NSS Bulletin Issue 24

National National Secular Society Bulletin 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Secular Telephone/Fax: (020) 7404 3126 Executive Director: Keith Porteous Wood Society Email Addresses: Executive Director: [email protected] Research Officer: [email protected] Website: www.secularism.org.uk May ISSUE 24 2003 Blair Caves in to Religious Demands in Employment Directive INSIDE Page 3 Thought for he NSS’s long-running campaign they disapprove. the Day to minimise the extent of religious Major changes to the original draft, Page 4 Prisons exemptions being introduced into T allowing discrimination against atheists Page 6 President’s the new anti-discrimination employment or others who do not share the religious Message regulations, introduced to give effect to beliefs of their employer, were made the Employment Directive, suffered a Page 7 Animal following strong lobbying from Welfare major set back this month when the evangelical groups such as the Christian Government unveiled the final version of Page 7 Easter Institute, Faithworks and the Evangelical its plans. To our dismay, New Labour has Page 9 Ofcom caved in to religious demands and has Alliance. One of the biggest loopholes Page 9 Lords included in the regulations new and far allows an employer to dismiss or fail to Reform more wide-ranging exemptions than hire an individual “if the employer is not were in any of the previous drafts. satisfied, and in all the circumstances it is Page 10 Faith reasonable for him not to be satisfied” Schools The new regulations will allow that the employee fits the employer’s religious employers to continue to own “ethos based on religion or belief”. discriminate against those who do not share their beliefs or of whose lifestyle Continued on p.2 Dr Anna Behan Co-opted to NSS Council r. Anna Behan has recently been co- Anna has been an atheist for as long as Dopted to join the Council where her she can remember. She spent six years as legal experience will be a particular asset. a lecturer in Classics in Dublin (where She has been a member for a number of one of her former colleagues at University College Dublin was Dr Des years during which time she has worked Connell, the Cardinal Archbishop of with the Executive Director as a Dublin!). On her return to the UK, she volunteer on the prisons campaign. qualified as a solicitor and practised in Earlier this year they attended a meeting Hampshire and London, where she now Dr. Anna Behan with the Society’s solicitors and a lives. She is bringing up children aged barrister from some prominent Human five and two, and had been spurred into An interview with Anna Rights chambers at which joining the NSS by her sense of injustice Behan on Woman’s Hour recommendations for the future direction at the religious discrimination in school is reported on page 11. of policy in this area were established. admissions. Summer Conference of the NSS Saturday, 7th June, 2003 - See back page. 1 Jobs Denied – such as what constitutes an “organisation with a Our Executive Director has been pressing for religious ethos” or a “genuine occupational complete equality for all employees, said: requirement” that will allow faith-based groups to “Exemptions given to religious groups will allow reserve jobs for members of their own religion. them to deny jobs to people who don’t share their Lawyers are going to have a beanfeast, and all Rt Hon Barbara Roche MP. faith, and to sack people who do not live because the Prime Minister is so anxious to satisfy Was she overruled by No. 10? according to their religious teachings, such as the demands of religious extremists.” unmarried cohabiting couples and atheists and The religious exemptions have made a mockery homosexuals. Organisations with a religious ethos of the original intention of the EU Directive to control over a hundred thousand jobs, a high bring equal protection at work to everyone. If you don’t know how to put proportion of them paid for out of the public Atheists and homosexuals have been made into your hands together, you will purse. There are around a hundred thousand second-class citizens if they happen to work in an teachers in religious schools, alone. The not be able to insist on being organisation that claims to have a religious ethos. Government refused to restrict the definition of a The regulations are being introduced as appointed to a teaching job in a religious employer as we asked, but instead made secondary legislation, so they will not be open to it as wide as possible.” church school, even if you are amendment in parliament. There will only be a Employment Regulations “These new regulations institutionalise short debate, probably in early June, followed by manifestly the best candidate. discrimination and give legal protection to a yes or no vote. The effective date of the bigotry. It is not right that teachers in church Regulations is expected to be in December 2003. schools, for instance, should have to pass some This set-back has taken place despite kind of religious or morality test before they can Stop Press! campaigning extending over two years. An early teach subjects that have nothing to do with success was the EU Directive being watered religion. Why do you have to be a Christian to Consensus is building among down, albeit not radically, in Brussels through the teach French or maths? And why do you have to efforts of the Executive Director. Since then he has Human Rights lawyers that have religious beliefs before you can be a carer or worked closely with the senior Department of a cleaner in an old people’s home that happens to these exemptions are more Trade and Industry staff charged with drawing up be run by Christians? These new regulations are extensive than is permitted by the regulations under the direction of the legalising religious intolerance in the work place.” politicians. He set out the NSS’s case at a lengthy the Directive. A leading QC is The Government has also given in to demands one-to-one meeting with the minister responsible, planning to raise questions from the Church of England for the right for the Rt Hon Barbara Roche, MP at the Cabinet churches to deny jobs to homosexuals. The Office. Despite this, concessions were made to the about this at a meeting of the regulations specifically state that “organised religious at every stage. The CofE’s response Joint Select Committee on religions” will be able to deny jobs to gay people ended with the phrase: “Given the importance of and sack those they find out about. The the issue we would also want the opportunity for Statutory Instruments. Regulations on sexual orientation even state that discussions at a very senior level of Government.” an exemption applies on the grounds of sexuality It is widely thought that the Prime Minister had a As this Bulletin goes to press, when an employer acts “so as to comply with the hand in the final document. NSS is seeking to bring doctrines of the religion – or so as to avoid The politician most prominent in opposing the conflicting with the strongly held religious together interested groups and religious exemptions to the Employment convictions of a significant number of the Regulations was NSS Hon Associate Dr Evan lawyers to make a challenge to religion’s followers.” The wording of the clause is Harris MP who is also the LibDem spokesperson almost identical to that submitted to the the Regulations through a on Equality. The Independent on Sunday featured Government by the Church of England’s the Society’s opposition to the Regulations in a six Judicial Review. Archbishops’ Council. column wide piece on its leading news page and A Bigots’ Charter the Observer also ran a story on it in which the “This is a licence to hound gays in religious Society was quoted. Opposition to the Regulations organisations from their jobs,” said Mr Porteous has been reported worldwide, especially in the Wood. “Whether or not the churches are planning US. to do that at the moment, they will have the A Step Too Far complete backing of the law, if they do so in the The Society is not alone in its perception that the future. It is a bigots’ charter.” degree of religious privilege granted by the Keith Porteous Wood added: “If the exemptions Regulations was outrageous. The exemptions in themselves can’t be changed, we will have to do the Employment Regulations given by the our best to see whether we can help those fighting Government to religious bodies not only negate discrimination in industrial tribunals or court the spirit of the Regulations, they will also 2 cases. So much is left unclear in these regulations actually make employment less fair than it is now. Thought for the Day BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day Are your subs overdue? embers will remember from The BBC is subject to pressure from the the last Bulletin that the latest Central Religious Advisory Council, Membership whose terms of reference specifically stage in the thirty-year dispute subscriptions are M allow them to lobby. The Council is with the BBC over non-believers’ st exclusion from the Thought for the Day is chaired by an archbishop and its due every 1 membership includes three bishops, a being conducted through lawyers acting January. Unless your rabbi and a leading Muslim cleric. for former President Barbara Smoker. Needless to say, there is no specifically membership has There has been no change of heart from non-religious voice.

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