Friday, March 16, 2007

The British War on Religion

Is this the end of private religious schools in the British Isles ?
It will be according to the Lords-Commons Joint Report on Human Rights which interprets how the new Sexual Orientation Regulations (aka The Equality Act) will be implemented.
The right of religious institutions to teach that their beliefs about homosexuality are "true" has just been jettisoned by order of the state.
Directly from the report we have the all important sections 63, 65, 66, and 67...bold texting by yours truly...

63. There appears to be considerable uncertainty of views as to whether the Northern Ireland Regulations apply to the curriculum taught in schools.
In a written answer to Lord Lester, Lord Rooker said that “the regulations are not concerned with what is taught in schools.

That is rightly a matter for the Department of Education.”55 Lord Rooker repeated
this in the debate on the Northern Ireland Regulations in the House of Lords:56 he said that the Northern Ireland Regulations are not concerned with what is taught in schools but in ensuring fair and equal access to education and the facilities and services associated with it.

He said it is not the Government’s intention to attack religious ethos, teaching or practice,and that the Regulations contain an exception intended to “protect the doctrinal nature of religious observance.”

64. Others, however, regard the curriculum as being covered by the Regulations. The Fair Employment and Treatment Order 1998, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion in the provision of goods and services, provides broad exemptions for schools which would cover the curriculum.

The NI Sexual Orientation Regulations, however,contain no specific exemption for the curriculum. In the absence of such an exemption,
they argue, the breadth of the general duty not to discriminate is such that the curriculum would be covered by the prohibition.

Faith schools in particular are concerned that if the Regulations apply to the curriculum, they will not be free to decide what is taught and how it is taught in line with the faith basis of the school.

66. We are concerned, however, by the Government’s position in relation to the Northern Ireland Regulations that the prohibition on sexual orientation discrimination does not apply to the curriculum, that is, the substance of what is taught in schools.

The Government appears to believe that if a faith school were not free to teach its doctrinal beliefs about sexual orientation as part of its curriculum, this would amount to an attack on the “ethos” of the school.

It appears to regard Article 9 ECHR as requiring the curriculum
to be exempted from the prohibitions contained in the regulations.

67. We do not consider that the right to freedom of conscience and religion requires the school curriculum to be exempted from the scope of the sexual orientation regulations.

In our view the Regulations prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination should
clearly apply to the curriculum, so that homosexual pupils are not subjected to
teaching, as part of the religious education or other curriculum, that their sexual
orientation is sinful or morally wrong. Applying the Regulations to the curriculum
would not prevent pupils from being taught as part of their religious education the fact that certain religions view homosexuality as sinful. In our view there is an important difference between this factual information being imparted in a descriptive way as part of a wide-ranging syllabus about different religions, and a curriculum which teaches a particular religion’s doctrinal beliefs as if they were objectively true.


The latter is likely to lead to unjustifiable discrimination against homosexual pupils. We recommend that the Regulations for Great Britain make clear that the prohibition on discrimination applies to the curriculum and thereby avoid the considerable uncertainty to which the Northern Ireland Regulations have given rise on this question.

We further recommend that the Government clarifies its understanding of the Northern Ireland Regulations
on this matter.
The full text of the Sexual Orientations oops, sorry Equality Act.

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