The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship (LCF) has expressed alarm following a recent report on the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs) which indicated that Christian schools may no longer be allowed to teach children that the Christian view on human sexuality is "objectively true".
The LCF said last week's report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) on the Northern Ireland SORs and proposed England, Wales and Scotland SORs was "highly concerning", as it warned that the "thrust of the secularist agenda cannot be underestimated".
The report will be a key source for the Government and politicians as they finalise the content of the England, Wales and Scotland SORs, and also when they take a ratifying vote on the legislation in April.
Paragraph 44 of the report stated that "the prohibitions on discrimination in the regulations limit the manifestations of religious beliefs" and went on to say that such a limitation on the freedoms of people of faith was "justifiable in a democratic society for the protection of the right of gay people not to be discriminated against".
The LCF warned that the JCHR "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".
According to the LCF, the JCHR's proposals would make it unlawful to allow the right of Christians to live out their faith to override the right of homosexuals to practise their lifestyles.
The report also called on the Government to apply the regulations to the school curriculum, something the Government has stopped short of so far. The JCHR report said that school teaching on sexual morality must be modified 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".
If this proposal from the JCHR gets the go ahead, the LCF said that no Christian schools would 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.
