Times letter
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article7036547.ece

Times report
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7037062.ece

Iain McLean to the Bishop of Winchester
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/iain-mclean/open-letter-to-bishop-of-winchester

Stuart White: what about my freedom of religion?
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/02/what-about-my-freedom-of-religion.html

As you say, Sunder, the Unitarian movement supports this legislative change. Indeed, a number of our chapels are refusing to conduct weddings until it is brought in.

I don’t see why the Government wouldn’t support it – unless it wants to send a message that liberal religion isn’t “real” religion.

No one who doesn’t want to recognise same-sex marriages (let’s call them what they are :)) would be forced to do so.

I really can not think of a single argument against this. What possible justification could there be for not passing this amendment?

What utter hypocrisy!

So you support the rights of faith groups, but only when they are calling for something you want?

I hope we’ll hear no criticism in the future of others who support e.g. their own faith groups splitting off so that they can avoid having gay clergy.

Since you have abandoned secularism to wade in on this point, you have not got a leg to stand on to criticise others who want their own agenda met by the church.

“Support the right of religious groups to condemn homosexuality!”

Why not, Sunder?

“Support the right of religious groups to teach creationism!”

“Support the right of religious groups to withdraw children from inappropriate sex education!”

Why should your call be heeded above others?

Presumably Morrigan isn’t in favour of throwing bombs on religious grounds… but is in favour of allowing religious groups to teach that other people are pigs/goats/dogs…

Well now that Sunder has abandoned secularism to bring his political agenda to the church, what right does any of us have to criticise others who do the same?

What is the qualitative difference between believing that others are ‘pigs/goats/dogs’ and believing that gays should marry in church, except that you like one article of faith and not the other?

If secularists want religion out of politics, they should keep their politics out of religion.

@10: Perhaps you should keep your religion out of other people’s religion?

And of course, nobody has actually attempted to prevent religions which want to from opposing abortion, or homosexuality, or whatever. Whilst I profoundly disagree with faith groups who hold these views, it remains perfectly legal for them to hold and preach them. They just can’t use them as a justification for actually breaking the law. And if they want to receive state funding for their activities (e.g. in education), they need to adhere to the recognised standards. You can teach whatever bollocks you like in Sunday School, but if you’re running a state-funded Primary School, there are standards you must adhere to. If you don’t like those standards, don’t ask for state funding and accept that you’re not going to get accredited.

Absolutely nobody is taking about requiring churches to recognise civil partnerships against their will.

Absolutely nobody is taking about requiring churches to recognise civil partnerships against their will.

So why the need for this post then?

Do you have some sort of reading comprehension problem? Read the very first paragraph again. Here, I’ll even highlight the important bits to help you:

The House of Lords is to consider an amendment to the Equality Bill on March 2nd next week, which would make it legal for civil partnerships to be registered on the premises of those religious associations who wish to do so.

Morrigan.

One reason this modest reform ought to command a broad consensus is that the claims of religious liberty and of ‘secular’ equality are congruent. Sometimes these are at odds with each other, so that some negotiation between them is necessary, as with the introduction of civil partnerships. While I support the principle of civil partnerships, I do not think registering them should be mandated on faith groups which do not support them. That is clearly one of the premises of this argument. It can be taken as a recognition of religious liberty. Stuart White sets that out well in his post.
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/02/what-about-my-freedom-of-religion.html

Your charge of hypocrisy presumably depends on the premise that I would usually hold a strong secularist position, such as the response to a society of many faiths and none should be (i) there should be no public recognition of religion whatsoever in a liberal democracy; or (ii) religious reasoning should be ‘kept at home’ and is not legitimate in the civic square or public discourse.

As it happens, I don’t in fact hold either position. (i) is certainly a legitimate position (which I suspect many/most contributors to LC do hold), but it isn’t the only way to address the issue of sharing a multi-faith and secular society, and isn’t my own preferred approach. And my own view is that the stronger claim still in (ii) is incoherent, in settling as a condition of discussion and negotiation one of the issues which is at stake in a civic, political negotiation of the content of our common citizenship.

I have written a couple of journal articles on this in the past, and have a forthcoming book chapter on this at some point. But I am not sure any are freely available online. The first page of a ppr journal piece for IPPR can be read here
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118676982/abstract

There are some further links in this post.
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/01/should-we-do-god-attlee-compromise.html

It may be that some very strong secularists would want to prevent religious associations having any role in civil partnerships, though I suspect that would be an unusual position.

It is possible to oppose the freedom of conscience claims sincerely put by those from a number of faith perspectives in this case. But it surely can not be done on upholding freedom of belief grounds. Rather it would have to impose on those groups a particular set of beliefs that they do not share, presumably on the grounds that it represented a fundamental moral truth which should trump their freedom of conscience. Claims for religious autonomy (or indeed for religious authority over the whole society) can be made in terms of fundamental truth, but at present in Britain they are mostly put in terms of respect for freedom of belief.

God damn, Morrigan. If you can’t see that there’s a difference between enabling/supporting/funding bigotry and this, then there really is no hope for you.

Secularism is entirely about supporting the rights of religion, just not letting religion infringe on rights itself. There is absolutely nothing anti-secular about this move; indeed, it’s the exact opposite. This is in sharp contrast to, say, letting state-funded organisations from enforcing their faith (and by extension, the bigotries and inequalities of that particular faith) with the assistance of public money and state support.

Quite so, Sunder. I would only add that – always assuming that Morrigan is being serious rather than childishly tiresome – his/her position would seem to lead to the State refusing to recognise any religious marriage – I believe this is the case in France, where a civil ceremony is also required. As so often, British practice is not the most logical.

And of course if the State is funding an activity – such as schooling – then it can, must & will behave like any other paying piper. It is for this reason that Unitarians don’t run schools (there’s one with a Unitarian ethos but no formal links to the movement). We don’t want to put ourselves in the position that,say, the Catholics now find themselves in.

If the Tories do indeed go through with their education proposals, it will be interesting to see if the concept of national standards set & policed by government survives. I have no idea how much public support it commands nowadays.

Its important that the government support this amendment. But what about the Conservatives?

The article in The Times on this topic this week claimed that the Conservatives were ‘likely’ to back the amendment.

But in a letter to one of his constituents a couple of weeks ago, David Cameron indicated – without giving any reasons – that he opposes the amendment. See: http://www.nextleft.org/2010/02/no-need-to-give-reasons-letter-from.html

So who knows what the Conservatives will do.

If there are liberal Tory readers of LC who support this amendment, then you need to make your views clear to your party leaders. And asap!

The links are sorted – apologies for that

Mike – many thanks for your interesting comments about the Unitarian position.

I had forgotten Stuart’s earlier post, which suggests that the Opposition’s position is also unclear at this stage.

Thanks for all comments.

Happily, the Lords passed the amendment, by 95-21 on a free vote.
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/03/lords-vote-to-lift-ban-on-civil.html

Though the main speakers from both frontbenches are reported to have spoken against it. I don’t know more, so am not clear if there was any objection to the principle; it may have been about not wanting new measures while trying to finalise the Bill before the election.

Since the Commons would very easily agree this, on a free vote with rather limited opposition, I would hope keeping it in would now be not just the right thing to do but also more straightforward than the idea of trying to get the Lords to now drop the measure. It was always more likely that this measure could face more difficulty in the Lords (given the opposition of some Bishops in the earlier debates, which has been challenged by their colleagues more recently; and the traditionalist right arguments of Tebbit/Waddington on equality issues generally usually have somewhat more support in the Lords than the Commons)