Human Rights always come before religious rights, and to fight the massive exemptions religious bodies are granted from discrimination laws that everyone else has to observe.

The NSS was prominent in the campaign to frustrate religious bodies’ attempts to opt out of the Human Rights Act – we fought to limit exemptions in the employment discrimination legislation and other equality law.

Even now the Government seems anxious to increase religious involvement in public life. Each increase disadvantages those who have no religion.

Only by secularising our institutions can we ensure that no religious ideology can dominate and discriminate against others.