On Wednesday 28 February the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) reported their findings on the Northern Ireland SORs and the proposed England, Wales and Scotland SORs (see link below for their full report). The highly concerning content of the Committee's report is all the more significant because it will be used by the Government and politicians when finalising the content of (and voting on) the England, Wales and Scotland SORs in the next few weeks.
WE URGE EVERY CHRISTIAN TO READ AND FORWARD THIS INFORMATION TO OTHERS SO THAT THE FULL POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS OF THE SEXUAL ORIENTATION REGULATIONS CAN BE UNDERSTOOD (further details on action that can be taken are given below). The importance of what this report reveals and the thrust of the secularist agenda cannot be underestimated. We need to understand this and communicate our concerns as widely as possible. We need to pray for a miracle that the Sexual Orientation Regulations would not become law.
The JCHR report says the following:
1. "In our view, the prohibitions on discrimination in the Regulations limit the manifestations of religious beliefs and limitation is justifiable in a democratic society for the protection of the right of gay people not to be discriminated against" (paragraph 44).
The Committee could not be clearer in saying that they believe the freedom to live a practising homosexual lifestyle trumps the freedom to live a religious lifestyle.
The JCHR not only say that this is the position taken by the SORs, and that it is right that the SORs do so, but also that in their view, it would be unlawful to reverse the position and to allow the right of Christians to manifest their faith to override the right of homosexuals to practise their lifestyle.
2. "Where the manifestation of a belief conflicts with the right of gay people not to be discriminated against in their access to services as important as adoption services, it is in our view necessary and justifiable to limit the right to manifest the belief" (paragraph 52).
3. "In our view the Regulations should clearly apply to the curriculum, so that homosexual pupils are not subjected to teaching, as part of their religious education or other curriculum, that their sexual orientation is sinful or morally wrong", and "We welcome the Government's acceptance that [the Regulations] should apply to all schools [...] without any exemption for particular types of school such as faith schools" (paragraphs 65 and 67).
The Committee are explicit in their view that no Christian schools should have the right to promote marriage over homosexual relationships or hold to a Christian ethos that sex is only right in a heterosexual monogamous marriage. Rather, the JCHR want the Government to go further than their current proposals (the Government have argued the SORs do not apply to the curriculum) so that it would be illegal for a school to suggest in their teaching that extra-marital sexual relationships are morally wrong.
4. "In our view there is an important difference between this factual information [about sexual morality] 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" (paragraph 67).
