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Church of England: Labour's equality law denies Christians right to oppose homosexuality
Last updated at 09:07am on 07.09.07
Dr Rowan Williams has endorsed the warning
Labour's latest equality law will deprive Christians of the right of free speech, the Church of England has warned.
The Single Equality Bill could force vicars to conduct weddings for sex-change brides, deprive Christians of the right to oppose homosexuality and make church schools promote gay lifestyles in lessons, said the Archbishops' Council.
Church charities may also be barred from saying grace before meals or displaying crucifixes, it claimed.
The CofE document - endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams - warned that the Bill attempts to suppress freedom of speech and "amounts to an enforced secularism that fails to respect religious belief at all".
The fierce response is the latest in a series of clashes between religious leaders and the Government over equality rules applying to minority groups whose behaviour Christians have always held as morally wrong.
Churches are already lined up in opposition to the Sexual Orientation Regulations, which came into force earlier this year.
These give homosexuals the right, among others, to sue Christians who refuse to rent church halls to gay organisations.
The Single Equality Bill - which is going through a consultation stage that ends this month - has been advertised as an attempt to simplify 40 years of legislation on race, sex and disability prejudice and gather hugely complex existing law under a single piece of legislation.
Publicity surrounding it has centred on the way it will allow nursing mothers to breastfeed in public.
Other clauses will prevent golf clubs or working men's clubs from giving women second class status.
But the Archbishops' Council, the CofE's ruling Cabinet, said the new law will go much further and have far-reaching effects for large sections of society.
Freedom of speech for Christians could be harmed by clauses strengthening the criminal law of harassment, it warned.
Christian charities and organisations face "a real risk of challenges to the use of religious practices such as grace before meals or religious symbols such as crucifixes".
Rules on harassment also mean that religious followers may not "be able to express the views of their faith about homosexual conduct, including challenging people to live lives consistent with the teaching of the Church".
The document adds: "To deny Christians such a right would amount to unjustified interference with the right to manifest religious belief."
Reader views (2)
I'm hetrosexual, I totally agree with with a person's right to live their life as homosexual. However, Christians are continually badgered by Labour. My question is this: Will the Muslim religion also have to embrace homosexuality under Labour's equity law? Makes you think doesn't it?
- Joyce, London
We are walking into a totalitarian society and very few are doing anything about it. We have lost the right to free speech in what is supposed to be a democratic society and we are increasingly being monitored, either by CCTV cameras, proposed identity cards or possible DNA screening for all. When are we going to wake up? Even secularists should be applauding Rowan Williams for speaking out as he is standing up for their free speech as much as everybody else's. We have a right to our own individual beliefs and a right to live our lives, publicly, not just privately, according to those beliefs. Obviously, no two religions will believe the same and each has the right to say why they think that their religion is right and another is wrong. This is a basic human right.
- Christine, Plymouth
