Catholic Church Wants To Wreck Anti-Discrimination Law

The Catholic Church in England and Wales reacted with fury at the announcement by Tony Blair on Monday that there would be no religious exemptions from new anti-discrimination legislation. It is now planning to pressurise Catholic MPs and peers to vote against the law when it comes before Parliament.

After the Prime Minister had announced his decision on Monday, Catholic leader Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor went into overdrive, saying that the Government were creating “a new kind of morality” and claiming that it told the church in effect that it had “no place in the public life of this country”.

He insisted the church does not want to discriminate against homosexual people, who should be “held in respect and sensitivity”. At the same time he wants the right to turn away gay couples from Catholic-run adoption agencies and has endorsed the Pope’s opinion that gays are “intrinsically evil” and “morally disordered”.

Tony Blair ruled out any exemption for churches in an attempt to draw a line under a row that caused bitter divisions within the Cabinet. In what he called a “sensible compromise”, the Prime Minister said religion-controlled agencies would be given nearly two years to adjust to the new rules – due to be voted on by MPs next month. All “reasonable people” would be able to accept the compromise, he said, adding: “There is no place in our society for discrimination.”

The Catholic Church then announced that it intended to press Catholic MPs to resist the implementation of the Regulations that are due to be unveiled in the next couple of weeks. The Regulations are due to be in place in April. The Northern Ireland version of the Regulations were introduced on 1st January and despite heavy lobbying from religious groups, they were overwhelmingly approved by both Houses of Parliament.

The Vatican, which is thought to have been manipulating this campaign behind the scenes, was angry at developments. The Daily Telegraph reported that “One Rome insider said that the Vatican regarded the refusal to grant an exemption as a ‘real manifestation of the dictatorship of relativism’ that had been predicted by the Pope.”

The liberal UK religious think-tank Ekklesia said that the crucial distinction missed by the many church leaders was between public provision and voluntary action. “Church reactions to the Equality Act, which most people see as a matter of consistency and fairness, hark back to the Christendom era when the action of government was based solely or largely on principles determined by the churches”, commented Ekklesia co-director Simon Barrow. “However, we are no longer in that era. Britain is a plural society in which the great majority of the population are no longer regular Christian adherents. The churches can therefore no longer assume that their definitions of what is right will be accepted by everybody, especially when public money is going into service intended for the whole community,” he added.

Ekklesia also points out that the issue of sexuality is a heated debate within the churches, and that many theologians reject the suggestion that lesbian and gay couples can be excluded from a proper definition of “the common good”.

Tory leader David Cameron announced that he intended to back the new laws, although he promised fellow Conservatives a free vote on the issue. However, Mr Cameron’s frontbench colleague, David Davis, has already signalled his opposition to the proposals and said over the weekend he would “almost definitely” vote for an exemption to the Equality Act, for Catholic adoption agencies. Mr Davis, however, will not be able to vote in such a way, as the Regulations will be introduced by secondary legislation, which means they cannot be amended by Parliament – only accepted or rejected in toto. Mr Davis would, therefore, have either to vote to ditch the Regulations completely, or approve them.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “We are pleased that Tony Blair has at least accepted that giving this particular religious exemption to anti-discrimination law would make that law into a mockery. However, the final text of the Regulations for Britain have not yet been unveiled, so we do not know precisely what is being proposed. We’ll just have to hope that Ruth Kelly has not managed to come up with another way to offer a sop to the churches that will undermine the intention of the law just as badly as straightforward opt-outs would.”