Campaigns

The National Secular Society is the leading pressure group defending the rights of non-believers from the demands of religious power-seekers. Below are some of the issues we campaign on.

Education

One of the National Secular Society’s primary aims is the secularisation of Britain’s education system. We would like to see all state-funded schools returned to community control, and all religious entry requirements abolished. This, we recognise, would be a major undertaking, but one that we feel is increasingly urgent.

---

Health

The National Secular Society has concerns in several areas of health. One is that public money is not spent on the provision or promotion of unproven, and often potentially dangerous, 'alternative' therapies such as homeopathy and chiropractic.

We are unhappy that tens of millions of pounds of scarce health service funds are spent every year on the provision of hospital chaplains. There is no evidence that these would be missed if they were not provided, and we contend that if churches, mosques and temples wish to have representation in hospitals, they should do it at their own expense.

We are concerned with the proliferation of so-called conscience clauses that permit medical practitioners and other health professionals to opt out of providing services of which they do not approve. We have no problems with conscience clauses being exercised for those who do not wish to participate directly in terminations of pregnancy, but we think that health professionals have a duty to ensure that people wishing these services are referred immediately and without question to others who are prepared to help. We campaign to get the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to change its Code of Practice which permits pharmacists to refuse to provide contraceptives.

---

Freedom Of Expression

The National Secular Society is concerned about religious threats to free expression. The Society’s 140 year campaign to abolish the blasphemy law in England succeeded in 2008 and it continues to protest about blasphemy law in other parts of the world - in some places conviction can carry the death penalty.

We campaign vigorously against all attempts to restrict free speech and artistic expression, and were instrumental in having the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill amended to protect free speech.

We campaigned hard when attempts were made to ban the showing of Jerry Springer the Opera on the BBC, and the show was eventually broadcast. The NSS has been in the forefront of efforts to oppose the modification of the United Nations Human Rights Charter by Islamic nations that would render it ineffective, and even counterproductive, in the area of free speech.

---

Disestablishment

One of the primary, long-terms aims of the National Secular Society is the disestablishment of the Church of England. We would like to see it replaced with a written constitution that declares Britain to be a secular nation. This we think will better reflect the changing demographics of the country and ensure that no religion can disadvantage another by having privileged access to power. We know that this is not something the present Government favours, but we will continue to press for it, even if it has to be achieved in piecemeal fashion over generations.

---

Religious influence in Government

We are dismayed by the growing influence of religion on Government and the increasing desire of the Government to involve religious bodies and individuals in the decisions of state. We believe this puts the large minority (maybe even a majority) of the population who are not religious at a disadvantage and at risk of having religion forced on them in areas that they do not desire, such as in the provision of welfare services. Our Government should be secular, so as to be fair to everyone.

---

Public Services

Public services that are intended for the whole community should be secular. The trend towards handing them over to religious control must be stopped, and the NSS is working to ensure that “faith based welfare” does not impose religious conditions on service provision. We do not want the “soup for prayers” situation that has arisen in the USA to become the norm here, where public services have traditionally been provided by secular local authorities and other public bodies that served all without favour.

---

House of Lords

At present, 26 bishops of the Church of England have seats as of right in the House of Lords. The NSS has argued that this is unfair, undemocratic and undesirable. One of the Government’s proposals has been to extend religious representation in the Lords to other religions, rather than remove the bench of bishops. We think this is completely the wrong answer. We favour the proposal for a fully elected House of Lords that will ensure that all representatives are there by the will of the people and not because of their adherence to a small denomination of a particular religion. Whatever the constitutional changes, the bench of bishops is an anachronism that must be abolished as soon as possible, with no specifically religious replacement.

---

Equality & Human Rights

The NSS has been supportive of the Government’s “equality and human rights” agenda. We have spoken favorably of the new legislation that brings legal protection to disadvantaged groups. We have also conducted campaigns against the exemptions from this legislation for religious groups. We successfully fought off calls from the Church of England for exemption from the Human Rights Act, and we have been part of campaigns over the past few years to ensure that religious groups are not given excessive opt-outs from equality legislation. We are prepared to help and support victims of discrimination who take their cases to court in order to clarify and strengthen the equality legislation.

---

BBC

The NSS believes that the BBC devotes too much of its resources to the provision of religious propaganda. We think that the amount of religious broadcasting to be excessive, given that research has shown that it is not valued and very few people watch it. We have challenged the Thought for the Day programme on Radio 4 as being a platform for religious voices that cannot be opposed or challenged. Often this slot is used as a political soapbox rather than as a means of discussing religion. We have objected on many occasions to the exclusion of non-religious voices from this programme.

---

Other Issues

Other campaigns that the NSS has been involved in have been the religious slaughter of animals without pre-stunning. We believe that animals that are being slaughtered by kosher or halal methods – that involve cutting the animal’s throat and bleeding it to death – should be stunned so that they are unaware of what is happening to them. So far, the Government has refused to do this because of religious objections. Other nations manage to do this with no problem, but despite advice from its own Farm Animal Welfare Commission, the Government refuses to act.

We have supported the right of employers and schools to enforce uniform polices that have been challenged by employers/pupils wishing to introduce religious costumes into the workplace or school.

We have opposed the mention of religion, specifically Christianity, in the European Constitution (now the Lisbon treaty). We have also opposed clauses in the treaty that give religion privileges that are denied to other civil society organisations.

We are affiliated to the European Humanist Federation and the International Humanist and Ethical Union and use our position within these groups to support efforts to stop religious interference in policy making in the EU and the UN.

---