Take the words equality, religion, discrimination, legislation and exemption, stir well and stand back. When Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHCR), gave an interview to the Sunday Telegraph this week on all of the above he would have known that the minefield into which he was walking was more mine than field. There was pretty much no way he could have avoided controversial headlines, so the solution he adopted was to point out the motes in everyone's eyes.
On one side he criticised fashionable atheists with their anti-religious polemics, trying to "drive religion underground" and generating a sense that people's faith made them "less worthy of regard". On the other side he censured "Christian activist voices who appear bent on stressing the kind of persecution that … [doesn't] really exist in this country", not to mention African and Caribbean immigrants who liked their religion "strong and pretty undiluted", many of whom preached "an old-time religion incompatible with modern society". Oh, and there was stuff about Muslims in there too, just in case.
The reaction was predictably strong and pretty undiluted. The Daily Mail's headline read "'Intolerant' Christians are more militant than Muslims", whereas the British Humanist Association called for Phillips to apologise for his observation that the EHRC's "business is defending the believer". But the report that lay behind such comments and coverage was about as sober, studied and unsensational as is possible on this topic.
Written by Paul Weller, professor of inter-religious relations at Derby University, Religious Discrimination in Britain is a review of research on religious discrimination between 2000 and 2010. If it boasts any strong or undiluted message it is that we don't know enough about this issue to pronounce on it with confidence. Thus, in black and white, on the third page of the executive summary, Weller reports, "At present there is insufficient quantitative and time series data to indicate conclusively whether 'religious discrimination' in Britain is increasing or decreasing."
If Religious Discrimination in Britain issued any clarion call, it is to social researchers. The report explored the "contested meanings" of religious discrimination, in particular the difference between legal definitions and "the socially articulated experience of it", and also, briefly, the no-less contested definition of religion itself. But its narrow terms of reference meant that it did not tackle the problem that lies stubbornly at the heart of the issue and which is illustrated rather than solved by Phillips's comments.
Phillips's interview was admirably clear on two points. First, the law does not and should not tell religious organisations how to run their internal affairs. "The reach of anti-discriminatory law should stop at the door of the church or mosque." Second, the law does and must instruct religious groups on how to conduct themselves in public. "[If] you're offering a public service and you're a charity … there are rules about how charities behave. You have to play by the rules."
The division appears neat and apparently reasonable but is, in fact, false and unreasonable, based as it is on the unsustainable idea that "religion and belief" has no public consequences or obligations. This separation works, more or less well, with other strands of the EHRC's work, such as race, gender, age or disability. The colour of your skin (as opposed to your cultural values) is not a matter of choice and makes no difference to the manner in which you conduct yourself in everyday life. That is why condemning someone on the basis of their race is discrimination rather than discriminating.
However, an individual's religious beliefs are open to suasion and can, do and, many would argue, must impact the way she conducts herself in public. If, for example, our late-Christian society were suddenly to adopt pre-Christian ethics and legalise infanticide – not as absurd a suggestion as it may appear for those familiar with Peter Singer's arguments – Christian doctors, among others, could not but seek exemption from the legislation on the basis of their religious beliefs. It is not enough to say, as Phillips did, "we can't have a set of rules that apply to one group of people simply because they happen to think it's right". That is precisely what you must have if you place any genuine value on freedom of conscience.
This does not mean, contrary to what some indignant atheists will claim, that religious people are necessarily entitled to "exemptions" on any and every matter they choose. What it does mean is that claiming that "faith identity is part of what makes life richer and more meaningful for the individual", before then asking that same individual to shed that richness and meaning if it does not fully comply with legally embedded current social norms, is both unreasonable and unworkable.
This article first appeared in the Guardian.
Image by boellstiftung
