An Anglican bishop and Britain’s former top judge yesterday launched an impassioned defence of the rights of Christians in an increasingly secular society.
The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, said judges wrongly discriminate against people of faith because they are ignorant of religious beliefs.
He said failure to support the beliefs of Christians and other religious people could drive them from their jobs and blamed the Human Rights Act for allowing them to be victimised.
The bishop was backed by ex-Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf, who said the courts had gone ‘too far’ in restricting the rights of Christians in the workplace. He said it was ‘about time the tide turned’.
The two were speaking at the end of a year in which Christian relationship counsellor Gary McFarlane lost his appeal against dismissal after he refused to give sex therapy to a homosexual couple, and nurse Shirley Chaplin lost a discrimination case after she was moved to a back office job because she wore a crucifix.
During the General Election campaign, David Cameron promised to abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, which would spell out rights and responsibilities based on British traditions.
But that promise has been watered down by the Coalition agreement, which promises only to set up a commission to ‘investigate the creation of a British Bill of Rights that incorporates and builds on all our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights’.
Yesterday the bishop said he ‘generally welcomed’ the Human Rights Act but said it was being used without reference to religious sensibilities.
He said: ‘There is growing up something of an imbalance in the legal position with regard to the freedom of Christians and people of other faiths to pursue the calling of their faith in public life, in public service. One major context is obviously the Human Rights Act.’
Rich must shoulder the load
He condemned the treatment of Mr McFarlane, who was sacked by Relate after refusing to give sex therapy to a gay couple because it contradicted his religious beliefs.
The bishop said: ‘We have had a statement from a senior judge this year that matters of Christian belief were only matters of opinion and the law couldn’t possibly take countenance of them in coming to decisions about the rights and wrongs of particular behaviour in the workplace.’
'Religious views are notions in the mind': Gary McFarlane lost his appeal against dismissal after he refused to give sex therapy to a homosexual couple
'Religious views are notions in the mind': Gary McFarlane lost his appeal against dismissal after he refused to give sex therapy to a homosexual couple
He argued it was not an option for Christians to keep their faith private. ‘Anybody who is part of the religious community believes that you don’t just hold views, you live them. Manifesting your faith is part of having it and not part of some optional bolt-on.’
He said in the McFarlane case, ‘judgment seemed to be following contemporary society, which seems to think that secularist views are statements of the obvious and religious views are notions in the mind. That is the culture in which we are living. The judges ought to be religiously literate.’ He also accused Parliament of having behaved ‘quite tyrannically’ over the treatment of Catholic adoption societies, which were told they would have to accept gay and non Christian staff.
Lord Woolf said the bishop’s complaints did have ‘a grounding in the facts’ and added: ‘I think it’s a very good thing that you voice those concerns because the tide goes in and the tide goes out in these areas and sometimes it’s about time the tide turned a bit and started to go back. We may have gone too far.
‘The law must be above any sectional interest even if it is an interest of a faith but at the same time it must be aware of the proper concerns of that faith.
‘The law should be developed in ways that, wherever practicable, it allows that faith to be preserved and protected.’
■ Pope Benedict yesterday condemned Christmas attacks on Christians. He told pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square that he was saddened by the ‘absurd violence’.
Explosions on Christmas Eve in Nigeria killed at least 32 people and left 74 critically injured. Clashes were still continuing between armed Christian and Muslim groups yesterday. On Christmas Day, six were injured by a bomb in a Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines.
Pope Benedict said: ‘I want to express my heartfelt sorrow for the victims of these absurd acts of violence and once more repeat an appeal to abandon the path of hate and seek instead peaceful solutions to conflicts.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1341814/Christians-hit-human-rights-law-The-tide-turn-say-bishop-judge.html#ixzz19N7etiKk
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