Well done to the 199 members of the House of Lords who voted against the religious bigots and for equality. I thought that the former Tory Lord Chancellor, made a particularly good point in noting that "it could well mean that if you teach in a school, particularly in an advanced class, that homosexuality is wrong, you would be guilty of breaching these provisions", and that "by virtue of Regulation 16(8), it would appear that such a charity would not be entitled to use this exemption [to the law] while at the same time providing goods, services and facilities on behalf of and under contract with a local authority. Are we therefore going to see the end of state funding for many faith-based charitable organisations?"
The only small point on which he and I differ is that I think these are excellent arguments in favour of the anti-discrimination law, and he appears to disagree.
Spare a thought, though, for Richard Porter, author of the 2005 Lib Dem LGBT manifesto, who defected last month from the Lib Dems to the Tories. I wonder what he makes of the thoughts of his new friends raging in the comments about this 'totalitarian' law?
Probably.
ReplyDeleteI have taken this opportunity to go off on one, over at my place.