Papa Don't Preach

Pope Benedict XVI has opined on the undesirability of the Equality Bill currently before Parliament.

His Holiness is quoted as saying "…..the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs.”

The Equality Bill is not perfect, and the Lords Spiritual (one of the annoying anachronisms left after the botched House of Lords reform) are doing their best to put a spanner in its works. However there is a question of principle here.

We can have an equal society, and then seek to only derogate from this in extreme circumstances. Or, we can have an unequal society which enshrines the rights of certain special interests to have their views treated as superior to others. This would mean that Catholics would be allowed to restrict access to either adoption or the priesthood on grounds of sexual preference, as they have sought to do previously.

It is also however the start of a slope that leads to the assassination of doctors performing legal abortions, and the right to freedom of speech that is fundamentally racist in nature. I don’t think that the evidence of recent years suggests that the Catholic Church is a perfect moral compass by which we should all sail.

If some discrimination is allowed, as opposed to none, then we move to the thorny issue of who decides on what can or can’t be done. This will mean that permitted discrimination is based on human subjectivities and, worse, the efficiency of lobbying for various interest groups

In a better society, which discriminated on nothing beyond ability for the task, the Equality Bill would be unnecessary. I feel a little saddened that it is necessary to prevent by law behaviour which should be anathema to right-thinking individuals, but the case for a tightening of the law can be made out by countless examples of discriminatory behaviour.

I know that whilst this law will make discrimination harder from a legal position, it will still remain rooted in the minds of many people. In this the law is merely curing the symptom, not the disease, but then we have to start somewhere.

More next time on the Pontiff, his visit to Britain, and why it seems likely to cost the taxpayer £20 million. £20 million! You could fund NHS homeopathy for five years on that!