Newsline 21 April 2017

Newsline 21 April 2017

Newsline is back, and the news this week has been dominated by the upcoming General Election. We're still waiting for the party manifestos to be released, and as soon as they are we will provide you with our comment and analysis on what each party has to say on the issues secularists care most about, including: faith schools, human rights, extremism.

In the meantime, take a look at our very recently released secular manifesto. Secular reforms in the UK are long overdue, and we have policies ready to go. Read the manifesto here, and add your endorsement.

We are still hiring, so if you'd like to join our team as our new Campaigns and Communications Officer send your application as soon as possible!

If you subscribe to Newsline but aren't already a member give us your support today.

News, Blogs & Opinion

Success! Pharmaceutical Council embraces secular reforms

News | Tue, 18th Apr 2017

The independent pharmacists' regulator has approved new standards governing the role of religion in pharmacy services, in a move welcomed by the National Secular Society.

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) launched a consultation on "religion, personal values and beliefs" late last year with new guidance that placed more emphasis on the rights of patients, rather than the religious beliefs of pharmacy workers.

The NSS responded to the consultation, calling the proposals "forward-thinking and robust".

NSS campaigns director Stephen Evans said, "We are very pleased that the regulator has pushed ahead with this new guidance, which will better protect the rights of patients."

The new standards mean pharmacists will not be able to send a patient to a different provider just because an individual pharmacy worker has a religious or philosophical objection to their request for treatment or medication such as emergency contraceptives.

The Secular Medical Forum, part of the National Secular Society, raised concerns with the regulator when a prior consultation suggested that patient's needs should be 'balanced' against pharmacists' religious views.

Dr Antony Lempert, the coordinator of the Secular Medical Forum, welcomed the decision of the GPhC and said the regulator was "to be commended" for its decision and for heeding criticism of its earlier stance.

He said that information about the consultation responses supplied by the GPhC showed that the majority of pharmacists who responded "both supported the changes and identified as religious.

"It is clear that the professionalism of most pharmacists is paramount and that it is only a small cohort of very religious pharmacists who wish to impose their own views on patients and obstruct reasonable, legal care in the pharmacy setting."

"The onus is now on pharmacists to ensure that they don't put themselves in a position to obstruct patient care," Dr Lempert said.

Under the new guidance it is "explicit" that the "responsibility is on the pharmacist to ensure that no-one's care is compromised because of their views."

NSS urges regulator to investigate charity behind notorious monk-brewed booze

News | Tue, 11th Apr 2017

The National Secular Society has written to the Charity Commission urging it to investigate a religious charity behind the sale of an alcoholic drink widely associated with criminal activity in Scotland.

Buckfast Abbey Trust made £8.8 million in the past year, largely through the sale of the controversial tonic wine Buckfast, colloquially known as "Wreck the Hoose Juice" and "Commotion Lotion" in parts of Scotland.

Buckfast Abbey does not pay tax on its income from the wine because it is a charity. The NSS argues that this amounts to an "abuse of the charitable system".

The drink has been associated with violence and other anti-social behaviour in the area east of Glasgow and multiple attempts have been made by the Scottish authorities to limit sale of the drink. In 2015, the Scottish Prison Service found that 43.4% of inmates had consumed Buckfast before their last offence.

The trust justifies its existence as a charity in its annual report, stating its aim is the "advancement of the Roman Catholic religion".

In a letter to the Commission, the National Secular Society says the charity's activities "fall short of the requirement to act in the Public's Benefit".

Stephen Evans, NSS campaigns director, commented: "Charitable status and the accompanying tax benefits should only be granted to organisations that deliver a demonstrable public benefit. In the case of Buckfast Abbey, the social harm caused appears to outweigh any public good. Where this happens, or where the good is simply not good enough, public confidence in supporting charities risks being undermined".

The NSS has also raised concerns about the charity and associated companies being run for "considerable private benefit running to millions of pounds a year". In 2016, the charity's trading arm, J Chandler (Buckfast) Ltd, employed just 28 people yet paid an average of £144,984 to each person. Directors fees exceeded £2.5million in 2013. Directors and past directors include those described in formal documents as ministers of religion.

NSS research, passed on to the Charity Commission, also reveals another possible source of private gain for staff and fellow colleagues of the charity trustees in the form of property loans and developments.

A further concern relates to the excessive retention of reserves, which is heavily discouraged by the Charity Commission so that funds are used for the intended charitable purposes. Buckfast and an associated company have reserves totalling around £87 million, a figure described by secularists as "excessive".

In its letter to the Commission, the NSS said: "Excessive director pay, commercial loans to companies run by religious colleagues and charity staff allowed to profit privately from property investments all point to an abuse of the charity system."

Until 2006 the public benefit of religious organisations was automatically presumed by the law. The Charities Act 2006 removed the presumption of public benefit from religious charities and now requires every charity to explicitly demonstrate that their purposes are for the public benefit.

The Charity Commission's guidance on 'the advancement of religion for the public benefit' is currently under review.

New faith schools announced in latest round of free schools

News | Wed, 12th Apr 2017

A number of new faith schools have been approved to open by the Department for Education (DfE) in the twelfth wave of free schools applications.

Twelve faith school are included in the 131 free schools approved – with a further three schools to be run by the faith-based Oasis Multi Academy Trust (MAT).

The approved faith schools include three Islamic designated schools in Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester.

In Bradford the local council had wanted a co-educational school to meet local demand, however the DfE approved the Eden Boys' Leadership Academy. Speaking to the Telegraph and Argus Cllr David Ward, the Liberal Democrat group's education spokesman, said "This is a complete step in the wrong direction that we as a society should be going, I don't believe in segregating children by faith. What is the logic in this? I don't understand it."

NSS campaigns officer Alastair Lichten said: "As this case demonstrates, academisation is leaving local authorities with little power to ensure new schools are inclusive and suitable for the local community. Minority faith ethos schools – for which there is little demand within or outside of the schools' faith group – are likely to remain undersubscribed, meaning that either parents will be expect6ed to take up places in such schools against their wishes, or the increased capacity will fail to alleviate the demand for spaces."

The NSS's analysis focussed on 111 schools, excluded the twenty special free schools which local authorities have identified a need for.

Eight of the new free schools will be designated as Church of England Academies – one in Cambridgeshire will be coordination with the Catholic Church. Between three and six further academies will have a Christian religious ethos.

Mr Lichten said the rise of Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) with a religious ethos and faith ethos schools had 'blurred the line' between faith and community schools.

"The lack of clear information about the schools' ethos in the announcement is concerning. This, and the issues we are seeing with non-religious schools taken over by religious MATs, means many parents will continue to find it difficult to know what role religious groups are playing in their children's schools."

This is not a ‘Christian country’

Opinion | Tue, 18th Apr 2017

Despite many remaining anachronisms in our constitution, the UK is not a Christian country in any meaningful legal sense: but politicians continue to repeat this myth.

Theresa May's father was an Anglican priest, as she likes to remind us frequently. And on Easter Sunday, like her predecessor last year, she urged Christians to be free to practise and speak out about their faith in public – as if they weren't already. This is yet more ammunition for those who put about the myth that Britain "is a Christian country".

For historical reasons the liturgy and governance of the Church of England are subject to Parliamentary control and there are some religious qualifications for the role of head of state. More seriously a number of Anglican bishops have the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Though these privileges remain, the courts do not consider Christianity to be the basis of our laws today. They have made this clear in a series of judgments over many years.

Let's start in 1917. A Mr Bowman left some money in his will to the Secular Society. Among the Society's objectives was the promotion of the "principle that human conduct should be based upon natural knowledge, and not upon super-natural belief, and that human welfare in this world is the proper end of all thought and action".

Bowman's relatives sought to invalidate the legacy on the grounds that Christianity was part of the law of the land and that the courts should therefore not help people undermine it. Overruling nineteenth century precedents to the contrary, the House of Lords, then the UK's highest court of appeal, clearly laid down that rational argument against Christianity was not blasphemy; and, more fundamentally, that "the phrase 'Christianity is part of the law of England' is really not law; it is rhetoric". The Secular Society got its money and I am sure used it well.

In 2008 Parliament abolished the crime of blasphemy in England and Wales. Sadly the devolved legislatures in Northern Ireland and Scotland have not, although there have been no prosecutions in Scotland for over a century.

In recent times the tension between LGBT rights and some religious opponents has made the courts consider this issue afresh.

In 2010 Mr and Mrs Johns were being considered as potential foster parents and when asked their potential reaction to having a gay foster child, gave some fairly clear anti-gay reactions: the male of the couple said that when confronted with a child confused about its sexuality he would "gently work to turn them round". In other words he would try to 'cure' them. It is professionally recognised that attempts to 'cure' same sex orientation do not work and can cause serious psychological harm to the victim. Not surprisingly the city council vetting the couple as to their suitability as foster parents did not immediately put them on the list of suitable people.

The Johns tried to get the decision judicially reviewed on the grounds, inter alia, that it was unlawful to treat people as unsuitable to be foster carers on the grounds that they adhered to a "traditional code of sexual ethics" (i.e. no sex outside heterosexual marriage). The High Court did not agree and expressed itself strongly in disagreeing. Here the court puts it very clearly:

"Although historically this country is part of the Christian west, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century. Our society is now pluralistic and largely secular. But one aspect of its pluralism is that we also now live in a multi-cultural community of many faiths. One of the paradoxes of our lives is that we live in a society which has at one and the same time become both increasingly secular but also increasingly diverse in religious affiliation.

"We sit as secular judges serving a multi-cultural community of many faiths. We are sworn (we quote the judicial oath) to 'do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.' But the laws and usages of the realm do not include Christianity, in whatever form."

Mr McFarlane, who belonged to a non-conformist sect, refused to provide sexual counselling to gay couples, in breach of his employer Relate's equal opportunities policy, and was accordingly dismissed. He claimed that his dismissal was unlawful on the grounds of discrimination against Christians: in other words, that his freedom of religion was violated by his wish to discriminate against LGBT+ people in the workplace, because this was not accommodated by his employer.

Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, provided a witness statement read to the Court of Appeal on McFarlane's appeal, in support of an application to the appeal to be heard by a panel of judges with "a proven sensitivity and understanding of religious issues" (presumably people who could be relied on to rule the right way). Such an idea was of course refused as "deeply inimical to the public interest".

Lord Justice Laws, writing on behalf of the Court of Appeal, made very clear the Court's views not just on the proposition that discrimination is validated by Christian morality but on the whole proposition that Christian morality in some way underlies our laws:

"… The general law may of course protect a particular social or moral position which is espoused by Christianity, not because of its religious imprimatur, but on the footing that in reason its merits commend themselves. So it is with core provisions of the criminal law, the prohibition of violence and dishonesty. The Judea-Christian tradition, stretching over many centuries, has no doubt exerted a profound influence upon the judgment of law-makers as to the objective merits of this or that social policy, and the liturgy and practice of the established church are to some extent prescribed by law. But the conferment of any legal protection or preference upon a particular substantive moral position on the ground only that it is espoused by the adherents of a particular faith, however long its tradition, however rich its culture, is deeply unprincipled; it imposes compulsory law not to advance the general good on objective grounds, but to give effect to the force of subjective opinion. This must be so, since, in the eye of everyone save the believer, religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence. It may, of course, be true, but the ascertainment of such a truth lies beyond the means by which laws are made in a reasonable society. Therefore it lies only in the heart of the believer who is alone bound by it; no one else is or can be so bound, unless by his own free choice he accepts its claims.

"The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified; it is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective, but it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary. We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion, any belief system, cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic. The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the State, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself."

This splendid passage should make us quite proud of the British judiciary – it alone shows that to state that this country is Christian, in anything but a historical sense, is fundamentally inaccurate. And all credit to Lord Justice Laws for writing as he did when in his private life he is understood to be a practising Anglican.

Mrs May and those who preach that this is in some way a Christian country should note what its judges actually say.

The views expressed in our blogs are those of the author, and may not represent the views of the NSS.

New call for mandatory reporting after Catholic Church in Australia admits “devastating” scale of child abuse

News | Wed, 19th Apr 2017

Five secularist organisations, including the NSS, have called for the Catholic Church to take real action to ensure justice for victims of clerical child abuse.

They signed an open letter to Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council of the Australian Catholic Church, which coordinates the Church's response to the Australian Royal Commission on institutional child abuse.

In a devastating speech in March, Sullivan said there was a "moral disease" that is "ingrained, almost cemented, within the culture of the Church."

He pointed to figures showing that 8% of diocesan priests in Australia faced allegations of abuse.

Sullivan described the percentages in some religious orders as "gob-smacking".

"In the St John of God brothers, well over a third of the order in early times had abuse allegations made against them.

"Twenty two per cent of Christian Brothers had allegations made against them and the Marists were not far behind."

He said the Church "has to acknowledge that abuse occurred within its ranks and that it exercised a systemic cover up".

The secularist groups wrote to Sullivan that his speech was "admirably frank" about the abuse crisis, but that they were "surprised" that he had initially believed the Church only had "up to 100 paedophiles in its history".

The letter said there was "plenty of evidence of the abuse."

"It seems extraordinary that you seem unaware of the implication of the thousands of press reports of such abuse from around the world over decades and the billions of dollars that have been paid out in damages in the US, and millions of Euros in Ireland."

Actions taken by the Pope were "pain-free" for perpetrators. The Pontifical Commission "never had any executive power", and the tribunal announced by the Pope was abandoned and never sat, the letter said.

The signatories made four recommendations.

Reporting of institutional abuse should be mandatory, and statutes of limitations should be lifted for child abuse cases. The Royal Commission found that reporting of cases took an average of 30 years.

The letter also said that no religious organisation should be immune to being sued, and that there should be one law for all "with no recognition of parallel legal systems."

"Religious institutions should not be permitted to exempt themselves from the law of the land; Canon law must not take precedence over Australian law."

The signatories, besides the National Secular Society, were the Rationalist Society of Australia, the Rationalist Association of New South Wales, Plain Reason, and the Humanist Society of Queensland.

NSS Speaks Out

Since the last issue of Newsline we've been quoted on our call for the Charity Commission to investigate Buckfast Abbey (which pays no income tax on Buckfast Tonic Wine because it is a charity) in the Telegraph, Sun, Daily Record, Third Sector, Premier Christian Radio, Radio Ulster and in local media.

Campaigns director Stephen Evans wrote for Europe's World on the recent headscarf ruling and the reasonable limits that exist on religious freedom in certain circumstances.

Executive director Keith Porteous Wood spoke to LBC and was quoted by the BBC and the Guardian on the Prime Minister's Easter statement. He also spoke to Radio Nottingham about Easter trading hours.

Dr Antony Lempert of the Secular Medical Forum was quoted in Christian Today on the new pharmacists' guidance reported above.