Harriet Harman vs the Pope in the great equality war

Ms Harman's last-blast equalities legislation has been criticised by modernising Cabinet colleagues as a ragbag of ideas which assume the state is best placed to foist more equality on the country. Public sector reformers regard it as an extra burden: surely their primary purpose is to improve schools and hospitals, not undertake audits of which class is being best catered for by which service?

The Harman bill has already unleashed many Cabinet battles, not least with Peter Mandelson, the business secretary, whose reservations have been privately vocal. Senior Blairites insist it would not have got through on their watch. "It's Gordon's payback for Harriet — and it gives her something to do," carps one.

Ms Harman, to give her credit, is as full of missionary zeal as the Pope — just of a different kind.

Although she is as argumentative as a Labour QC should be, I doubt she would much like to trade definitions of the Natural Law, from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas and the Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, with the Pope. His arguments, while often calculated to raise secular hackles, always have an intellectual grounding — in this case, the separate spheres of religious and civil life.

The more controversial part is that to a Catholic traditionalist such as Pope Benedict, the Natural Law would preclude homosexuals being able to act on their sexuality, which would seem to most of us, including many Catholics, very unnatural indeed .

But it is hard to deny that the clashes between the secular state and the second biggest faith group in the country have multiplied in the past few years. This is what is moving the Pope to call for a unified voice from bishops and a firmer line of resistance on meddling in faith schools and the limits placed on religious organisations.

Much of the ill feeling is left over from the argument over the rights of Catholic adoption agencies to exclude adoption by gay couples. This was a divisive issue in Cabinet. Two ordinarily herbivorous ministers, Ruth Kelly, a devout Roman Catholic, and Alan Johnson, an equally devout defender of the secular tradition, had bitter and ill-tempered exchanges on the matter.

Ms Harman's new bill, precisely because it is so broad in its reach, does, however, invite the kind of criticism the Pope has made. She believes that by extending rights to "religious workers" (as Private Eye's Dave Spart would call them), she is merely extending fair treatment the rest of us would expect into parishes and other church institutions.

Of course, this leaves the Church, as one commentator earnestly put it yesterday, "sadly out of touch with the public mood". But the purpose of a spiritual leader is not to fall in behind the public mood, which is by nature temporal and changeable. It is to offer an insight into a different, eternal truth.

We can find that idea uplifting or laughable but to judge the Pope by the standards of a focus group is beyond parody. "Now, this Resurrection thing, do you think it's entirely credible or should we go for something a bit less outré?"

The deeper question is how far religions can choose to opt out of laws which pass through Parliament. The example of the Catholic Church's woeful record in addressing sex abuse by its clergy is a warning against too great a separation of the Church from the rest of society.

One fellow Cabinet minister sighs: "Let the Pope have a row about it — the rest of us know it won't be implemented anyway in this life." Certainly, it will not be pursued with much vigour if Labour is consigned to an afterlife in opposition.

The Lords (including the Bishops) are already seeking several juicy bites out of the law before it returns to the Commons.

But it is no bad thing that more attention is focused on an undertaking which is, in Ms Harman's own words, "a new social order" — a direct quote from the old East German constitution.

It supposes that the government of the day is best placed to determine what that order is and how widely it is to be embraced. Should a faith school head, for instance, be assessed on their views on homosexuality? Many of us metropolitan liberals might run a mile from a school head who was not neutral on the issue of what kind of sexuality is preferable.

Yet subjecting religious institutions to the state's intervention is dubious on both practical and philosophical grounds.

Those which feel unduly attacked will plead those similar constraints are not being applied to other faiths: how will the clauses on equal opportunities for gays fare down at the local mosque?

Remember also that the Bill requires public bodies to actively work to close the class divide. Possibly this would merely enshrine existing commitments to make sure poorer people have access to public services. Yet the co-opting of public services to a class crusade is also uncomfortable — because it is so hard to say what it really entails.

Back in the unspiritual world of Westminster, the possible impact on voters worries Labour because it has traditionally had a strong base among Roman Catholics. Plus, to adapt Voltaire on his deathbed refusal to denounce Satan. "This is no time to be making enemies." The last thing Mr Brown wants is a diversionary row about the equalities legislation in the run-up to an election which could be closely fought.

But making enemies is exactly what the doughty Ms Harman is doing. Her crusade plays to activists who will determine whether she is a serious candidate for the leadership.

Outside that group, though, it strikes many as too wide, too sure of itself and too bossy to be healthy.

You do not have to sign up to the Vatican's missionary zeal to find the Harman variety a bit unholy too.