Newsline 30 June 2017

Newsline 30 June 2017

One objective of secularism is to prevent religions from evading the checks and balances to which others are subjected. With that in mind, the NSS has long sought to hold religious institutions to account for failing to address the many cases of sexual abuse within their organisations. Our longstanding work to expose the Church's handling of the Bishop Peter Ball case has been vindicated by an independent inquiry which confirmed that senior Church of England figures colluded to conceal evidence of child abuse. This story isn't over yet, and you can read further news and commentary below.

The NSS is committed to religious freedom and remains steadfast in our opposition to religious discrimination. There's good news on both fronts this week, as school worship laws face scrutiny in Wales; and Ireland vows to remove the 'baptism barrier' in school admissions. Meanwhile, with plans to open more religiously selective schools, Theresa May's Government appears to be heading in the opposite direction.

The National Secular Society is at the forefront of challenging religious privilege and promoting principles of secularism. Why not make a donation today, and help us to ensure that everyone's religious freedom is equally protected.

News, Blogs & Opinion

Welsh AMs to probe whether collective worship is compliant with human rights law

News | Thu, 29th Jun 2017

Two Welsh school students who launched a petition demanding the removal of the obligation on state schools to hold acts of worship have won support from a committee of AMs.

The Welsh Assembly petitions committee has undertaken to write to the Education Secretary asking her to look at whether the legal requirement on mainstream schools to hold collective acts of worship is compatible with human rights laws.

The students, Rhiannon Shipton and Lily McAllister-Sutton, launched a petition calling on Welsh Assembly Members to end the obligation on schools to hold collective worship after becoming increasingly frustrated by being forced to say prayers against their will.

The pair said they were "delighted" that the petition was to be acted upon.

Rhiannon Shipton, 15, told the NSS: "Members of the Committee understand that this is a human rights issue. No-one should be forced to pray. Lily and I are very grateful to everyone who has supported our petition and hope it will lead to real change."

Committee member Neil McEvoy said: "It is really great to see young people engage in politics and taking an interest today in the public gallery. I think it is right to progress this petition."

Committee chairman David Rowlands said: "[We will] write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education to ask whether the Welsh Government will consider reviewing the current law and guidelines surrounding collective worship and if any consideration has been given to the compatibility of the current requirements with human right law as the first question."

The move was also welcomed by the National Secular Society, which has long campaigned for the legal requirement on schools in England and Wales to hold a daily act of collective worship to be abolished.

In 2016, the Cabinet Secretary for Education in Wales, Kirsty Williams, told the NSS that a review of collective worship in Wales could be undertaken once the ongoing curriculum reform has been completed.

Stephen Evans, NSS campaigns director, said "The curriculum reforms currently being undertaken in Wales provide the ideal context to rethink this hopelessly anachronistic imposition on schools. The Welsh government should seize this opportunity to ensure that all aspects of the school day, including assemblies, are respectful and inclusive of all pupils. That means an end to compulsory worship."

Last year, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child called on the UK to abolish compulsory worship in schools and ensure students are given the independent right of withdrawal from any worship that does take place.

In 2015 senior academics warned of "significant concerns" about the imposition of collective worship in non-religious schools – arguing that it may violate the right to freedom of religion and belief.

Secular medics welcome new pharmacy standards on ‘religion, personal values and beliefs’

News | Fri, 30th Jun 2017

The Secular Medical Forum has welcomed new standards for pharmacy professionals that protect pharmacy users from conscientious objections.

The new General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) guidance makes clear that person-centred care must not be compromised by personal values or beliefs. "People receive safe and effective care when pharmacy professionals recognise their own values and beliefs but do not impose them on other people", says the guidance.

Dr Antony Lempert, chair of the Secular Medical Forum (SMF), said "The GPhC position is consistent with good practice and with our recommendations in that all professionals should be allowed to practice according to their own beliefs just so long as they make sure that they don't put themselves into a position where they are compromising patient care".

The guidance states:

"If a pharmacy professional is unwilling to provide a certain service, they should take steps to make sure the person asking for care is at the centre of their decision-making, so they can access the service they need in a timely manner and without hindrance."

Dr Lempert added: "Any pharmacist who is worried about 'being forced to dispense medicine against their consciences' now has the added responsibility to make sure they take personal and professional responsibility for choosing an appropriate place of work and that they're not a lone worker when such requests might arise. If they don't take appropriate steps such as discussing the potential limitations on their work with their proposed employer and a pharmacy user is subsequently unable to access appropriate care because of this, then the GPhC will likely consider the pharmacist to have breached the new code of conduct. It is no longer an excuse for a pharmacist to just say: 'This is against my beliefs' as per the old guidance."

The revised guidance has been inaccurately labelled a "U-turn of proposed policy" by the Catholic weekly newspaper The Tablet, which said the regulatory body had "backed away" from proposals to abolish the right of people with religious convictions to conscientiously object to dispensing the morning-after pill, contraceptives and hormone-blocking drugs used by transsexual patients.

However, the National Secular Society said such proposals were never considered by the GPhC despite this being the scaremongering line taken by those seeking to challenge the new sensible guidance.

Duncan Rudkin, Chief Executive of the GPhC, said the new guidance would "support pharmacy professionals to make good decisions and provide person-centred care, within the legal framework."

However, the new standards were criticised by the Anscombe Bioethics Center, a Catholic institute serving the Catholic Church in the UK and Ireland. Helen Watt, a senior research fellow at the Centre suggested that religious considerations should trump patient care.

"The guidance is still very worrying in the extent to which it expects pharmacists to act against their values and beliefs and their own professional ethic," she said.

"That includes situations where the pharmacist objects to a 'service' which far from being health care is positively harmful to health," she said, adding: "The suggestion is still that the pharmacist should either refer for or sometimes even provide the very 'service' to which he or she objects."

Stephen Evans, NSS campaigns director, said: "No service user should face the humiliating experience of being refused medicine because a pharmacist objects to carrying out their job in its entirety. We believe this revised guidance will protect those seeking medical care from the small number of pharmacists who wish to impose their personal views on patients."

The Secular Medical Forum provides expert and professional advice and opinion to the National Secular Society on issues related to healthcare and provides a forum for anyone interested in the intersection of healthcare and secularism.

Government to make free abortion services available to NI women in England

News | Thu, 29th Jun 2017

The National Secular Society has welcomed news that Northern Irish women will able to get abortions on the NHS in England.

The announcement comes after more than 50 MPs from across the major parties backed amendment to the Queen's Speech calling for such a change.

During a debate on the amendment Sir Peter Bottomley asked why, in the case of women from Northern Ireland, "only the poor should be denied lawful abortions". At least 1,000 women from Northern Ireland travel to England for abortion services every year, but have to pay for them privately.

Philip Hammond told the Commons that the government would fund abortions in England for women from Northern Ireland.

Two weeks ago the Supreme Court ruled that UK citizens normally resident in Northern Irish did not have the right to free abortion services in England, but that the Government had the power to provide for such access.

The case prompted the National Secular Society to write to the Prime Minister and the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales calling on them to ensure that NHS abortion services are made available, free of charge, to women travelling from Northern Ireland.

A National Secular Society spokesperson welcomed the announcement, saying it would "go some way to mitigating the harm caused by a disparity in women's reproductive health rights across the UK".

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service described the announcement as a "landmark moment: for years the women of Northern Ireland, despite being UK citizens and taxpayers, have not been entitled to NHS-funded treatment".

Marie Stopes said it was "a hugely positive step forward, but there is no reason why these services shouldn't be provided in Northern Ireland, saving thousands of women each year the cost and stress of travelling to the mainland".

NSS joins calls for Lord Carey to resign from Lords and face criminal investigation

News | Wed, 28th Jun 2017

The National Secular Society has backed calls from abuse survivors for Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, to face police investigation over his role in the cover-up of sexual abuse in the Church of England.

In a letter to The Times, survivors of abuse by Bishop Peter Ball, and lawyers representing many of Ball's survivors, say police must investigate whether Carey's deliberate concealment of evidence constitutes a criminal offence.

Lord Carey also faces calls to forfeit his right to sit in the House of Lords. "It is unacceptable that someone who was involved in concealing evidence of criminality should have a role in making laws for others", says the letter.

An independent review into the church's handling of former bishop Peter Ball found that George Carey was among senior figures in the Church who colluded over a 20-year period with the disgraced former bishop who sexually abused boys and men.

The letter, signed by the Head of Abuse at Slater and Gordon and NSS director, Richard Scorer; David Greenwood, a solicitor at Switalskis; and two of Ball's victims, Phil Johnson and the Rev Graham Sawyer, calls for "independent oversight" of safeguarding in the Church and the introduction of a "mandatory reporting law" requiring that knowledge or suspicion of abuse be reported to the authorities.

The National Secular Society originally wrote to the Metropolitan Police in July 2016, urging it to investigate whether Carey should be prosecuted in connection with the influence he brought to bear on the justice system, in relation to its investigations into Ball. However, no charges have been brought to date.

It is hoped that that the findings of the independent report by Dame Moira Gibb will lead to Carey's actions being properly investigated.

This week Lord Carey stepped down from his role as honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Oxford after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, urged him to "consider his position".

Stephen Evans, National Secular Society campaigns director, said Carey should now face police investigation and resign from the House of Lords.

"It's clear from the independent review that Carey concealed evidence of criminality and acted as judge and jury over Ball, allowing him to evade justice for 20 years. It is surely inconceivable that those found to have covered-up evidence of criminality and shielded perpetrators from justice can act as legislators in the House of lords."

Carey served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, when he sat on the House of Lords' bench of bishops by virtue of his office. Upon steppjng down he was immediately made a crossbench life peer as Baron Carey of Clifton.

The National Secular Society has also written to the chair of governors at the George Carey Church of England Primary School in Barking, urging it to consider a name change. In a letter to the school, the NSS said it was "wholly inappropriate" for a school to be named in honour of Carey.

Also see: The Church can't be allowed to carry on marking its own homework

The Church can’t be allowed to carry on marking its own homework

Opinion | Sun, 25th Jun 2017

The Church concealed evidence of criminality and colluded to protect an abusive bishop. Only external oversight will guarantee that church safeguarding practices comply with secular standards, argues Richard Scorer.

With the publication of the Gibb report the Church of England has finally admitted what Ball's victims have long believed ­– that senior figures in the church, in particular former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, concealed evidence of Ball's criminality and colluded to protect him. Where do we go from here?

At the heart of the Ball scandal, as I explained on this site in July last year, is that in early 1993, when Ball was under police investigation for a single offence, against a young man called Neil Todd, Lambeth Palace was aware of no fewer than 6 other allegations against Ball, but failed to pass these to the police. Worse still, in full knowledge of these other allegations, Carey wrote to the police to tell them that the Todd allegation was "most unrepresentative" of Ball's behaviour.

When I raised the spectre of cover up at a hearing of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in March 2016, Lord Carey told the media that he had "no knowledge of the matters" I was referring to. But the Gibb report now lays bare Carey's intimate involvement in the maneouvres by which Ball escaped justice for a further 22 years, and concludes that Carey's failure to pass evidence to the police "must give rise to a perception of deliberate concealment".

Self-evidently, the Ball case involves more than a "perception" of concealment; it involves concealment, pure and simple, so one wonders whether Gibb's wording here was softened during the process of "Maxwellisation", by which those criticised in a report are given the opportunity, pre-publication, to challenge the report's conclusions. Of course, the church's "Abuse of Faith", as Gibb calls it, went well beyond concealment. Even after Ball's caution and resignation in 1993, senior church leaders denigrated his victims. They allowed Ball to regain much of his standing within the Church, and many of his preaching privileges. They allowed him to carry out priestly duties in schools. Knowing full well that he was the subject of multiple allegations of sex abuse, they sought to rehabilitate him. And then under Rowan Williams, Carey's successor, progress in tackling sex abuse generally within the Church was "lamentably slow".

An unavoidable question is whether, in concealing evidence of Ball's criminality, senior figures in the Church of England, including Carey, may have committed criminal offences, the most obvious one being misconduct in public office. The Ball case itself established that a Church of England bishop is a public official. Misconduct in public office is defined as "a public officer wilfully neglecting to perform his duty and/or wilfully misconducting himself to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder, without reasonable excuse or justification". Plainly, there is a case to answer.

Some will say that police resources are better spent on contemporary challenges than on prosecuting failings which occurred over 20 years ago. But this would be to ignore the gravity of what occurred, and its long lasting consequences, which included the suicide of Neil Todd, who over two decades was vilified by the Church as a liar and a gold-digger. According to Gibb, Carey decided that Ball was "basically innocent". The Archbishop of Canterbury decided, in other words, that he was entitled to act as judge and jury and substitute his own view for that of the criminal courts. But the law is not just for little people; it applies to Archbishops as well. So the question of criminal offences has to be addressed.

What of the wider implications of the report? In its forensic analysis of the factual detail of this tawdry cover up, Gibb is a pretty strong piece of work. In its analysis of the church culture which led to this scandal, and especially in terms of recommendations for change, the report is much weaker.

On religious culture, and the manifold ways in which it can be misused by abusers, the report certainly makes a number of pertinent observations. It notes that Ball's abuse was "charged with religious intensity" and that in committing his offences Ball "exploited the significance of ritual, particularly in the Anglo-Catholic tradition". For Ball religious rites became "a mask for abuse, and theology was used as a way of justifying abuse". The evil of what he did was "compounded by his message that this made the victims more special and more holy".

Gibb also acknowledges that religious communities of the type established by Ball, which purport to offer support and spiritual guidance, are peculiarly likely to attract vulnerable people who may be troubled and seeking direction, and for that same reason are also likely to attract perpetrators who seek to use the respect and faith attaching to religion as a cover for abuse. As Gibb notes, such communities are also often closed communities, lacking the external oversight so crucial for preventing abuse.

Finally, Gibb reiterates that in Christian organisations abusers can sometimes be protected from accountability by a distorted concept of forgiveness. All these points are well made, and help to explain why it is that although many secular institutions have also suffered from abuse scandals, religious institutions seem to be particularly susceptible to such scandals and ill-equipped to confront them. However, in my view the report fails to acknowledge something even darker in the Church of England – a culture of bullying and intimidation of against those who speak out. This culture has been powerfully described by Rev Graham Sawyer, a Ball survivor who is also a Church of England vicar, and who has experienced the church's treatment of whistleblowers at first hand. For the public, who increasingly tend to regard the Church of England as slightly ridiculous but largely benign, this aspect of the church's culture may come as a surprise, but it certainly exists, even if it is hidden under a veneer of English politeness.

In terms of proposals for change, the report's 12 recommendations are astonishingly anodyne, and seem to be grounded in an assumption that all is now basically well with safeguarding practice in the Church, although also buried in the report is an acknowledgement that diocesan safeguarding work has often been inadequately resourced.

Most extraordinary, however, is the absence of any insistence that abuse allegations be reported to external authorities under a mandatory reporting regime. This is the obvious and undeniable lesson from Ball – the Church of England cannot be allowed to carry on marking its own homework. Of course, Gibb may be assuming, as I also find many journalists now do, that reporting of allegations to external authorities is already the norm. But because child abuse often takes many years, even decades, to come to light, and given the history now exposed, we cannot presume this with any confidence. The main lesson of Gibb, although the report does not say so, is that only external oversight will guarantee that church safeguarding practices comply with secular standards. We need mandatory reporting.

Richard Scorer is a solicitor who acts for some of Peter Ball's victims, and is an NSS council member. You can follow him on Twitter @richard_scorer. The views expressed in our blogs are those of the author and may not necessarily represent the views of the NSS.

Ireland’s education minister sets out plans to remove ‘baptism barrier’ to Catholic schools

News | Thu, 29th Jun 2017

Ireland's state-funded Catholic primary schools are to lose the ability discriminate on the basis of religion in their admissions policies.

Education Minister Richard Bruton has set out proposals that will stop the country's 2,800 Catholic schools from discriminating on the grounds of religion – but will still allow minority faith primary schools to select pupils on religious grounds.

The concession to minority faith schools follows intense lobbying from Fine Gael ministers and backbenchers who warned the Minister an outright ban on religious selection could have unintended consequences for Protestant schools. The move is intended to ensure that students of minority faith backgrounds can find a school place in a school of that ethos.

Catholic denominational primary schools make up approximately 90% of all primary schools in Ireland. Schools run by minority religious organisations account for 6% of primary schools – the vast majority of these being under the patronage of Church of Ireland and Presbyterian organisations.

Announcing the plans at the Oireachtas Committee hearing on the Education (Admissions to Schools) Bill, the Minister, said it was "unfair that preference can be given by publicly-funded denominational schools to children of their own religion who might live some distance away, ahead of children of a different religion or of no religion who live close to the school."

He also said it was "unfair that some parents, who might otherwise not do so, feel pressure to baptise their children in order to gain admission to their local school".

However, the Department of Education warned that there are "complex legal and constitutional issues which will have to be worked out" in order to implement the proposals.

It said the changes will mean that for the first time non-religious families, who now account for almost 10% of the population (a figure which is significantly higher among parenting ages – close to 20%), will now be able to access their local State-funded primary school "on the same basis as other citizens".

Educate Together, an educational charity which runs equality-based schools welcomed the fall of the baptism barrier, but warned that the lack of school choice for all families in Ireland remains the fundamental problem.

Educate Together CEO, Paul Rowe, said: "Of course every child should be able to attend their local school - but, crucially, their local school should treat all children with equal respect, both at the school gates and in the classroom, regardless of religious, social or cultural background."

The group has pointed out that many parents don't want access to religious schools and called on the Minister to sanction more inclusive multi-denominational schools to meet that growing demand.

In 2016 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child called on the Irish Government to promote the establishment of non-denominational or multi-denominational schools and to "amend the existing legislative framework to eliminate discrimination in school admissions".

Meanwhile, in England, the Government is still considering plans to remove the Free Schools' 50% faith-based admissions cap, to enable new faith schools to select all pupils on religious grounds. The plans, unveiled by Theresa May last year, are intended to facilitate the opening of more Catholic faith schools. The Catholic Church has refused to open schools while limitations are placed on its ability to religiously discriminate in admissions.

US Supreme Court ruling a 'blow to country’s fundamental principle of church-state separation'

News | Thu, 29th Jun 2017

A religious liberty advocacy group in the US has warned that a Supreme Court ruling that the state of Missouri must extend a playground fund to religious organisations could "open the door to more taxpayer support for religion".

The US Supreme Court ruled that a Missouri policy, which restricted a scrap tire recycling programme to religiously neutral organisations, unconstitutional. Raising implications for funding of religious schools.

In 2012 Trinity Lutheran Church applied for funding to upgrade their playground's surface using recycled tire material through a state scheme. In accordance with the state's constitution the application process required applicants to affirm that the grant would only be used for a secular purpose. Trinity Lutheran Church sued claiming violation of the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court upheld the free exercise claim.

Direct state funding of religious institutions is considered constitutional, as long as that funding is for a secular purpose. The Scrap Tire Program requires an applicant to certify "that its mission and activities are secular and that it will put program funds to only a secular use". Trinity Lutheran Church certified that its learning centre was part of its religious mission.

Delivering the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts stated: "The exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand."

The Court explained their reasoning for not considering the claim that the policy violated the equal protection. In a section seeking to limit the scope of the ruling (a section which was not joined by Justices Clarence and Gorsuch), the Chief Justice affirmed the principle that treating entities differently based on distinctions made relevant by the First Amendment, does not amount to discrimination. I.e. equally excluding all religious entities from a Government benefit does not amount to discrimination, if is necessary to protect either the establishment or free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.

For example in the case of Locke v. Davey the Court ruled that it was permissible for a college scholarship programme (which would have included academic study of religion) could exclude a seminary programme. Justice Robert's called this: "The reasonable proposition that the government may, but need not, choose not to fund certain religious entities (there, ministers) where doing so raises "historic and substantial" establishment and free exercise concerns."

In her dissent, joined by Justice Ginsburg, Justice Sotomayor warned of the case's profound consequence for the relationship between religious institutions and the civil government, arguing that majority opinion holds: "for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to provide public funds directly to a church. Its decision slights both our precedents and our history, and its reasoning weakens this country's longstanding commitment to a separation of church and state beneficial to both."

The ruling was criticised by the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who said: "This ruling undermines the bedrock principle that no American should be forced to support a religion against his or her will. The religious freedom protections enshrined in state constitutions are worth more than resurfacing a playground. Taxpayer-funded religion is bad for churches, communities and citizens. Americans United will continue to fight to buttress the church-state wall because that's the only thing that can ensure true religious freedom for everyone.

"This ruling threatens to open the door to more taxpayer support for religion, which is at odds with our history, traditions and common sense."

Supreme Court watchers have been looking to this case for clues as to the direction the Court will take on future cases involving funding of religious organisations and efforts to redefine 'religious freedom' to protect religious discrimination by private businesses. Under Betsy DeVos, the Education Department is expected to increasingly support school voucher programmes, which critics warn could funnel millions to private religious schools.

NSS Speaks Out

Our campaigns director Stephen Evans was quoted in Wales Online about compulsory worship in schools and in Christian Today about Lord Carey's role in covering up Bishop Ball's abuse. NSS Council member - and specialist solicitor who acts for some of Peter Ball's victims - was widely quoted in the press regarding George Carey and abuse in the Church of England. He also had a letter in the Times (£) on this subject.