Evangelicals - where do they fit in?

This post is prompted by moves afoot to protest the appointment of Joel Edwards to the post of Commissioner with the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

At the time of his appointment there was a big and predictable broohaha, especially from the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement who produced this diatribe against his appointment. I say diatribe (defined as meaning "a bitter critical attack") as it goes on and on about the personal evils of afore mentioned Joel Edwards as if he has been personally directing the whole show. Of course, that is not likely to be the case. In many particulars the quotes are taken somewhat out of context and some things are attributed to Joel Edwards and the Evangelical Alliance when they oughtn't to be. This is unfair.

Again at the time there was a wait and see approach from Ekklesia who saw a significant potential for evangelicals to address equality, human rights and discrimination issues through bodies such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission stating

Evangelicals who recognise that equality ought to be a key part of the Christian
message have been slowly coming out of the closet, and even the Evangelical
Alliance's sceptical opinions on this issue have been expressed much more
temperately of late.

I must say I tend to agree.

My reading of Joel Edwards is of him being moderate whilst at the same time being true to his evangelical beliefs (which I personally have no objection to although I don't personally share them). I could of course be wrong on this but the politics of systematic suspicion leads to a bad place for all of us.

Of course, the Commission as a whole are open to public scrutiny as are its appointees as members of public bodies.

The Commission has broad duties laid upon it to promote equality and human rights (set out in the Equality Act) , including on the grounds of sexual orientation and has published an Equality Scheme laying out its approach to equality work in different areas as well as having as its role the support of different strands of equality legislation.

We all have a responsibility to hold the Commission to be effective in its role and also to make it clear that we oppose any hierarchy of discrimination. We also have a role to play in scrutinising the activities of Commission members and highlighting any thing that raises concerns.

One of the principal problems that we face now is the problem of alienationa and paranoia as a propaganda tool.

We definitely saw this is the debate over Goods and Services (and Joel Edwards was one of the very few evangelical voices to ward against this trend - especially in his 'Letter to leaders of Alliance member churches' on the subject).

Getting non-paranoid evangelical leaders onto the EHRC can be very valuable in ensuring that the more outlandish statements don't in the future get credance. We have also seen exaggeration and paranoia being out to good use in the debates over the Mental Health Bill - it's now a well recognised political tool.

In addition to this, religious communities do have (sometimes legitimate) concerns about human rights like freedom of religion and belief, freedom of expression and so on where there is a tension between equality provisions and human rights and it is probably better to have some faith representatives on the EHRC to be part of the solution as well as being part of a clear analysis that can address their concerns (which I acknowldege) in a realistic way and also calm down the more exaggerated claims of organisations in the 'Religious Right' such as Anglican Mainstream and so on that I have added to my blog lists as being 'ones to watch'.

Finally I believe in tolerance, pluralism and social dialogue in a way that not everyone does. This means accepting diversity of views and being political about them, not demonising your opponents.

For me this is part of our multicutluralism whilst balancing this with provision for human rights for all and making sure they are an indispensable part of our national culture.

Christian communities in the UK are not (in my view) under threat. The protection of gay people from discrimination is in my view a core right that crosses all communities and all communities have a role in ensuring that that happens.

On balance I think that we'll make further progress with the likes of Joel Edwards (who has expressed support for the principle of protecting gay people from discriminaiton through the law) on board.

I am sure that this is the right way to go but I welcome comments of dissent.

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House of Commons Free Vote on Embryology

Just a quick link to Lou's Blog where there is plenty of information about the decision of the Government to allow a free vote on several aspects of the embryology and human fertilisation bill. DoH site for the Bill here.

I think that the Bill has been very widely debated and scrutinised, including extensive pre-legislative scrutiny by a committee of both Houses. Plus I think that there have been some rather cheap shots and distortions of the aims of the Bill and what it will allow which I do not feel reflect grown up poitics or a political intervention of honesty - but then we saw that with the exaggerated debate over the Sexual Orientation Regulations, so there is nothing new in the use of such irresponsible scare tactics (we also saw the use of such tactics by more responsible organisations in the campaigning against the Mental Health Act - we must now get used to this form of campaigning as a means of igniting the media).

Thinking Anglicans also carries some interesting links and reactions, including this one:

Wow, the slimy, slippery slope - from carefully planned empirical research
- with ethical and methodological restraints or parameters - to outright
cannabalism.

Goodness knows, if conservative religious beliefs didn't stand
vigorously in the way, we might have got up to any number of other slippery
slope downhill things - like torturing our neighbors for their beliefs (or
unbeliefs), stealing their property when they died from our rough
interrogations, and generally claiming that we always know best because we know
God and God especially loves us for being so strict that a pagan cannot wedge a
lost penny under our tight knickers.

Alas, too often these conversations across the divides take on the character of near-parody. I will parody your understandings, if only you will firmly promise to parody mine. As for divorcing sex/childbirth from marriage, in many cultures the links are hardly the simplistic westernized conservative religious ones an either/or reference in passing might suggest to a casual reader.

Is adopting a strict, closed conservative religious view really, really, really, really the only possible way to value and engage in the value of human life? If we categorically cannot - cannot be allowed to? - empirically and ethically distinguish between embryonic tissues in a petri dish over a two week cycle of experimentation, and the
full-blown human being who just happens to be a queer citizen, partnered and
parenting, who just moved into the empty house next door - we might indeed
wonder if our ethical and empirical tools were too heavy and too blunt to serve
as anything better than a thrashing tool?

Joint Committee on Human Rights Report into Sexual Orientation Regulations

The Joint Committee on Human Rights (members both of Commons and Lords) was set up at the time of the passing of the Human Rights Act to seek to ensure that provisions of UK law were consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The 6th report of this session scrutinises the Northern Ireland Sexual Orientation Regulations from the point of view of compliance with human rights law.

Whilst our human rights law derives from the European Convention the International Covenant on Civil and Political (ICCPR) rights and other human rights instruments cover the same ground, in addition, for example, to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (text here ).

The 6th report can be found here and its summary and recommendations here.

The Joint Committee:

• expresses its support for the regulations, stating they are substantively part of human rights obligations
• support limited exemptions on doctrinal grounds for religious bodies but don't support wider exemptions
• support the inclusion of harassment (though with narrower definitions of harassment)
• support the inclusion of both the education sector as well as the school curriculum, asking the Government to clarify this with respect to the Northern Ireland regulations.

This is an important act of parliamentary scrutiny and goes to considerable lengths to derail the use by the religious right to seek to use human rights arguments to carve out exemptions the size of a bus within the regulations.

Regulations covering Great Britain are eagerly awaited.

Contradictions of "conscience"

Good article here in Pink News pointing out some of the contradictions in the "rights of conscience" argument put forwards by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York as well as a report on germane comments by John Reid.

And I do think it needs unpicking because of course freedom of conscience is an important doctrine on which Western democracy is built and forms part of the political landscape of political liberties (freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of association) to protect us from an authoritarian state (or an over bearing church).

Of course it is worth stating that the Church hasn't always believed that the conscience is free and the Roman Catholic Church still isn't totally convinced of that (see an article here in the Guardian on the very point). Notably the Church developed the theology of compulsion evidenced in such atrocities as the Inquisition (nobody expects the Inquisition!), the burning of Michel Servetus in John Calvin's Geneva and the persecution of the Anabaptists - not to mention the (in some countries still ongoing) compulsion of the consciences of LGBT people.

Taking a very simplified overview, talk of freedom of conscience started surfacing in Europe at the time when there was a move away from the principle of each country adopting the religion of the prince (referred to as cujus regio, ejus religio). This obviously resulted in catastrophic persecutions (eg the massacre of French Protestants and persecutions in England, Scotland and Ireland), the legacy of which still scars today.

Freedom of conscience started therefore as a concept that the State didn't have to force people to adopt a religion and didn't have to force people to worship in a certain way and ironically some of the key players were the English Puritains (e.g. John Owen and even Cromwell) who developed the idea all Christians didn't need to agree on everything and most people agreed that burning someone at the stake because they saw the doctrine of the Trinity differently was not a good thing.

Notably the Protestant Reformation introduced the concepts of 'Christian Liberty' and the phrases toleration and freedom of religion came to be used for the first time and it came to be seen that maybe this was the best way for us all to be able to live together peacably. Later picked up by secular voices such as John Locke, Voltaire and Spinoza and in more recent times Bentham and J.S. Mill (good wikipedia sites on all of these).

After the horrors of the second world war the idea that a humane state had limits and that citizens had human rights that needed protecting came to be widely shared.

So (in modern times) the human right of freedom of conscience and religion is described by the European Convention on Human Rights as follows:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Which in my way of interpreting it means everyone can have a religion, have no religion or change religion. The state can't outlaw a religion or try to settle disputes internal to the religious community (and that does of course include some rather - to me at least - odd ideas like 'the sole purpose of sex is procreation' or 'the Bible is a set of laws sent by God').

A limitation on how a religion is manifested is however allowed (most of the rights in the Convention are balanced in some way) by measures prescribed by law that meet the test of being necessary for a number of things including public safety, public order, health, morals and "the protection of the rights and freedoms of others".

And of course a religious view that LGB people are not equal in dignity and rights does lead to a society where their fundamental freedoms are infringed - the broader freedom of living an open life without violence, without fear and without discrimination. And it seems that the reduction of stigma where it is shown how toxic (as opposed to merely the trivial exchange of ideas) discrimination really is for young people for instance that the state has a positive burden to reduce it.

It seems to me that the state may lawfully respect a person having a view about homosexuality being wrong, respect the right of their church conmmunity to hold such a doctrine and make decisions about membership on that basis but to state that publicly funded services and services open to all members of the public should do so without discriminating on any grounds including sexual orientation.

No-one is forcing churches to accept public money or do charitable work - that's not the essence of the religion and that's the point at which equality law should intervene. It seems to me that if the state were to agree to exempt religious adoption agencies but only provide public funding where they serve all communities then we would be interesting territory, because these are (in part at least) publicly funded services and would vanish even if an exemption were allowed, because they are publicly funded (in part at least).

To accept the logic put forward by the Archbishop of Canterbury, any and all acts of discrimination are acceptable whatever the context - including in the public sector. You would not be able to prevent nurses and doctors discriminating because according to the Archbishops "you can't legislate over the conscience of the individual". I'm a GP and my conscience is telling me not to have patients or provide support for patients who may be LGB. My conscience tells me to tell homosexuals to reprent if they come to my surgery with depression or anxiety and the individual conscience is supreme.

Well of course it isn't supreme in the many other countries where homosexuality is still illegal not to mention the countries where the death penalty applies, so far is the reign of 'freedom of conscience' such a universally important thing.

Yes, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said:

“It is imperative to give the strongest support to the defence of homosexual people against violence, bigotry and legal disadvantage..."

In spite of this very little work has been undertaken to deal with the issue of respect of LGB people's freedom of conscience (or indeed in some cases freedom of religion when there are attempts to outlaw same sex ceremonies).

In summary whilst religious folk can always avail themselves of the European Convention on Human Rights under the Human Rights Act, little is done to promote freedom of conscience from the religious sphere - where it gets attacked the most often in today's world.