PERHAPS not everyone studies Hansard, the record of parliamentary proceedings. Campaigners for a particular cause, however, might be expected to read relevant debates. On 13 December, Lord Rooker was asked whether the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) would require schools to give equal emphasis in their teaching to civil partnerships and marriages. Lord Rooker: “No. The regulations are not concerned with what is taught in schools.” He was asked whether a Christian printer would be forced to print flyers promoting gay sex. Lord Rooker: “No . . . so long as the printer also refused to print flyers promoting heterosexual sex outside the realm of marriage.” Would a family-run B&B have to let out a double room to a transsexual couple? Lord Rooker: “No.” Would a police officer or firefighter be forced to cover a gay pride march? Lord Rooker: “No.”
And yet precisely these cases are listed at the bottom of a press release, dated 8 January, from the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, as it sought to rally a particular segment of the faithful to a protest outside the House of Lords on Tuesday: the “Christian, Jewish or Muslim” printer, the schoolteacher, the guesthouse owner. The press release is headed “Faith groups mount Lords protest over new threat to religious freedom.”
But there is no threat. The broad support for the Equality Act from the Church of England and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, to name just two, has been drowned out by a small group of conservative Christians who seem to believe that, regardless of what the Government says, or the wording of the Act, only they stand in the way of a homosexual free-for–all. “This is a Christian country. If we don’t speak out now, in a few years’ time, it will be too late,” said one protester on Tuesday. No, it won’t. The legislation has been drafted to prevent discrimination against people on account of their sexual orientation; there is nothing about condoning sexual behaviour, a distinction made by the House of Bishops in 1991. The Government must simply take the protesters at their first word — every speech is prefaced by an assurance that the speaker is not against gay people as such — and ignore any misinformed opinions that follow. The mainstream Churches, having quibbled over some of the wording in the legislation, now need to make it clear that they do not share the views of the protesters, and that the majority of Christians will have no truck with discrimination on grounds of this kind.
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