Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change
The time has come to rethink religion's public role in order to ensure equality and fairness for believers and non-believers alike, says a major new report launched by the National Secular Society.
The report says that Britain's "drift away from Christianity" coupled with the rise in minority religions and increasing non-religiosity demands a "long term, sustainable settlement on the relationship between religion and the state".
Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change has been sent to all MPs as part of a major drive by the Society to encourage policymakers and citizens of all faiths and none to find common cause in promoting principles of secularism.
It calls for Britain to evolve into a secular democracy with a clear separation between religion and state and criticises the prevailing multi-faithist approach as being "at odds with the increasing religious indifference" in Britain.
Terry Sanderson, National Secular Society president, said: "Vast swathes of the population are simply not interested in religion, it doesn't play a part in their lives, but the state refuses to recognise this.
"Britain is now one of the most religiously diverse and, at the same time, non-religious nations in the world. Rather than burying its head in the sand, the state needs to respond to these fundamental cultural changes. Our report sets out constructive and specific proposals to fundamentally reform the role of religion in public life to ensure that every citizen can be treated fairly and valued equally, irrespective of their religious outlook."
Read the report:
Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change
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Add your endorsementComplete list of recommendations
Our changing society – Multiculturalism, secularism and group identity
1. The Government should continue to move away from multiculturalism and instead emphasise individual rights and social cohesion. A multi-faith approach should be avoided.
2. The UK is a secularised society which upholds freedom of and from religion. We urge politicians to consider this, and refrain from using "Christian country" rhetoric.
The role of religion in schools
Faith schools
3. There should be a moratorium on the opening of any new publicly funded faith schools.
4. Government policy should ultimately move towards a truly inclusive secular education system in which religious organisations play no formal role in the state education system.
5. Religion should be approached in schools like politics: with neutrality, in a way that informs impartially and does not teach views.
6. Ultimately, no publicly funded school should be statutorily permitted, as they currently are, to promote a particular religious position or seek to inculcate pupils into a particular faith.
7. In the meantime, pupils should have a statutory entitlement to education in a non-religiously affiliated school.
8. No publicly funded school should be permitted to prioritise pupils in admissions on the basis of baptism, religious affiliation or the religious activities of a child's parent(s).
9. Schools should not be able to discriminate against staff on the basis of religion or belief, sexual orientation or any other protected characteristics.
Religious education
10. Faith schools should lose their ability to teach about religion from their own exclusive viewpoint and the law should be amended to reflect this.
11. The Government should undertake a review of Religious Education with a view to reforming the way religion and belief is taught in all schools.
12. The teaching of religion should not be prioritised over the teaching of non-religious worldviews, and secular philosophical approaches.
13. The Government should consider making religion and belief education a constituent part of another area of the curriculum or consider a new national subject for all pupils that ensures all pupils study of a broad range of religious and non-religious worldviews, possibly including basic philosophy.
14. The way in which the RE curriculum is constructed by Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education (SACREs) is unique, and seriously outdated. The construction and content of any subject covering religion or belief should be determined by the same process as other subjects after consultation with teachers, subject communities, academics, employers, higher education institutions and other interested parties (who should have no undue influence or veto).
Sex and relationships education
15. All children and young people, including pupils at faith schools, should have a statutory entitlement to impartial and age-appropriate sex and relationships education, from which they cannot be withdrawn.
Collective worship
16. The legal requirement on schools to provide Collective Worship should be abolished.
17. The Equality Act exception related to school worship should be repealed. Schools should be under a duty to ensure that all aspects of the school day are inclusive.
18. Both the law and guidance should be clear that under no circumstances should pupils be compelled to worship and children's right to religious freedom should be fully respected by all schools.
19. Where schools do hold acts of worship pupils should themselves be free to choose not to take part.
20. If there are concerns that the abolition of the duty to provide collective worship would signal the end of assemblies, the Government may wish to consider replacing the requirement to provide worship with a requirement to hold inclusive assemblies that further pupils' 'spiritual, moral, social and cultural education'.
Independent schooling
21. All schools should be registered with the Department for Education and as a condition of registration must meet standards set out in regulations.
22. Government must ensure that councils are identifying suspected illegal, unregistered religious schools so that Ofsted can inspect them. The state must have an accurate register of where every child is being educated.
Freedom of expression - Freedom of expression, blasphemy and the media
23. Any judicial or administrative attempt to further restrict free expression on the grounds of 'combatting extremism' should be resisted. Threatening behaviour and incitement to violence is already prohibited by law. Further measures would be an illiberal restriction of others' right to freedom of expression. They are also likely to be counterproductive by insulating extremist views from the most effective deterrents: counterargument and criticism.
24. Proscriptions of "blasphemy" must not be introduced by stealth, legislation, fear or on the spurious grounds of 'offence'. There can be no right to be protected from offence in an open and free secular society.
25. The fundamental value of free speech should be instilled throughout the education system and in all schools.
26. Universities and other further education bodies should be reminded of their statutory obligations to protect freedom of expression under the Education (No 2) Act 1986.
Religion and the law
Civil rights, 'conscience clauses' and religious freedom
27. We are opposed in principle to the creation of a 'conscience clause' which would permit discrimination against (primarily) LGBT people. This is of particular concern in Northern Ireland.
28. Religious freedom must not be taken to mean or include a right to discriminate. Businesses providing goods and services, regardless of owners' religious views, must obey the law.
29. Equality legislation must not be rolled back in order to appease a minority of religious believers whose views are out-of-touch with the majority of the general public and their co-religionists.
30. The UK Government should impose changes on the rest of the UK in order to comply with Human Rights obligations. Every endeavour should be made by to extend same sex marriage and abortion access to Northern Ireland.
Conscience 'opt-outs' in healthcare
31. Efforts to unreasonably extend the legal concept of 'reasonable accommodation' and conscience to give greater protection in healthcare to those expressing a (normally religious) objection should be resisted.
32. Conscience opt-outs should not be granted where their operation impinges adversely on the rights of others.
33. Pharmacists' codes should not permit conscience opts out for pharmacists that result in denial of service, as this may cause harm. NHS contracts should reflect this.
34. Consideration should be given to legislative changes to enforce the changes to pharmacists codes recommended above.
The use of tribunals by religious minorities
35. The legal system must not be undermined. Action must be taken to ensure that none of the councils currently in operation misrepresent themselves as sources of legal authority.
36. Work should be undertaken by local authorities to identify sharia councils, and official figures should be made available to measure the number of sharia councils in the UK to help understand the extent of their influence.
37. There needs to be a continuing review by the Government of the extent to which religious 'law', including religious marriage without civil marriage, is undermining human rights and/or becoming de facto law. The Government must be proactive in proposing solutions to ensure all citizens are able to access their legal rights.
38. All schools should promote understanding of citizenship and legal rights under UK law so that people – particularly Muslim women and girls – are aware of and able to access their legal rights and do not regard religious 'courts' as sources of genuine legal authority.
Religious exemptions from animal welfare laws
39. Laws intended to minimise animal suffering should not be the subject of religious exemptions. Non-stun slaughter should be prohibited and existing welfare at slaughter legislation should apply without exception.
40. For as long as non-stun slaughter is permitted, all meat and meat products derived from animals killed under the religious exemption should be obliged to show the method of slaughter.
41. In public institutions it should be unlawful not to provide a stunned alternative to non-stun meat produce.
Religion and public services
Social action by religious organisations
42. The Equality Act should be amended to suspend the exemptions for religious groups when they are working under public contract on behalf of the state.
43. Legislation should be introduced so that contractors delivering general public services on behalf of a public authority are defined as public authorities explicitly for those activities, making them subject to the Human Rights Act legislation.
44. It should be mandatory for all contracts with religious providers of publicly-funded services to have unambiguous equality, non-discrimination and non-proselytising clauses in them.
45. Public records of contracts with religious groups should be maintained and appropriate measures for monitoring their compliance with equality and human rights legislation should be put in place.
46. There should be an enforcement mechanism for the above, which would for example receive and adjudicate on complaints without complainants having to take legal action.
Hospital chaplaincy
47. Religious care should not be funded through NHS budgets.
48. No NHS post should be conditional on the patronage of religious authorities, nor subject directly or indirectly to discriminatory provisions, for example on sexual orientation or marital status.
49. Alternative funding, such as via a charitable trust, could be explored if religions wish to retain their representation in hospitals.
50. Hospitals wishing to employ staff to provide pastoral, emotional and spiritual care for patients, families and staff should do so within a secular context.
Institutions and public ceremonies
Disestablishment
51. The Church of England should be disestablished
52. The Bishops' Bench should be removed from the House of Lords. Any future Second Chamber should have no representation for religion whether ex-officio or appointed, whether of Christian denominations or any other faith. This does not amount to a ban on clerics; they would eligible for selection on the same basis as others.
Remembrance
53. The Remembrance Day commemoration ceremony at the Cenotaph should become secular in character. Ceremonies should be led by national or civic leaders and there should be a period of silence for participants to remember the fallen in their own way, be that religious or not.
Monarchy and religion
54. The ceremony to mark the accession of a new head of state should take place in the seat of representative secular democracy, such as in Westminster Hall and should not be religious.
55. The monarch should no longer be required to be in communion with the Church of England nor ex officio be Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the title "Defender of the Faith" should not be retained.
Parliamentary prayers
56. We believe Parliament should reflect the country as it is today and remove acts of worship from the formal business of the House.
Local democracy and religious observance
57. Acts of religious worship should play no part in the formal business of parliamentary or local authority meetings.
Public broadcasting, the BBC and religion
58. The BBC should rename Thought for the Day 'Religious thought for the day' and move it away from Radio 4's flagship news programme and into a more suitable timeslot reflecting its niche status. Alternatively it could reform it and open it up to non-religious contributors.
59. The extent and nature of religious programming should reflect the religion and belief demographics of the UK.
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Brutally murdered for doing his job
The beheading of Samuel Paty, a teacher in France targeted for showing Charlie Hebdo cartoons to his students, was an appalling attack on critical enquiry.
In Paris on Friday a teacher was beheaded for doing his job.
It seems clear that Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old who taught history, was attacked by a young Muslim fanatic who objected to his use of cartoons from Charlie Hebdo in a class about freedom of expression.
This was a grotesque assault on a public servant, the teaching profession, freedom of expression, the promotion of critical thought and the principle that education should open minds.
A counter-terrorism inquiry is underway, and publicly available details are limited. But the wider context to the attack appears noteworthy. After a recent class the father of one of the students went to the school to complain, accompanied by someone described as a "preacher and activist". The two then posted a video online calling Mr Paty a "thug" and demanding his suspension. They are now among 11 people who have been arrested since the killing. The teacher also received threats, and was reportedly the subject of a vicious social media campaign, before his murder.
This killing brings echoes of the Rushdie affair and the slaughter of Charlie's cartoonists in 2015. Again Islamists have sought to shut down artistic expression that offends them through violence and threats. But it also brings different questions.
In this case the victim was not targeted for his own expression, but for sharing someone else's. The 2015 murders were an attempt to stop people from drawing Muhammad; this one was an attempt to silence even discussion about drawings of Muhammad. And while details about Mr Paty's teaching style hardly feel relevant, it's worth adding that according to France's anti-terrorism prosecutor, he gave students the opportunity to look away before showing the cartoons.
Some of the issues raised by the killing are specific to France: Emmanuel Macron described it as an attempt to "attack the republic and its values". But it raises important questions further afield too.
Islamic fundamentalism poses a global threat to freedom of expression and freedom of and from religion. In some countries it brings laws which punish blasphemy and apostasy with death. It's brought extrajudicial killings, such as that of Tahir Naseem earlier this year. As Gita Sahgal said this weekend, one response to this attack should be to reaffirm our support for those who resist it.
After the 2015 attack similar solidarity was shamefully lacking. Charlie's cartoons were internationally newsworthy, but major news outlets shied away from republishing them. Many commentators effectively blamed the victims. Some – including in the UK – have continued to harangue the surviving Charlie cartoonists long after their colleagues' bodies were buried, for daring to keep their work alive.
Any reasonable person will condemn the barbarity of the attack on Samuel Paty. But tougher questions will arise in time. Will teachers and tutors in schools and universities in the UK be able to explore this issue freely with students? How will the authorities and their unions react if they give students an appropriately-handled chance to see a Charlie cartoon?
And if that's off limits, what else will be? Last year protesters organised a sustained campaign against inclusive teaching about relationships. The campaign included intimidating protests outside primary schools in Birmingham. The leaders of these protests were predominantly Muslim, with some from other religious traditions. Some were not even from the local area, let alone parents from the schools. They caused misery for teachers – with some facing threats, including death threats – and disruption for pupils. Schools suspended lessons in the face of the hostility.
If those responsible for education give in to similar demands for a quiet life, reactionaries of various stripes will be emboldened. Too often freedom of expression issues are framed as simplistic battles between different social groups. But, as Kenan Malik wrote in The Observer this weekend, "what is called 'offence to a community' is usually a struggle within communities". Much of the liberal response to Islamist offence-taking in recent years has been a patronising insult to liberals and secularists from Muslim backgrounds.
Anybody who cares about living in cohesive societies where citizens enjoy fundamental freedoms should reject the normalisation of blasphemy taboos. And they should reject religious fanatics' attempts to dictate what can and cannot be taught. Samuel Paty died because he promoted critical enquiry. Those who wish to silence it can't be allowed to win.
Those providing public services – including religious groups – should respect reasonable boundaries
Following a call for a greater role for religion in public services, Stephen Evans argues that any expansion of faith-based provision mustn't see equality and fair treatment relegated to secondary or dispensable matters.
Prime minister Boris Johnson is currently considering proposals for religion to play a greater role in meeting the UK's social challenges.
The recommendation came in a report from Conservative MP Danny Kruger, commissioned by the PM to review how the government can make the most of the voluntary sector in the UK's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
In Levelling up our communities, Kruger calls for a new era of 'community power' and says the government should "invite the country's faith leaders to make a grand offer of help", in exchange for a "reciprocal commitment from the state".
If you're wondering what that "reciprocal commitment" might be, Kruger has previously said it would consist of "a direction, from the very top, to all public servants to facilitate the work of the faith group on the agreed mission or missions".
Voluntary action can have a significant role as Britain bounces back from the pandemic. Civil society groups – religious and secular – should be supported and empowered to play their part. But state support for voluntary services needs to be contingent on certain standards being met. And Kruger suggests religious groups should be subject to a "light-touch" approval process, saying that many "do not wish to be entangled in the procedures and restrictions of the state".
I'm sure they don't, but where the "procedures and restrictions of the state" are intended to protect the rights and dignity of often vulnerable service users, they shouldn't be casually disregarded.
At the forefront of many concerns about faith-based public service and welfare provision is proselytism – attempts by those of faith to convert people to their belief, particularly in the context of working with vulnerable people who may be easily influenced.
Kruger dismisses such concerns as "faith illiteracy" and even "faith phobia".
However, research carried out by New Philanthropy Capital suggests such concerns are legitimate. NPC found that around a half of Christian charities in Britain agreed with the statement: "Through our activities we aim to increase the number of people who share our faith".
Some may argue that this manifests itself, not through 'proselytism' as such, but through the 'sharing of faith' to 'increase understanding' or 'help beneficiaries with spiritual needs'. But to those in receipt of services this often amounts to the same unwanted and inappropriate intrusion.
Just take state education, for example. This is a key public service in which religious organisations play a significant role. Despite faith schools being funded by the state, the education they provide is heavily infused with faith promotion and proselytism to a captive audience of children. Any attempt to address this is fiercely resisted.
It's a similar story in other sectors where faith-based provision is prevalent. Christians Against Poverty (CAP) is a major provider of debt counselling – and uses that opportunity to bring the people it advises to Jesus. It's an approach that led AdviceUK, the national body which represents the interests of advice-providing organisations, to terminate its membership. It considered the "emotional fee" of the offer or expectation of prayer whilst offering debt advice to fall below the ethical standards expected of service providers.
Despite his laissez-faire approach to proselytism, Kruger paradoxically suggests that an existing 'Faith Covenant', which sets out principles of cooperation between faith groups and local authorities, might make a good basis for the practicalities of his "new deal with faith communities". One wonders whether he has read it, because it wisely insists that faith-based organisations should deliver services to the public "without proselytising".
But as far as Kruger is concerned, those of a more secular persuasion are just as bad when it comes to proselytising. "Secular public servants wish that everyone thought like they did", he claims. He goes on:
"The fact that most religious people wish the whole world to agree with them does not mark them as different from secular liberals, who also wish their theology to be universal."
This is a somewhat spurious attempt to conflate the desire to evangelise with a desire to ensure public services are delivered in accordance with basic standards of equality and human rights.
Kruger is himself an evangelical Christian who used his maiden speech to call for the UK to 'return' to Christian values. Anti-secular rhetoric peppers the report and ultimately undermines it.
Kruger argues that through their "values" and "concern for the spiritual wellbeing of individuals and society", religious people are blessed with a "motivation and commitment that often exceeds that of paid professionals".
He lauds faith communities' "commitment to serving mankind that transcends the dull utilities of technocratic secular liberalism".
In so enthusiastically pushing his own pro-faith bias, he does a great disservice to the many thousands of nonreligious public servants in the state and voluntary sector who are equally motivated by their values in what they do and how they work.
The continuing drift away from Christianity (just 1% of young people say they belong to the Church of England), the growth of atheism and increasing diversity mean the most appropriate context for welfare provision in modern Britain is secular.
Many people in need of welfare assistance and public services are already put off by the stigma of the handout. Faith-based provision risks adding further stigma and barriers, particularly where it requires acquiescence to religious preaching.
Religious leaders' attitudes to LGBT equality; contraception; abortion; gender equality; child safeguarding, freedom of religion or belief; blasphemy; and other cultural and religious practices means that unintended exclusionary consequences are highly likely.
Public servants are therefore right to take reasonable steps to ensure that the religious groups they partner with deliver their services in a professional manner without imposing their beliefs.
Some conservatives may yearn for a return to the Victorian model of the church and rich people doling assistance to the humble but grateful. But most of us will not be well served by faith-based welfare replacing a shrinking welfare state.
That's not to say there shouldn't be faith-based participation in public services. Religious groups have a long track record of providing welfare and have played a prominent role in the development of the modern welfare state.
Both faith-based and secular civil society organisations can play a part in our country's response to the Covid-19 crisis. Churches looking for a new purpose in an increasingly secular society may be tempted to step in to try and fix social problems exacerbated by spending cuts. But we should be wary of the possibility they'll regard it as an opportunity to evangelise.
Where religious organisations join others in delivering public services, we should expect them to respect boundaries and refrain from proselytising or discriminating against service users or their employees.
For many faith-based organisations, that's not too much to ask. And as we enter a new era of significant social challenges, we must ensure that equality of welfare provision, human dignity and fair treatment are not relegated to secondary or dispensable matters.
It’s time to tackle loopholes in equality law which privilege religion
On the 10th anniversary of the Equality Act coming into force, Lynne Featherstone says reforms proposed by the NSS on education, caste discrimination and employment would make Britain fairer and more cohesive.
It's been a decade since the Equality Act of 2010 came into force. Heralding an important step forward in the fight to protect individual rights and freedoms, it is one of the most important pieces of legislation to have been enacted in recent times.
As a country we should be extremely proud of the Equality Act. It has contributed to the UK becoming, on the whole, a more tolerant nation and has been vital in tackling discrimination against minorities and safeguarding individuals' rights.
This ten-year anniversary provides a timely opportunity to assess the impact of the act. And as the National Secular Society's excellent, informed, and forensic report, Faith-shaped holes, demonstrates it is certainly not a case of 'job done'.
For those of us who campaign for justice and equality, Faith-shaped holes is a much-needed reminder that the battle is far from over. We cannot become complacent in defending and promoting freedoms and rights for all.
As the report makes clear, the continued existence of exemptions for religious privilege is completely at odds with ambitions to create a fair society. While the aspirations of the Equality Act were – and remain – laudable, this shouldn't blind us to the fact that provisions within the act have created stark areas of ongoing discrimination and gaps in the guarantees of equality. Until exemptions that create religious privilege are tackled and ended, we cannot claim to have created a just and fair society.
We are all too aware that these are not abstract concepts and theoretical debates. As the UK becomes increasingly diverse, getting this right is vital for community cohesion; for democratic participation and legitimacy; and for ensuring all individuals are afforded the same opportunities and have the same chance in life. This goes to the heart of how we want shape our country and our obligations to protect everyone across our society.
With this in mind, it is extremely welcome to see the NSS identify practical reforms and measures that can overcome three areas of critical and growing concern. Religious exemptions within the Equality Act continue to create problems across the UK's education system; across communities with caste-based discrimination issues; and in terms of employment opportunities on the grounds of belief. The proposals put forward by the NSS would tackle these challenges head-on and will have a positive impact across the entirety of the UK. They need our backing and they need government to act.
Now is the time to redouble our efforts and continue to build a just and equal society. The Equality Act has created a wonderful base for us to build on – Faith-shaped holes shows us how we go further and continue the fight for a fair, just and inclusive Britain.
This is a lightly edited version of Lynne Featherstone's foreword to the NSS's report. You can read the report in full
Image: Official portrait of Baroness Featherstone, via Wikimedia Commons, © Roger Harris [CC BY 3.0] (cropped to square)
Religious fundamentalists can’t be trusted with child protection
The extraordinary antics of Jehovah's Witnesses at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse demonstrate why independent oversight of religious organisations is necessary to protect children from abuse, says Richard Scorer.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) recently concluded three weeks of hearings on "child protection in religious organisations and settings". One of the organisations being examined by the inquiry is the Jehovah's Witnesses, represented by the entity responsible in Britain for disseminating official policy: the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses (CCJW). The four-person inquiry panel chaired by Professor Alexis Jay will now assess the evidence it heard about the handling of child abuse allegations by CCJW and will deliver a report in several months' time.
The attitude to child protection and safeguarding among the Jehovah's Witness leadership has been the subject of much criticism. Many survivors of child sex abuse, and many former members, allege that the organisation has engaged in the systematic cover up of child abuse, deploying theocratic instruments such as the "two-witness rule" and threats of shunning to prevent victims from being heard. The organisation's practices regarding child abuse have been the subject of various investigations including by Australia's Royal Commission, Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and the Charity Commission in England and Wales: I discussed some of these investigations, and CCJW's attempts to frustrate the latter through litigation, here.
These issues are well known. My reason for writing this piece is to highlight some extraordinary events at IICSA over the last few days. When the IICSA hearings took place, the witness called on behalf of CCJW was a Mr Paul Gillies. Mr Gillies is head of the Office of Public Information at the World Headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses in upstate New York. At the end of his evidence, Mr Gillies was questioned by one of the four inquiry panel members, Ivor Frank, regarding CCJW's approach to document destruction. In particular, Mr Frank asked Mr Gillies about an online article in The Philadelphia Inquirer featuring video footage of a behind-closed-doors seminar held in the UK at which another senior official of the organisation, Mr Shawn Bartlett, told members of the organisation that a key part of their reasoning for destroying documents was "because Satan is coming after us". In the context of allegations of child sexual abuse, document destruction is obviously a hugely important issue. IICSA would have been remiss not to have asked about it.
The questions put to Mr Gillies by Mr Frank, and his answers, can be viewed here (from 1:00:50). You can see that Mr Frank's questions were simply that: straightforward questions which were put to a witness in order to establish the facts.
It now turns out that following this session, CCJW applied to IICSA's chair, Professor Jay, to have Mr Frank removed from the inquiry panel. CCJW's arguments for the removal of Mr Frank can be read here. Anyone reading this will be struck but the utterly bizarre nature of this application. CCJW literally sought to have Mr Frank removed simply for asking questions – the very thing IICSA was set up to do.
As one would expect, the application was given short shrift. But what also emerged when CCJW's application was published was that CCJW had, earlier this year, also attempted to have my client, Lloyd Evans, barred from the inquiry. Lloyd Evans is a former Jehovah's Witnesses elder who left the organisation some years ago and now comments on JW-related developments in books and blog articles, in television appearances, and on his "John Cedars" YouTube channel. He has developed an impressive corpus of knowledge around the operations of his former religion – you can read his main inquiry statement here. Last year, Mr Evans was granted "core participant" status in the inquiry. Core participant status is awarded when an individual has a "significant interest" in the matters being examined. It entitles you to see documents, make representations and ask questions. CCJW also have core participant status at IICSA, as one would expect – they plainly also have a "significant interest" in the matters under investigation.
Remarkably, CCJW sought to have Mr Evans barred from the inquiry for expressing opinions which they argued are "hateful" to the religion. In other words, Mr Evans has said things about Jehovah's Witnesses that they don't like; this, they maintained, should bar him from further participation.
Setting aside the extraordinary hypocrisy involved in such an application - the Jehovah's Witness leadership are themselves accused of hate speech against former members, notably in Belgium where they are being prosecuted in hearings that begin early next year - what is so striking about these events is what they reveal about CCJW, and about fundamentalist religion generally. Seeking to have an inquiry panel member removed just for asking questions - and seeking to have an opponent deprived of core participant status due to their opinions - exposes the mindset of this organisation perhaps more tellingly than anything else. A panel member asks you some uncomfortable questions? Demand that he be removed. Another core participant in the inquiry has opinions you don't like? Demand that he be ejected.
It's fair to say that Mr Evans and other ex-Jehovah's Witnesses who have given evidence to IICSA have had some frustrations about the inquiry. For example, they wanted IICSA to force CCJW to disclose all its records about child sexual abuse, not just the selective sample of only a few dozen cases disclosed thus far. IICSA maintains that disclosing the full number of abuse cases, estimated by Mr Evans to number in the thousands, is "not relevant" and "goes beyond that requested of other organisations in this investigation". But I hope IICSA will see the significance of these events when considering the recommendations they now need to make about how to safeguard children in religious organisations and settings. Amongst other things, the mindset they reveal has deeply troubling implications for approach to child protection of the Jehovah's Witness leadership. The fundamental question confronting IICSA is: can religious organisations be trusted to investigate and deal with child abuse in their own ranks without putting the interests of the organisation above the interests of children? Or put another way: can religious organisations be trusted to treat children, indeed all victims of abuse, as autonomous individuals entitled to the protection of their human rights even if the allegations they make might embarrass the organisation or the powerful people who run it?
CCJW have just answered that question - for themselves at least - with a resounding "no". Because if you approach an inquiry like IICSA on the basis that anyone who asks probing questions or criticises your organisation should be barred, what you're really saying is: if somebody says something you don't want to hear, they should be deprived of their legal rights. Clearly, no organisation exhibiting this attitude or behaviour can be trusted to protect the human rights of a child who might want to say something critical about the organisation or somebody powerful within it.
As I commented in an earlier IICSA hearing about the Anglican Church: there is no more effective way of silencing a child than saying that you have God on your side. But combine that with the ruthless intolerance of dissent which you see in organisations like Jehovah's Witnesses, and you have the perfect cocktail for the cover up of abuse - which reflects precisely what ex-Jehovah's Witnesses are saying about how the organisation treats any member who challenges it or questions its authority. As one ex-JW, Jillian Lee Adams, said on Twitter regarding this row: "That's exactly what they [the CCJW] think. In their judicial processes if you don't cry enough or follow the script you lose your friends and family forever. They think justice is subjective and their power absolute".
In that sense CCJW have done us all a favour with their actions over the last few weeks. IICSA has been reminded of exactly what they're dealing with, and now has a stark example of why insular, fundamentalist religious groups can't be trusted with the protection and safety of children. CCJW, I should also add, have also provided timely reminder of why the National Secular Society is so necessary. Human rights and free enquiry are not a given: somewhere, somehow, a fundamentalist is always trying to find ways to take them away.
NHS trusts’ cosy relationships with Jehovah’s Witness leaders could have tragic consequences
Committees of Jehovah's Witnesses who encourage patients to refuse treatments involving blood are seeking influence in hospitals – and many NHS trusts are holding the door open for them, writes Lloyd Evans.
If you know anything about Jehovah's Witnesses, you will know the religion prohibits blood transfusions. Since 1945 when the religion decided that Biblical injunctions on eating blood also applied to using it medically, the controversial teaching has been fodder for some compelling fictional narratives - notably including Ian McEwan's novel The Children Act.
Nearly all fictional approaches to the Jehovah's Witness blood prohibition grapple with the enormous ethical dilemma of respecting the religious rights of the individual while doing everything possible to preserve human life.
When minors are involved, most would agree that the dilemma diminishes significantly. No parent should be allowed to use their personal religious beliefs as a pretext to deny their child life-saving treatment. Thankfully there are numerous cases around the world of judges duly intervening when parents try to resist the advice of doctors in such instances.
What many do not understand is that there is more to this dilemma than individual Jehovah's Witness patients and their resolve to refuse blood clashing with the impulse of doctors and nurses to prevent death wherever possible.
There is an ominous third party on the scene.
While writers and directors have been romanticising the blood transfusion dilemma in hospital and courtroom dramas, these individuals have been quietly working away in the background to establish a foothold in nearly every NHS trust, so when a Jehovah's Witness is hospitalised with a likelihood of treatment with blood they can immediately spring into action to create a presence at the bedside and ensure martyrdom is achieved once all alternatives are exhausted.
Enter the Hospital Liaison Committees, or "HLCs". First emerging in the late 1970s and early 1980s at the direction of the Witness leadership, the goal of an HLC is singular: to enforce the prohibition on blood in the hospital ward by ensuring the "personal choice" of the stricken Witness patient is respected by doctors even if it results in the patient's death.
Earlier this year, a video was uploaded to JW.org - the official Jehovah's Witness website - titled Organizational Accomplishments - A Loving Provision for Times of Distress. The five-minute video used a succession of talking heads to praise the work of HLCs. "Our role is to help doctors and Jehovah's Witnesses to come to a consensus on how to treat the patient without breaking God's law," explained Stephen Whiteman, a Hospital Liaison Committee member from Canada.
But consider the case of Éloïse Dupuis, a 27-year-old Jehovah's Witness who died giving birth to her first child in Canada in October 2016.
If you speak to Jehovah's Witnesses who knew Éloïse, including her father (a prominent Witness elder) and her widower, they will tell you she made the personal choice to refuse treatment with blood when complications arose. They will tell you this choice was made without external interference or coercion.
But Éloïse's non-Jehovah's Witness friends and relatives will tell you a different story. They will tell you of the extraordinary lengths they went to in reaching through to Éloïse in her final hours to convince her to accept whatever treatment was necessary so her son could enter into the world with a mother. They will tell you that on arrival at the hospital after a frantic three-and-a-half hour drive, they found they were barely able to say goodbye to Éloïse in person before being ushered away by a wall of Jehovah's Witness elders.
They had come up against the local HLC.
Commenting on the incident in an interview for CBC Radio, Dr Ian Mitchell of the University of Calgary noted that Éloïse "had many friends outside of her religious community who tried to have access to her, who tried to persuade her to have the transfusion and were blocked by members of the religion". Asked by the interviewer whether by "members of the religion" he meant Hospital Liaison Committee members, Dr Mitchell responded in the affirmative.
The question inevitably arises: If refusing blood transfusions is truly a personal choice on the part of Jehovah's Witnesses, why do HLC elders need to be at their bedside to help them make it? The answer is sobering: refusing blood isn't really a personal choice for a Jehovah's Witness. This becomes painfully obvious when you consult the "eyes only" secret handbook used by elders to police the personal affairs of their congregants.
In the book "Shepherd the Flock of God" - 1 Peter 5:2, elders are informed in Chapter 18 that a Jehovah's Witness is to be "disassociated" (effectively excommunicated) if they "willingly and unrepentantly" accept a blood transfusion. In other words: a Jehovah's Witness may receive blood and avoid being estranged from all believing friends and family if they can somehow convince elders that it was all a mistake and they are sorry. But if elders determine that the treatment was "willingly" accepted, deliberately and without remorse, they can and will arrange for the individual to be shunned; their family relationships within the faith dismantled.
How do these elders gain insider knowledge so they can arrive at far-reaching determinations regarding deeply personal medical matters that should be strictly between the doctor and patient? In the UK, it is because a number of NHS trusts hold the door open for HLC elders to enter hospital wards and observe and consult over all aspects of the patient's treatment. And when they are not lurking at the bedsides of their stricken congregants, HLC elders make fostering cosy relationships with doctors and hospitals a top priority.
These charm offensives take the form of special presentations ostensibly to inform healthcare professionals of the "non-blood alternatives" available to Jehovah's Witness patients so their religious beliefs can be respected. The Powerpoint slide that will somehow never get shown on the hospital conference room's projector is the one containing the small-print: there is no "alternative" for a Jehovah's Witness but to refuse blood if they want to keep their relationships with believing family members intact.
Some would argue that with or without HLC elders inserting themselves in patient care, the decision to refuse blood by the Jehovah's Witness patient is a foregone conclusion. Even if Éloïse's relatives hadn't been bulldozed back into the corridor by men in suits, surely it would have made no difference?
Surely Éloïse's mind was made up?
Perhaps it was. Indeed, Quebec coroner Luc Malouin who investigated the tragedy concluded that, for better or worse, it was down to individual choice. "Every person in Quebec has this freedom of choice," he said in his report. "This freedom has been exercised here in accordance with the rules of law. It is up to everyone to make their choices and to fully assume the consequences."
But doesn't freedom of choice also mean freedom to make a different choice to the one everyone is expecting? Should we anticipate all Jehovah's Witnesses to refuse blood even when the chips are down and the end really is nigh?
In 2012, three doctors, coincidentally also in Canada - Asim Alam, Yulia Lin and Jeannie Callum - published a medical study titled The variation of acceptable blood products and procedures amongst Jehovah's Witness patients. They found that out of 25 Jehovah's Witness patients offered treatment with blood at the Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, Canada, there was a spectrum of consent when it came to blood treatments. Most of the blood products mentioned in the report involved blood derivatives that Jehovah's Witnesses are cautiously permitted to accept (the religion offers convoluted reasoning as to which "fractions" Witnesses may receive depending on their individual "conscience," although many will still err on the side of caution with their prospects of eternal life in the balance).
Incredibly, at least one of the 25 Jehovah's Witness patients in the report was recorded as accepting treatment with PRBCs (packed red blood cells). Red blood cells are absolutely prohibited for Jehovah's Witnesses, and yet this individual could apparently bring themselves to make an exception.
The same report mentions one patient accepting platelets (we don't know if it was the same patient) and two patients accepting "fresh frozen plasma". Platelets and plasma are also among the main four blood components (along with RBCs and white blood cells) that Witnesses are prohibited from receiving.
Unsurprisingly, the report's authors noted that "there is substantial variation amongst JW patients regarding acceptable products and procedures". Who knows to what extent HLC presence at the Sunnybrook Hospital affected the figures and whether this "variation" might have been even more stark sans HLC suits?
Needless to say, the Sunnybrook report proves categorically what most of us could perhaps discern intuitively: that not all Jehovah's Witnesses will necessarily always refuse treatment with blood. When death looms imminently and their remaining precious life can be counted in minutes or seconds, there is no telling what an individual Jehovah's Witness might decide. And with so much at stake, the last thing Jehovah's Witness patients in life-or-death medical emergencies need is two elders at their bedside shoving them down the road to martyrdom.
The time for NHS trusts to step in and take action to prevent any possible coercion, intimidation and interference of Jehovah's Witness patients by their religious leaders is long overdue. Nobody is suggesting that Jehovah's Witnesses do not have the right to refuse treatment if, free from undue influence, they genuinely wish to do so. But it must be definitively their decision and not a decision that has been forced on them by their religious community.
Nor am I arguing that ministers of religion should be unwelcome in hospital wards. I am confident that in the vast majority of cases religious leaders perform a positive role in providing comfort and moral support in dire and stressful circumstances. This will doubtless also be true in cases where a Jehovah's Witness elder attends the bedside of a congregant for whom treatment with blood is unlikely to be necessary. However, the Jehovah's Witness prohibition on blood creates a clear conflict of interests when it comes to the role of leaders within that community, and NHS trusts have a responsibility to put the needs and welfare of their patients first by ensuring any decisions on medical treatment are entirely free of coercion or intimidation. They should not simply assume that HLCs have patient care as their priority just because that is how they present themselves.
Neither should it be assumed that it is necessarily the voluntary determination of the Jehovah's Witness patient to request elders at their bedside, whether the elders identify as HLC members or not. The previously mentioned Shepherd book has a chapter titled "Medical Matters" suggesting that congregants "should be reminded" that they "should inform the hospital that [they] would welcome a visit from a minister of Jehovah's Witnesses" if they wish to "receive visits from congregation elders". (And you can imagine the raised eyebrows and suspicions if they were to not "welcome" such a visit.)
Simply put, the situation with Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions is far more nuanced than many understand. Doctors treating a Jehovah's Witness patient may have no idea that they are under threat of estrangement from their believing friends and family if they were to accept a blood transfusion. In this context, it is manifestly not in the interests of the patient to have an already heart-breaking decision further complicated by the presence of men at their bedside tasked with ensuring compliance to religious decrees.
I therefore urge the government and NHS to urgently review the role and involvement of HLCs in the care of Jehovah's Witness patients. If religious freedoms and rights of patients are to be truly respected, this can only be guaranteed in an environment in which doctors are allowed to do their life-saving work without having to reach a "consensus" with two potentially conflicting parties: the patient and their religious leaders.
The Scottish hate crime bill is a threat to free and open debate
As ministers reportedly consider changing Scotland's hate crime bill to address free expression concerns, Stephen Evans says their insistence to date that the bill won't undermine legitimate debate has been unconvincing.
Scotland's justice secretary Humza Yousaf is reportedly preparing to make "significant changes" to the hate crime bill he recently introduced to parliament, to allay fears around free speech.
The government's flawed plan to introduce new 'stirring up of hatred' offences within the bill has quite rightly sparked a debate about the limits to free speech.
These proposed offences have provoked a healthy level of pushback from civil society groups concerned about the law's potential unintended consequences for free expression.
Humza Yousaf hasn't yet accepted that his plans would curtail free speech. Besides, "free speech in itself is never an unfettered right," he argues.
And of course, it isn't. Nobody should have the right to harass, make threats or incite violence. But plans that could criminalise offensive or insulting speech should ring alarm bells for anyone who recognises the importance of free and open debate.
"Stirring up of hatred" is defined in the bill as "behaving in a threatening or abusive manner, or communicating threatening or abusive material to another person". For a successful prosecution, no 'hatred' actually needs to be 'stirred'. It just needs to be deemed "likely" that it might be.
Given the febrile times we live in, this is fraught with danger. Identity-based emotions are running high and people can be quick to take offence – particularly when there is political capital to be gained.
Spurious accusations of bigotry are too often thrown to silence political opponents and shut down debate. Culture warriors often deploy slurs to make up for their paucity of argument. As the saying goes, when the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
I have some experience of this myself. In 2018 I argued on Radio 4's Moral Maze that the non-medical cutting of male infants' genitals could reasonably be considered wounding for the purposes of the Offences Against the Person Act. I said religious freedom was a qualified right and it should not include a right to enforce your beliefs by cutting a child's genitals.
In response Anglican priest and media commentator Giles Fraser said my arguments were reminiscent of the blood libel – a poisonous antisemitic canard which accuses Jews of murdering Christian children in order to use their blood for religious rituals. A slur that has often led to violent attacks against Jewish communities. Fraser was effectively accusing me of stirring up hatred. I did nothing of the sort. But if the Scottish government manages to get this law on to the statute books, those making a similar defence of children's rights could have their collars felt on the basis of a single call to the police.
You may think this won't affect you. But you never know when the next culture war is coming along – and what side your opinions will land you on. Humza Yousaf has repeatedly said the bill won't prevent you expressing controversial or offensive views – as long as you "don't do it in a threatening or abusive way that is likely or intended to stir up hatred".
But who decides what is "abusive" or "likely" to stir up hatred?
Some have argued that the courts can be relied upon to strike the right balance for freedom of expression. But these reassurances that we won't be convicted – which are dubious in their own right – ignore the chilling effect of legislation. For most people, the fear that speaking your mind could result in brush with the law at all would be enough to self-censor and withdraw from the debate.
Scotland's hate crime bill would be a gift to professional offence takers and a nightmare for those expected to investigate claims of hatred being 'stirred up'.
In its submission to the Scottish parliament's justice committee, the Scottish Police Federation warned the bill would "devastate the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public".
It said: "We are all too aware that there are individuals in society who believe that to feel insulted or offended is a police matter. There are those who believe that to be disagreed with is tantamount to being insulted or abused."
The submission went on to say that the bill risked "compounding" a climate of self-censorship which is "stifling free speech" on contentious topics.
Unlike proposed offences related to gender identity and race, the bill includes a freedom of expression provision on religion. But this falls far short of providing any meaningful protection.
A similar provision in the Racial and Religious Hatred Act covering England and Wales protects expressions of "antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse" of religion. The free speech provision in Scotland's proposed law only protects proselytising and "discussion or criticism" of religious beliefs or practices. The government seems keen to dictate on what terms people can and cannot discuss the issues that matter to them.
The undertones of telling the public to watch its tone are sinister. The slain cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo could well have found themselves on the wrong side of this law. Is this really the route the Scottish government wants to go down? Free speech applies not only to expressions that are favourably received, but also to those that shock, offend or disturb. As currently drafted, Scotland's hate crime bill would signal a retreat from this vital principle.
If ministers really want to address hatred and bigotry perhaps they could try tackling the problem at source? Rather than cracking down on speech, a better plan for a more inclusive and tolerant Scotland might be to invest in education programmes that allow young people to learn about and understand diversity and difference. Phasing out religiously segregated schools might even assist young people to experience it.
But using the law to try and shut people up is unlikely to end well. It failed miserably last time ministers in Scotland tried it, through the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act.
Ironically, this bill will also abolish the common law offence of blasphemy. What a crying shame it would be if vague 'stirring up of hatred' offences take its place.
The good news is that plenty of MSPs have expressed concerns and over 2,000 submissions have been received by the committee scrutinising the bill – the vast majority pushing in the right direction.
Sanity may yet still prevail. Let's hope Scotland's politicians appreciate how important it is to protect freedom of expression.
The continued effort to silence Charlie Hebdo is shameful
It is outrageous to try to force this small magazine to give the 2015 killers what they wanted, says Chris Sloggett.
Earlier this month 14 people went on trial over the 2015 attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo.
The magazine, unsurprisingly, considered this worth a front page response. Alongside a set of cartoons featuring Islam's prophet Muhammad came a simple message: Tout ça pour ça (All that for this).
This wasn't just a legitimate editorial decision; it was also entirely understandable. A trial focused on the killings of Charlie's staff was opening, and the surviving staff used the magazine's front page to comment on it. That included reprinting the cartoons that their colleagues died for.
But predictably, it was followed by a flurry of pearl-clutching. The government of Pakistan – where a man was sentenced to death for sending 'blasphemous' text messages just last week – quickly condemned Charlie's decision in "the strongest terms". People there, and in countries including France, Nigeria, Indonesia, Iran, Chechnya and Yemen, took to the streets to protest.
A craven opinion piece in Al-Jazeera asked: "If it is easy enough to understand why some Muslims respond violently to derogatory tropes about Islam, the prophet and the Quran, what does it say about those who compulsively keep recycling these?"
Meanwhile in Britain, the headlines of stories on the BBC and the Independent, and the top line of a Guardian report, again told us the cartoons were "controversial". This was true, of course, but also very much beside the point.
We were also treated to a curious intervention from Qari Asim, an imam at a mosque in Leeds and – more importantly – the government's adviser on 'Islamophobia'.
You may recognise his name. Earlier this year The Sunday Times reported that there were calls for him to step down from his advisory role, amid criticism of comments he'd previously made about free speech. He'd suggested some Muslims want exceptions to free speech where they find it "distasteful". His supporters vociferously defended his comments, and his critics' case was left looking flimsy.
The following month he secured an apology from the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, which had falsely accused him of supporting the hanging of the Christian woman Asia Bibi in Pakistan.
But his response to Charlie Hebdo's decision to republish the Muhammad cartoons was, to put it lightly, questionable. In a deeply confused, rambling letter to The Independent, he wrote that it was "disgraceful to see Prophet Mohammad being used in such a derogatory way" and described the magazine's decision as "deliberately insulting and offensive".
He went on to say Muslims should not be scapegoated as terrorists; Muslims respect freedom of speech "but not when it incites hatred"; and people shouldn't play into the "hateful rhetoric" of extremists. The relevance of these points to Charlie's decision to republish – the subject of the letter – was left unclear (at least in the published version).
It's also worth noting the similarities between his language and that used in Scotland's current hate crime bill. The bill would criminalise expression which is "threatening or abusive" and intended or "likely" to 'stir up hatred' on the basis of religion. It's legitimate to ask – as The Spectator's Stephen Daisley, Murdo Fraser MSP and the NSS's own Stephen Evans have – whether those who publish Charlie's cartoons could be prosecuted under the bill.
But even absent of criminal sanction, the ongoing rows over Charlie Hebdo are deeply disturbing. It's bizarre to see so many people trying to appoint themselves as editorial advisers to a small French magazine which many of them probably hadn't even heard of until its staff were gunned down. And it's deeply shameful to see them trying to use that position to tell the magazine to bury the work of the dead with their bodies.
There is a straightforward option for those who dislike the cartoons but who also respect the right to publish them. When they were republished this month the head of the French Council of Muslim Worship, Mohammed Moussaoui, urged people to ignore them. The council itself responded by condemning terrorism and tweeting: "The freedom to make caricatures and the freedom to dislike them is guaranteed and nothing can justify violence."
This is correct, and it shouldn't be difficult. People are free to dislike Charlie's cartoons, and to say so. But in this context the obsessive, utterly disproportionate outrage at a small magazine's decision to publish a few drawings represents an attempt to create a climate where those drawings can't be published at all.
We should say again that it's outrageous to try to force the survivors of this massacre to give those responsible for it what they wanted. At the very least these people could leave Charlie alone to stick two fingers up to those who slaughtered its staff.
The world has abandoned freethinkers of Muslim heritage
The first Apostasy Day has highlighted the human rights abuses facing many who leave Islam. To stand up for them we must ensure the religion isn't given special protection, says Kunwar Khuldune Shahid.
On 22 August, an international coalition of ex-Muslim groups observed the first Apostasy Day. The organisers sought to highlight the human rights abuses which are committed against those who leave Islam. But just like the issue it aimed to highlight, the day failed to garner much coverage in the Western media.
This was a small illustration of the treatment which those leaving Islam routinely face. And that treatment isn't helped by the ongoing tussle between the global left and right, which often leaves dissenting Muslim voices at the mercy of radical Islamists.
In his recent campaign ad for Muslims, Democratic US presidential nominee Joe Biden quoted a hadith (saying) of Islam's prophet Muhammad. Biden, a veteran politician who has challenged Christian orthodoxy for decades, also wants more Islam to be taught in US schools.
Given the recent rise of anti-Muslim sentiments in the US, and the explicitly anti-Muslim measures introduced by the Trump administration, it is understandable that a self-proclaimed liberal political campaign would want to reassure a targeted minority. However, what contradicts the very essence of sociopolitical liberalism is painting a community with the same brush to imagine a uniform vote bank, and then to pander to it by endorsing the teaching of millennia old religious dogma, which secularist Muslims have long been fighting against.
The split between the Western left and right on Islam has seen the two wings position themselves based on their respective takes on Christianity. On the right, this can mean indulging exclusionary Christian nationalism. On the left's part, it unveils centripetal holes in its fight for equality, and aggravates the inertia against Muslim progress.
For instance, where Biden has declared LGBTQ rights a legislative priority and the 'civil rights issue of our time', he's unlikely to address the prevalent homophobia among American Muslims — let alone in Muslim majority countries. But the only states still mandating death for homosexuality are Islamic. Those states justify capital punishment through parts of the same theology that the Democratic nominee now wants to give more prominence in schools.
Even so, where the left has been guilty of silence, if not acquiescence, on Islamic homophobia, misogyny, and suppression of other marginalised groups, perhaps the greatest travesty is its abandonment of Muslim freethinkers.
If there is one subject where the self-avowed progressives haven't just flirted with Islamism, but have actually surrendered to it, it's blasphemy against Islam. This capitulation has ranged from the media's cowardly refusal to publish caricatures for which cartoonists are violently attacked, to the European Court of Human Rights actually upholding the Islamic blasphemy law — even if not the violence associated with it — that individuals like Asia Bibi have had to escape from.
This ostensibly well-meaning shielding of Islam, and the fabrication of a collective 'Muslim response' to critique of Islam, blatantly silences the marginalised liberal voices from this part of the world. This was epitomised by publications from the Arab world, Iran and Pakistan, defying the murderous blasphemy laws, and threats of violence, to express solidarity with Charlie Hebdo following the 2015 terror attack, only to see the mainstream Western media instead digging into the French publication's 'Islamophobia'. Similar allegations are being levelled in light of Charlie Hebdo's decision to republish those cartoons this week to coincide with the trial against the alleged abettors of the 2015 attack. For many on the left, any publication that treats Islam like any other religion, or echoes liberal Muslim voices over criticism of Islamist politics, is 'Islamophobic'.
Similar self-defeatism can be seen in the seemingly 'woke' vigilantism against former slave traders in the West, without nary a murmur on the modern day slavery in the Arab world, let alone Islamic history. The celebration of Islamist tools of subjugation like the hijab, despite millions being under its coercion, further delineates why Muslim dissidents being killed or silenced by Islamic law doesn't quite muster collective outrage.
The Apostasy Day rang a reminder that there still are 12 states that codify death for dissent against one religion. Where that should merit a global uproar, that religion is instead provided exclusive protection through a combination of gory blasphemy laws, and the treacherous label of 'Islamophobia', which is often used to shield the ideology more than the community.
As a result, where the Western press brims over with coverage of 'Islamophobia', often equating critique of religion with racism, blasphemy laws continue taking lives for mere allegations of what is deemed a 'phobia'—an irrational fear. Thanks to the duplicity in the West, and hypocrisy in many Muslim majority states, one can now be accused of being an 'Islamophobe' in places where dissent against Islam is punishable by death. Often the use of the word 'Islamophobia' is a grotesque insult to the millions living under perfectly rational fear in such countries.
This abandonment of Muslim heritage freethinkers also unravels the growing penchant for performative activism. For, when there's no public appreciation to be mustered from the millions who would be coming out as irreligious and sacrilegious through their 'likes' or 'retweets', there's less of an incentive to speak up for those unlikely to risk their lives to become followers on social media.
Today, many Islamic states have implemented sharia-laden cybercrime legislations which have endangered anonymous accounts, in response to Muslim critical thinking finding safe spaces on the internet. Many Muslim heritage atheists often use pseudonyms for security, even in the West.
Freethinkers from Nigeria to Bangladesh are being silenced for challenging Islamic orthodoxy. These aren't isolated incidents that can be lumped as victims of societal radicalism. They are the direct corollary of elevating Islam above criticism.
In spite of the Islamic laws, and their parallel digital implementation, anonymous denunciation of Islam is fast growing from the Middle East to South Asia. But from the Mu'tazila in 8th century Iraq, to 19th century Egypt, Turkey and Iran, to the anonymous ex-Muslims online today, efforts toward Muslim reform have been thwarted by a combination of global politics and Islamist stranglehold.
That can only change through a consistent approach to human rights, rather than by standing on the wrong side of Muslim history.
Image: Activists lend their support to the first Apostasy Day on 22 August.
Problems around Islamic marriage require a secular solution
A new report says compulsory registration for Islamic marriages is needed to tackle discrimination and abuse. Megan Manson argues broad reform to marriage laws is a better way to ensure fairness and equality for all.
Our marriage laws are failing Muslim women. That was the message at the heart of a report published by Civitas this month. Fallen through the cracks found a significant number of women in the UK are in unregistered Islamic 'marriages' (nikah). It said many of these women are unaware that these 'marriages' offer no legal protection and access to shared assets, which means women subject to Islamic 'divorce' may be left destitute.
The report also found women suffer discrimination due to the sexist nature of the sharia councils that oversee Islamic 'marriage' and 'divorce'. Sharia allows for men to 'divorce' wives instantly, but it is much harder for a woman to initiate a 'divorce'. As case study after case study shows, sharia councils frequently fail to take women's complaints of domestic violence, child abuse and rape within the relationship seriously, invariably siding with the 'husband'.
Additionally, under sharia men may have multiple 'wives' (a woman may not have multiple 'husbands'). The UN has said such polygamies contravene "a woman's right to equality with men", and have "serious emotional and financial consequences for her and her dependents". Civitas says there may be up to 20,000 polygamous unions in the UK.
The case studies of women in nikah are as heartbreaking as they are shocking. As an estimated 60-80% of Islamic marriages are unregistered, plenty of women are being denied basic rights. So what should be done?
The first recommendation made in the Civitas report is to make it mandatory for all religious marriages to be registered. Many mosques do require a legally-recognised marriage certificate before performing nikah, but many others do not. Furthermore, there is no requirement in Islam for nikah to take place in a mosque, so many Muslims will hold their nikah in a building not registered for marriage, including their own homes.
This is not the first time such legislation has been proposed. Baroness Cox and a number of women's rights activists have called for similar measures. This would also automatically make polygamous religious marriages illegal, since they would be recognised as bigamy which is already prohibited.
But is this an ideal solution?
Prohibiting unregistered religious unions in law presents a number of problems, not least from a secularist perspective. Secularists are cautious about the state intervening on matters of religion, just as they are wary about religion interfering with the state. Making unregistered religious marriages illegal would require the state to recognise that a religious rite has legal significance. It would also mean the state must make declarations on what does and does not count as a religious marriage. This is not conducive to keeping state and religion separate.
Requiring registration of all religious 'marriages' may also have unintended consequences for other religious groups. It is not uncommon for the growing number of people identifying as Pagans to have a religious union or 'handfasting' without a legally-recognised civil marriage. Furthermore, Pagans often have a liberal attitude towards relationships and some may be handfasted in 'triads' or other polyamorous unions with any combination of genders.
Unlike nikah, there are no reports of these unofficial Pagan 'marriages' undermining women's rights. But if religious 'marriage' registration became mandatory, this could impinge on the right of Pagans to practice an essentially harmless religious ritual of deep spiritual and emotional significance to those involved.
Even Humanists could fall foul of such laws. Humanists UK's website acknowledges "there are various reasons why people might want the public statement of commitment and celebration without legally registering their partnership". Some Humanist ceremonies closely resemble Pagan handfastings.
And while we must be careful not to downplay the experiences of Muslim women abused or exploited in nikah, we must also acknowledge that other Muslim women may choose to knowingly and willingly enter into an unregistered religious union for all kinds of reasons. For example, Muslims in their twenties not ready to enter a legally-binding marriage may enter a nikah in order to have a 'halal compliant' physical relationship.
So how can we protect women from exploitation in unregistered marriages? Fortunately a number of steps can be taken which align with secularist principles. These would both defend the rights of the vulnerable and deal with reasonable concerns about religious freedom.
1. Nationwide education campaign to raise awareness of marital rights
There is widespread ignorance about marriage, and not only among Muslims. Alarmingly, two-thirds of cohabiting couples wrongly believe 'common-law marriage' exists when dividing up finances. This is not true at all in England and Wales and only applies in some circumstances in Scotland.
Basic education about marriage should be part of relationships and sex education (RSE) in schools. Government guidance on RSE already says schools should make pupils aware about issues relating to marriage; this should be an opportunity to dispel myths and misunderstandings about common-law marriages and religious-only marriages.
2. Tackle sharia councils
Most problems relating to nikah result from the sexist nature of the sharia councils that administer them. Civitas calls for the Charity Commission to ensure sharia councils that are registered charities fully comply with the Equality Act 2010. The National Secular Society has gone one further and made the case for stripping sharia councils of their charitable status, and the financial benefits that go with it, on the grounds that they don't serve a public benefit and they undermine UK law.
Most importantly, we must ensure all UK citizens, regardless of their background, are aware of their rights and the sovereignty of UK law. Again, schools are well-placed to provide such civic education.
3. Simplify and secularise marriage laws
The NSS is campaigning for broad reforms to marriage. Our archaic marriage laws, particularly in England and Wales, are over-complicated, ill-suited to the 21st century, and afford considerable privilege to religious groups. The many strands of marriage law (which exist largely to accommodate different religions and beliefs) should be merged into one marriage law for all, treating everyone equally regardless of religion or belief and allowing all couples the freedom to have the marriage ceremony that bests suits them.
Perhaps the easiest way to achieve this would be to remove the peculiar emphasis which marriage law in England and Wales places on venues. Tying the legal status of a marriage to the building where it takes place drastically limits where most people can get married and results in inequality. There are far fewer approved civil marriage venues than religious ones (and by extension, far fewer places where same-sex couples can marry), while Jews and Quakers can get married almost anywhere they want. Switching from a building-based system to a celebrant-based one, similar to that in Scotland, would help to reduce these inequalities and complexities.
It so happens that some experts principally interested in the problem of unregistered Islamic 'marriages' are calling for the same thing. Patrick Nash, of the University of Cambridge, has said reforming marriage law "for greater choice within a simpler legal structure" is a more attractive alternative to other solutions, including the criminalisation of unregistered religious 'marriages'.
In Cohabitation and Religious Marriage, a collection of academic essays published earlier this year, Nash says that a legal requirement to pre-register nikah would be unlikely to work. This is because Muslim couples are more concerned with the "religious dimension" of nikah and find a separate civilly-registered ceremony "neither convenient nor attractive".
The same reasons could also apply to Pagans who choose to be handfasted but not legally married. Nash points to flaws in the building-focused marriage system in England and Wales, saying there is little demand for legally-binding ceremonies in mosques officially registered for marriage.
Instead, Nash proposes a "celebrant-based system with the bare minimum of formalities". He notes that in Scotland there are no known issues of unregistered nikah and reportedly no sharia councils, and that Scottish mosques have "a more symbiotic relationship" with Scots law. "British Muslims are far more likely to make use of English law if it is straightforward, inexpensive and convenient," Nash says.
To further disincentivise unregistered nikah, Nash proposes underpinning this model with a "tightly defined" criminal offence targeting celebrants who deceive or pressure someone into an unregistered 'marriage'. On the issue of polygamy, Nash suggests utilising the definition of marriage already used specifically in relation to forced marriage, which includes non legally-binding religious marriages.
That Nash's proposals largely align with the NSS's vision for one marriage law for all is perhaps not surprising. As religion and belief diversity in the UK increases, old legislation originating from the historic dominance of Christianity (and the Church of England in particular) in society will become increasingly incompatible with the lives of UK citizens.
Secularism offers liberal, equitable, progressive and 'common sense' ways for a diverse society to function. For that reason, I expect we will encounter more and more issues where the best solutions to complex dilemmas concerning religion and society turn out to be secular ones.
You can read Patrick Nash's argument within the book Cohabitation and religious marriage: Status, similarities and solutions, published by Bristol University Press.
Civitas's report is available on its website.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay.
Anthony Lester’s legacy for human rights and secularism
Keith Porteous Wood reflects on the achievements of Lord Lester, who died earlier this month, and the enduring relevance of his work.
I know of no lawyer who has made a more significant contribution to human rights than Lord Lester, who has died aged 84 after serving at the Bar for nearly 60 years.
Many regard him as the father of human rights law in the UK, which now has probably the most comprehensive equality laws in the world. The origin of the Equality Act 2010 can be traced back to the Equality Bill which Anthony tabled as a private member to the House of Lords in 2003 and his much earlier work in this field.
Anthony had played a key role in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Race Relations Act 1976. He fought for 30 years until the European Convention on Human Rights was incorporated into domestic law. His private member's bills paved the way for the Human Rights Act 1998.
His many defences of freedom of expression included serving as counsel for Penguin Books when there was an attempt to prosecute it for publishing The Satanic Verses. The Divisional Court dismissed the application.
His groundbreaking encouragement of courts to consider decisions in other jurisdictions has contributed to a wider application of evolving human rights where legislation has been slow to catch up.
And well into his eighties he was helping those battling against the government's refusal to make caste a protected characteristic. That fight continues.
One of Anthony's erstwhile juniors, Lord Pannick QC, observed in his tribute that "Lester played a vital role in assisting courts to decide issues of political, as well as moral and social, significance". All this took vision, commitment, and skill, not to mention decades of relentless graft.
He generously acted pro bono for the National Secular Society when we decided to intervene at the European Court of Human Rights on four landmark cases in 2013.
The cases (Ladele, McFarlane, Chaplin and Eweida) involved the tension between equality law and religious freedom to refuse to officiate at same sex civil partnerships; a refusal to counsel same-sex couples; the right to wear a crucifix that was a health and safety hazard; and the right to wear religious insignia at work. We argued against what we saw as the applicants' attempts to have religion trump all other protected characteristics.
Our interventions prevailed, changing European jurisprudence, in all but the last case.
His work will remain very relevant after his death. In his final book, Five Ideas to Fight For, Lester defended human rights, equality, free speech, privacy and the rule of law. And as I write the NSS is seeking to stave off the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill because of concerns over freedom of expression. This is almost a rerun of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill for England and Wales in 2006.
Anthony played a masterstroke on this, tabling an amendment creating a freedom of expression override. The (then Labour) government bitterly opposed it. Nevertheless, to no one's surprise more than the government's, we got it through, albeit by just one vote.
This is just a small part of the substantial legacy he leaves for human rights and secularism.
Note: Anthony Lester's parliamentary career ended in 2018 with his resignation from the House of Lords after a complaint about sexual harassment was upheld.
Image: Official portrait of Lord Lester of Herne Hill, © Chris McAndrew, via Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 3.0]
The 2015 General Election
Fife Council ends voting powers for religious appointees
Fife Council has become the third Scottish council this year to end voting privileges for unelected religious appointees.
The National Secular Society welcomed Fife Council's decision to end voting concessions for the religious representatives sitting on the cabinet and education committees.
Councillors voted 36 to 32 in favour of removing their voting privileges in a full council meeting today.
The NSS and local humanists briefed councillors ahead of the meeting, urging them to strip religious representatives of voting privileges. The NSS said no one should be granted "a privileged place in local democracy just because of their religion".
The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 obliges local authorities in Scotland to appoint three religious representatives to their education committees, at least one of whom must be appointed by the Roman Catholic Church and one by the Protestant Church of Scotland.
Such representatives have voting privileges in most councils, enabling them to influence local education policies affecting both faith and non-faith schools. At Fife Council, they are the only unelected members granted such concessions.
A motion was originally brought forward by Liberal Democrat councillors in 2022 aiming to consider a fair and democratic solution to managing religious representatives. Labour proposed a vote to maintain their voting powers and review again in 2027. The motion was amended by the Scottish National Party Cllr David Barratt to remove their votes entirely.
Following the vote, Lib Dem councillor Al Clark said: "Whilst we respect that religious reps can have an opinion, it is undemocratic for them to express a vote that could have an impact on the education of our children.
"They are not accountable, unlike elected members who are voted to represent our communities".
The Church of Scotland's own former representative in Fife, Brian Blanchflower, also supported the motion, saying voting is for democratically elected members.
Fife is particularly nonreligious. In the 2011 census, those with no religion were the largest religion or belief group, at over 46% (the Scottish average was nearly 37%). Approximately 31% of people in Fife were Church of Scotland and 9% were Roman Catholic.
The most recently available Scottish Social Attitudes Survey data shows 58% of Scots (including 74% of 18–34s) have no religion.
The legal requirement for Scottish councils to appoint religious representatives is being increasingly challenged by local authorities. In 2019 Perth and Kinross Council became the first to strip them of voting privileges. Following campaigning from the NSS and others, Moray Council and Scottish Borders Council followed suit. In May, Orkney Council and Highland Council voted to remove voting privileges for religious reps.
Scotland's former Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP has told the NSS there are "no plans" to end places for religious appointees on education committees.
NSS: 'We hope other councils follow suit'
Head of campaigns Megan Manson said: "It's fantastic that Fife has become the latest council to end the unfair voting privileges granted to religious representatives.
"They are now the third Scottish council within the past two months to make this move. Momentum is clearly gathering across Scotland as more councillors realise that giving unelected religious appointees a vote is undemocratic and unequal.
"The Scottish government should take notice of the growing unpopularity of religious reps and work to revoke the law that requires them on councils in the first place."
NSS: doctors not declaring faith group links in union debates
Representatives of the UK's largest doctors' union are failing to declare ties with faith groups opposed to assisted dying, the NSS has said.
The NSS wrote to the British Medical Association (BMA) this week to raise concerns that several representatives who are members of the Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) failed to declare this at the 2021 Annual Representative Meeting.
During the Annual Representative Meeting (ARM), members debate and vote on BMA policy. The BMA says any potential conflict of interest should declared before participating in ARM debates.
One CMF member made a contribution on assisted dying so inaccurate that the BMA had to issue a written clarification in its recording of the debate.
A CMF publication argues "the Christian case against medical killing".
In 2019, doctors with ties to the CMF launched a failed legal challenge to stop the Royal College of Physicians adopting a position of neutrality on assisted dying. Their case was supported by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, a conservative Christian lobby group deemed an "anti-LGBT hate group" in the US.
Baroness Ilora Finlay has contributed to a number of ARM debates on assisted dying in recent years but has failed to declare as an interest that the anti-assisted dying lobby group she co-founded, Living and Dying Well, has received funding from the Catholic Church for its activities.
The NSS asked the BMA how it planned to address representatives failing to disclose relevant conflicts of interest.
Eighty-four percent of Brits support a change in law to allow assisted dying.
NSS: 'a diversity of views is welcome but delegates must declare relevant conflicts of interest'
NSS campaigns officer Dr Alejandro Sanchez said: "We support the inclusion of a wide diversity of views during debate, but efforts to subvert the democratic mandate of the ARM by failing to declare highly relevant conflicts of interest should not be treated lightly.
"Individuals who participate in these debates should make their fellow delegates aware of their association with faith groups that have a history of campaigning against end-of-life choice."
Image by Darko Stojanovic from Pixabay
MPs to debate the role of bishops in House of Lords
The National Secular Society has welcomed news that parliament will debate the role of bishops in the House of Lords.
MPs will debate the future of the 'bishops' bench' at a Westminster Hall debate on July 6th.
The debate, organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, follows recent lobbying from the NSS.
Currently two Church of England archbishops and 24 bishops are given seats in the upper house and are able to vote on legislation.
Their position grants them privileged access to parliament, and they are given deferential treatment by other members.
Scottish National Party MP Tommy Sheppard, who applied for the debate, spoke about the role of Church in parliament during an NSS event last month. He called the presence of the Church "incredibly unrepresentative" of the population.
He said a debate on the bishops' bench would provide the opportunity to put questions to ministers that "they will find hard to answer".
The bishops' bench is consistently unpopular with the public. A survey last year found over 60% of UK adults think bishops should have no place in parliament.
In February writer and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig launched a petition to remove the bishops from the House of Lords, which received nearly 164,000 signatures.
Iran is the only other country which has religious clerics in its legislature.
In March the Commission on Political Power said the bishops are an "anomalous" presence in the House of Lords and recommended their removal in a reformed second chamber.
NSS: Debate is a "golden opportunity" to challenge bishops' bench
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans said: "This debate is a golden opportunity to challenge the inappropriate and anachronistic presence of clerics in our legislature.
"It makes no sense to have unelected religious representatives automatically given places in parliament – let alone representatives of one single church in a nation that is diverse, predominantly non-Christian, and increasingly irreligious.
"We urge MPs to use this debate to call for the removal of the bishops' bench, and for religion to play no part in the selection of members in the second chamber."
Faith schools foster unfairness and discrimination
Fairness and freedom should be central to state education. Recommendations from the UN child rights committee lay bare faith schools' failings, argues Stephen Evans.
On any given Sunday countless numbers of nonbelievers dutifully trapse off to church, not in search of sermons or salvation, but school places.
The bizarre phenomenon of parents attending church to secure a place at their local school stems from around a third of state funded schools being faith schools. Many of these may, when oversubscribed, give preferential treatment to children from families deemed sufficiently pious.
Faith-based admissions exist to ensure religious organisations running state schools can 'serve their own'. But the system also benefits the 'pew-jumping' middle class, who are willing and able to game the system by feigning faith to gain a place in a sought-after selective school.
It's often claimed that church schools deliver better academic outcomes. But the evidence shows that any educational advantages are small and are explained by factors around pupil intakes, such as religiously selective admissions arrangements.
Religious selection acts as a form of socioeconomic selection – and it's this, rather than a religious ethos, which compels many middle class parents to turn up at church to gain a place at a well performing school, without paying for a place at a private school. 'On your knees, avoid the fees', as the saying goes.
One such parent who admitted to doing this appeared on a local BBC radio debate I took part in last weekend. He explained that, unsatisfied with the schools in his catchment area, and unable to avoid private school fees, he attended services at an evangelical church once a month for five years to gain the necessary 'points' for a school place. He stopped going the moment his child's application was submitted.
That parents are willing to jump through such hoops to get their child into a particular school is a sad reflection on our state school system. Ideally, all children would have access to a good local school. By siphoning off the children from wealthier families at the expense of the rest, faith schools exacerbate the attainment gap between non-selective and selective education.
Gaming the system may be morally dubious, but rather than blame parents, we should reserve our indignation for a system that allows taxpayer funded schools to operate discriminatory admissions and select pupils on religious grounds.
The Equality Act exemptions that allow faith schools to give preferential treatment to worshippers legitimises faith-based discrimination. Thirteen years after the passing of landmark legislation to protect people from unfair treatment, religion's influence in state education is ensuring 19th century-style religious discrimination remains a feature of 21st century schooling.
Making religious leaders the gatekeepers to publicly funded services has other unintended consequences, too.
Whilst Church of England and Catholic schools usually require church attendance to gain the school's blessing, religious requirements in the oversubscription criteria of some minority faith schools' policies impose extreme religious ideology on families.
National Secular Society research revealed how some religious authorities use faith-based admission requirements to control how their students' families dress, whether they can use the internet, what they can eat, and even when they have sex.
Surely, it's time to consign this form of discrimination to history.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) certainly thinks so. In its concluding observations to its latest periodic examination of child rights in the UK, the CRC called on the UK to guarantee the right of all children to freedom of expression and to practise freely their religion or belief, including by repealing archaic school worship laws and preventing the use of religion as a selection criterion for school admissions.
Those campaigning for a fairer and more inclusive school system often ignore faith schools and focus instead on grammar schools. The government has admitted it does not know how many schools apply religious discrimination in their admissions. But it's clear that far more school places in England are subject to religious selection than academic selection. So, if you want to achieve a fairer and more inclusive education system, faith schools are the obvious place to start.
That means standing up to entrenched religious interests by insisting the schools we all pay for are open equally to all children, without regard to religion or belief – and that they respect and protect all their pupils' freedom of religion or belief.
Despite the lack of evidence that faith schools do this any better than other schools, faith school enthusiasts like to wax lyrical about the values they instil in children – honesty, kindness, compassion, justice. But the values they actually entrench in society are privilege, unfairness, and discrimination.
One Conservative MP characterised the UN's recommendations as "intolerant" and an "attack on people and institutions of faith". Vested interests lined up to echo those sentiments. But tackling human rights violations and discrimination takes aim not at religion, but at the negatives that flow from organising public services around it.
A pluralist society should both tolerate and celebrate all forms of diversity, but that diversity should be represented within schools, not be a marker of division and a basis for educating and segregating children.
Adopting the UN child rights committee's recommendations would go a long way to putting things right.
Image: Rawpixel.com, Shutterstock
Royal College of Surgeons drops opposition to assisted dying
The National Secular Society has welcomed the Royal College of Surgeons' (RCS) decision to adopt a neutral stance on assisted dying.
The RCS provides education and assessment for over 30,000 surgeons. It previously opposed assisted dying, but a survey of members carried out this year showed 72% supported a change in position.
This included 52% who said the RCS should support a law allowing assisted dying and 20% who supported a position of neutrality. The RCS council subsequently voted to adopt a position of neutrality last week.
The RCS now joins the Royal Colleges of Medicine, Physicians, Psychiatrists, and Nursing in taking a neutral stance on assisted dying. The Royal College of GPs is the only remaining college to oppose assisted dying – despite a majority of its membership supporting a change in stance.
The British Medical Association, the UK's largest doctors' union, dropped its opposition to assisted dying in 2021.
Helping someone to end their life, even when they are terminally ill, remains illegal in England and is punishable by up to 14 years' imprisonment. Eighty-four percent of Brits support a change to the law.
The first ever parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying – which the NSS has submitted evidence to – is ongoing.
NSS: 'neutral stance will ensure experts can engage fully with the debate'
NSS campaigns officer Dr Alejandro Sanchez said: "The council's decision moves the RCS much closer to representing the views of the public, who are largely in favour of decriminalisation of assisted dying.
"With its new policy of neutrality, the RCS can now engage fully with any legal developments and will no longer be able to suggest that surgeons are against assisted dying, which is demonstrably untrue."
It’s religion’s critics, not believers, who are being pushed out of politics
Christian politicians have recently claimed they cannot talk openly about their faith. Megan Manson says recent events show politicians who criticise religion are far more likely to be silenced.
At a recent discussion hosted by religious think tank Theos, evangelical Christian Miriam Cates MP (pictured) lamented that it is "incredibly difficult" for politicians to talk openly about faith.
Cates was referring to Kate Forbes MSP, and her failed bid to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the Scottish National Party – and first minister of Scotland. Forbes has also given a recent BBC interview where she echoed the sentiment that religious people are being forced out of politics.
Cates asked the room: "Which part of the Christian religion is so hideous to people now? Is it helping the poor?"
It was a disingenuous question that conveniently ignored what the public actually find so concerning about Forbes: the views of the church she belongs to, the Free Church of Scotland.
This is a fundamentalist church which has opposed abortion, gay marriage, and children playing on swings on Sundays. Most people would consider these to be controversial positions to say the least. It is perfectly reasonable for the public to question a politician who belongs a group which espouses such views, religious or not.
As it happens, the leadership went to a Muslim, Humza Yousaf. If the highest seat of office in Scotland can go to a member of a conservative religion, surely that's evidence enough that the public doesn't find faith as off-putting as Cates makes out.
Nevertheless, Cates is right – it is difficult for politicians to talk openly about faith.
But perhaps not in the way she meant.
Within the space of a month, we've seen two politicians pushed out of their role for talking about religion. More specifically, for criticising religion.
In May, councillor Mike Gilbert was refused the mayoralty of Boston Borough Council because of Facebook posts in which he condemned Islam's stance on homosexuality and women's rights. The comments were made during the football World Cup hosted by Qatar, which at the time prompted widespread public debate about the human rights record of Qatar's Islamic regime.
The serving mayor implied Gilbert's legitimate criticisms were "hate speech" during the council's annual general meeting and told other councillors that failure to condemn such speech could be interpreted as expressions of "approval or support".
And this month, in an eerily similar case, Neyland town councillor Andrew Lye was stripped of his mayoralty after a blog he wrote in 2008 came to light, in which he questioned the religious circumcision of babies. It should be noted over 60% of Brits would support a law against non-medical circumcision of boys - a painful, permanent and non-consensual procedure which can have serious complications, including death.
Fellow councillor Brian Rothero called Lye's comments "nothing short of antisemitic and anti-Muslim". The council subsequently voted to remove Lye from the mayoralty. Lye has since resigned from the council.
Both cases spell grave danger for democracy and free speech. It only takes the silencing of one politician to silence them all. The message is clear: don't criticise religion, or you'll lose your job.
If politicians can't raise concerns about the human rights of gay people, women or children where religion is involved, what does that mean for the future of those human rights?
Religious fundamentalists are highly motivated to make it difficult for outsiders to talk honestly and critically about their religion. The all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims have aggressively pushed for institutions including local councils and political parties to adopt their definition of 'Islamophobia'. Organisations including the National Secular Society have warned the definition, which easily conflates criticism of Islam with anti-Muslim bigotry, would chill free speech and conflict with equality law. The recent incidents at two local councils prove this point all too well.
While local councillors are forced from their jobs for challenging the more egregious aspects of faith, religion (and especially Christianity) basks in a privileged position at all levels in government. As the established church, the Church of England enjoys unparalleled access to our head of state and the houses of parliament. It even has 26 bishops appointed to the House of Lords as of right, all of whom have full voting rights and are generally given deference during debates. Sittings in both houses open with prayers – as do many council meetings.
This is hardly an environment where religion fears government. As recent cases demonstrate, the opposite is true.
Cates did make a surprisingly secularist point during the discussion, however. Defending Forbes, she said: "There should be a separation between personal faith and what happens in a democracy".
It is heartening to see an understanding here that separating the democratic process from personal religion is key to protecting everyone's freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, whether religious or not.
But it's a process which goes both ways. Just as religious people should be free to express their beliefs, others shouldn't be afraid to criticise them.
And the best framework for this is a secular democracy, where religion is neither privileged nor disadvantaged, and just one of many stalls in the marketplace of ideas.
NSS defend mayor ousted for questioning religious circumcision
The National Secular Society has teamed up with a men's health charity to raise concerns after a mayor was ousted for criticising religious circumcision.
In a 2008 blog, former mayor of Neyland town council Andrew Lye questioned why religious circumcision of children was necessary if God "made man in his own image".
At a meeting earlier this month, fellow councillor Brian Rothero said the remarks were "nothing short of antisemitic and anti-Muslim". The council subsequently voted to remove Lye from the mayoralty and Lye has now resigned from the council.
In a joint letter sent to Neyland town council yesterday, the NSS and 15 Square criticised the allegations against Lye as "baseless" and said they would have a chilling effect on free expression.
15 Square is a registered charity which supports men dealing with the physical and psychological problems arising from circumcision.
"In a free and open society, religious beliefs and practices must remain open to scrutiny and debate. Individuals should be afforded respect and protection, but ideas should not", the letter said.
The letter also pointed out that circumcision has been listed as a "harmful" practice by the United Nations. In 2015 a British judge described it as "more invasive" than some forms of female genital mutilation and held that it met the definition of "significant harm" under the Children Act 1989.
Three boys have bled to death in recent years post-circumcision in the UK (Celian Noumbiwe, Angelo Ofori-Mintah, and Goodluck Caubergs) and 11 were admitted in just one year to just one hospital with life-threatening haemorrhage or sepsis. An NHS whistleblower, himself a paediatric surgeon, said in 2016 circumcisions were leaving children "maimed for life".
A Freedom of Information Request to the General Medical Council last year revealed complications of circumcision recorded between 2012 and 2022 included penile deformity, infection, urinary complications and inadequate anaesthesia. Babies required blood transfusions in some cases.
A 2018 YouGov poll showed 62% of the British public would support a law against non-medical circumcision of boys.
NSS: "Andrew Lye spoke up in defence of the bodily integrity and autonomy of children"
NSS campaigns officer Dr Alejandro Sanchez said: "In 2016, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urged the government to ensure 'no one is subjected to unnecessary medical or surgical treatment during infancy or childhood'.
"Religious infant circumcision is exactly that: unnecessary, painful and risky surgery on non-consenting children to satisfy religious or cultural beliefs of their parents. Allegations of antisemitism or Islamophobia cannot be allowed to silence legitimate criticism of harmful religious practices.
"Andrew Lye has been ousted from the mayoralty because he spoke up in defence of the bodily integrity and autonomy of children. This will now have a chilling effect on anyone in politics wanting to speak out for children's fundamental rights."
Image by Thorsten Frenzel from Pixabay
NSS welcomes calls for objective RSE in N. Ireland
The National Secular Society has said relationships and sex education (RSE) at faith schools needs reviewing across the UK, following a critical report on RSE in Northern Ireland.
The report, published this week by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC), highlighted that many post-primary schools in NI are failing to uphold children's rights because they teach stigmatising ideas about contraception, abortion and homosexuality.
The NSS said similar issues exist across the UK. In 2018, it published a report which found many faith schools explicitly teach that same-sex relationships, sex outside of marriage, contraceptives and abortion are morally wrong.
Homosexual acts "against the nature" of human relationships, says NI school
In its survey of post-primary schools in NI, the NIHRC found some schools present the Catholic teaching that "the use of any artificial means of preventing procreation is not acceptable". The NIHRC said teaching young people that contraception is wrong "contradicts risk-reduction approaches to youth sexual activity".
The research found most respondents do not mention "abortion" in their RSE policies. The majority of those that do reference "pro-life values" such as "right to life" and "precious life". Twelve per cent of respondents teach abortion according to the "biblical principles of the sanctity of life" and "the Christian ethos".
Although most schools condemn discrimination against LGBT people and claim to uphold inclusivity and diversity, schools "often contradicted these values in various ways", the NIHRC said. A third of schools explicitly teach heterosexual relationships are the "main" or "ideal" context for sexual intimacy, including one school which says it is "the most desirable option for a person's psychological development".
Some schools say homosexuality is wrong, including one which states "the belief that homosexual acts are against the nature and purpose of human relationships will be presented to pupils".
The report said most schools promoted abstinence, some specifically until marriage. Over 95% promoted the value of the "sanctity of marriage".
In NI, RSE must be taught "in harmony with the ethos of the school and reflect the moral and religious principles held by parents and school management authorities". The NIHRC found nearly 97% of schools made reference to their "ethos", "morals" or "values" in their RSE policies.
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has made a recommendation to the UK government to "make age appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights a compulsory component of curriculum for young people, covering prevention of early pregnancy and access to abortion, and monitor its implementation."
The NIHRC said the legal and policy framework for RSE is not sufficient to ensure RSE meets this requirement. It recommended the law be reformed to require schools to teach RSE which complies with CEDAW recommendations.
Last week, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris laid new regulations before parliament to make it compulsory for all post-primary schools in NI to teach pupils about access to abortion and preventing pregnancy.
The statement was criticised by the moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr John Kirkpatrick, who accused Heaton-Harris of trying to "impose a particular worldview on the education of children in Northern Ireland".
NSS: Government 'must stop letting faith schools teach RSE through a faith lens'
In England, faith schools are permitted to "teach the distinctive faith perspective on relationships", and at all schools "the religious background of all pupils must be taken into account" when teaching RSE.
The NSS has criticised this guidance after its research found faith schools which call homosexuality "disordered", contraceptives "intrinsically evil" and abortion "the killing of an unborn child, an act of taking a human life".
The NSS identified similar problems at faith schools in Scotland and Wales.
In March, the government announced it would review RSE provision. Although the NSS called for faith-based RSE to be included in review, this is not specifically mentioned in the review's terms of reference. The NSS also expressed concerns about the religious connections of individuals appointed to the review panel.
NSS head of campaigns Megan Manson said: "The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission's findings echo our own from Britain: faith-based distortion of RSE is widespread.
"While making lessons about abortion and contraception compulsory is a positive step, it will not stop schools from teaching stigmatising and discriminatory ideas about sex and relationships if schools are permitted to teach according to a faith ethos.
"If the government is serious about ensuring every young person is given objective, evidence-based and inclusive RSE, it must stop letting schools deliver the subject through a faith lens."
Image: Shutterstock
NSS raises concerns over RSE review panel members
The National Secular Society has raised concerns over the religious connections of individuals appointed to review relationship and sex education.
One member is a former director of a Christian charity that opposes LGBT rights and access to abortion. Another oversees an academy trust where relationship and sex education (RSE) is taught in line with Islamic religious beliefs.
RSE review
In March, the government announced it would review the RSE curriculum in schools. The announcement followed allegations, spearheaded by Miriam Cates MP, that children were being exposed to sexually inappropriate content in RSE lessons. The National Association of Head Teachers has suggested the review may be "politically motivated".
The review is being carried out by the Department for Education and is to be guided by a five-strong "expert panel".
Alasdair Henderson
One panellist, barrister Alasdair Henderson (pictured, left), was a director of the charity the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship (LCF) from 2016 to 2021.
In a policy paper entitled 'Marriage and the Public Good', the LCF rejects gay sex because "God has designed intercourse as a meaningful act of communication because its purpose is to join a husband and wife together for life".
It also suggests that children brought up in heterosexual marriages "live according to higher standards of integrity and moral principles".
An academic paper hosted on the LCF website compares opposing same-sex marriage to opposing incestuous marriage between close relatives. It adds that allowing same-sex marriage "will undermine the 'moral weight of marriage'".
A lecture hosted on the LCF website refers to abortion law in the UK as "unjust". In 2018, Mr Henderson represented a Christian client who opposed a buffer zone around an abortion clinic in London.
In 2006, the LCF opposed government efforts to introduce legislation that would ensure LGBT people could not be denied services on the basis of their sexuality. The LCF urged Christians to write to their MPs to ask for a religious exemption to the legislation.
The LCF's former public policy officer was Andrea Williams, who is now Chief Executive of the Christian Legal Centre and Christian Concern. In a Channel 4 documentary, while still at LCF, Ms Williams describes abortion in the UK as a "silent holocaust" that is the work of "Satan".
Hamid Patel
Another panellist is Hamid Patel (pictured, right), chief executive of the Star Academies trust and a board member of Ofsted.
Star Academies, formerly known as Tauheedul Education Trust, operates 31 schools. Most of these are Islamic faith schools.
The Star Academies uniform policy for girls' faith schools says hijab (a headscarf) "is part of the Uniform", although pupils may opt out of wearing it due to "individual values or cultural or faith sensitivities". The hijab is mandated in some Islamic countries, such as Iran, to impose Islamic modesty codes on women.
The trust also states that its schools with an Islamic faith designation will "teach the distinctive faith perspective on relationships and sex education alongside the teaching of each topic or theme".
A 2018 National Secular Society report, Unsafe Sex Education, found many faith schools teach that homosexual acts are wrong and that homosexuality itself is "disordered".
Mainstream Islam usually rejects same-sex relationships and sex outside of marriage.
NSS: Appointments 'cast doubt on government's commitment to provide objective RSE'
NSS campaigns officer Alejandro Sanchez said: "It is already the case that state-funded faith schools are allowed to promulgate regressive religious views on homosexuality, women and reproductive rights in RSE.
"The RSE review was an opportunity for the government to rectify this. Instead, they have appointed two panel members with ties to religious organisations that appear to espouse those self-same views.
"This is extremely disappointing and casts doubts on the government's commitment to providing children with objective, scientific, evidence-based RSE rather than one inspired by harmful religious dogma."
NSS celebrates life of former president Barbara Smoker
The NSS joined last week with family and friends of its former president to memorialise what would have been her 100th birthday.
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