No More Hiding Places for Prejudice!
Summary
As the Government prepares to lay regulations before Parliament early in 2007 to enact the provisions in the Equality Act 2006 that will prohibit discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on grounds of sexual orientation, there is a vociferous campaign under way led by religious organisations, and assisted by scaremongering in parts of the media, to push ministers to allow sweeping exemptions from the law on grounds of religious belief. The TUC opposes any exemptions from the law, on the basis that equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people is a fundamental right. If organisations or individuals are allowed to avoid the law by claiming that they are prejudiced against homosexuality on religious grounds, it will undermine the very basis of the legislation. The truth is that the exemption campaign relies on ignorance and prejudice. This briefing offers instead true stories of LGB people and their lives. Ministers must hold firm to their commitment to legislate for equality.
An opportunity to end inequality
Equality Act 2006
Early in 2007, the Government will introduce regulations to make discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on grounds of sexual orientation illegal.
The regulations will be made under powers established by the Equality Act 2006. This followed a large-scale campaign by LGB organisations and trade unions to make sure that the continued inequality faced by lesbian, gay and bisexual people in accessing services was brought to an end.
During 2006, the Government announced its plans for the regulations and held a three-month public consultation, finishing in June. There was a very large response, and as a consequence of the number of submissions made, the laying before Parliament of the proposed regulation has been put back from its original planned implementation date of October 2006, and it is now understood that it will happen in January 2007, with a view to the regulations coming into force in April 2007.
Once the regulations are in force, for the first time in the UK, people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual will have the same protection of the law against discrimination when they try to access goods and services as is available to anyone else (except for transgender people - an omission that the Government has undertaken to remedy in the promised 2007 Single Equality Act).
During the campaign to press ministers to act, numerous shocking examples of crude prejudice by service providers ranging from hoteliers to health service practitioners were brought to public attention. In the face of such evidence, there could be no doubt that this legal protection was needed, and the Government recognised this and acted accordingly. The next step is to ensure that the regulations achieve the objective of full equality, without allowing any ways out for those who would continue to discriminate because of their prejudice against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals.
NIO shows the way
In November 2006, the Northern Ireland Office introduced the equivalent regulations after a short consultation to come into effect in Northern Ireland as from 1 January 2007. It is not known at this time how closely the Great Britain version will mirror the NI regulations but it is reasonable to assume that, taking into consideration the important differences between the two places, the thrust of the two regulations will be broadly the same.
Voices for prejudice
Ever since the announcement of the proposed regulations, there have been powerful voices raised in opposition. Since the publication of the Northern Ireland regulations, the pressure has been stepped up, including a challenge to them in the Courts by Judicial Review [1] . A campaign of letter writing, lobbying, sermons and full-page advertisements in newspapers has been underway in the UK, designed to pressure the Government off its chosen path.
The arguments being used in this campaign are a crude mixture of scaremongering (including some misrepresentation of what the regulations actually say) and bigotry (aimed at undermining what they do really say). Their objective hinges on the call for anyone with religious objections to homosexuality to be exempted from the law, so that they can continue legally to discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation, where for other citizens such discrimination is illegal.
Voices for Equality
The TUC believes that Ministers must stand firm in defence of equality, and must resist these calls for widespread exemptions. It is the view of the trade union movement that no one should be denied any public service because of their sexuality, or for any other irrelevant reason. There are two reasons for concern if any exemptions are permitted on these grounds in the regulations.
First, that some businesses will seek to use the excuse of religious exemptions to continue to discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation.
Second, that many religious organisations do, in fact, provide public services (perhaps most obviously education through faith schools), or facilities for public use, and that any exemptions to the regulations on religious grounds will lead directly to people facing continued discrimination in accessing services that other people are free to use. The point is that these services are public, and in many cases they are also publicly funded. The effect of any such exemption would be significant in that
- A common approach to the rights of people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual across society would be undermined, and as a result, genuine equality would remain unachieved. Logically, there cannot be genuine equality if some people are allowed not to practice it; and
- Lesbian, gay or bisexual citizens would continue to face humiliation or harassment if they tried to access services available to any other member of the public, with all the personal and psychological consequences arising from being treated in such a way.
Scare stories - and the truth
The advocates for religious exemptions rely on fear, prejudice and ignorance in their campaign. Their whole approach is based on the view that lesbians, gay men and bisexual people, their relationships and families, and their lives, should not be treated as of equal value. Starting from this viewpoint, they claim the right to continue to discriminate.
The real life truth is actually the opposite of what they argue.
Same-sex families, and children
There is a perception that children can only be brought up properly in a household with two opposite-sex parents, and in consequence that any other arrangement must be inferior. There is also a perception that LGB people don't have children. The TUC knows from the real life stories of trade union members and working people across the country that this picture is false. When it comes to raising children, the reality is, that what is most important is that they have a secure and loving environment to grow up in. The courts in Europe and in the UK have long recognised this reality, as has the British Government with its legislation on adoption.
- Vivianna has lived with her (female) partner in Bradford for the last eight years. They have two children, one at university and one preparing to go. They all enjoy a very happy home life together, with supportive families and many friends. More than 130 people from a variety of backgrounds and different communities attended their celebration of their relationship in 2003, and then when civil partnerships were introduced in 2005, they were among the first to take advantage of the opportunity to secure legal recognition of their relationship.
- Mary, who has recently retired after a life working as a teacher and being active in her trade union, celebrated civil partnership with her (female) partner of 26 years. Her son was her witness at the ceremony, which was held in the presence of her daughter-in-law, her grandchildren and many others.
- Mike and Robin have been together for thirty years, and celebrated their civil partnership in 2006, with many family members in attendance. They are god-parents to three of their nephews and nieces and routinely provide childcare for their friends' children as well as attending their school concerts (etc).
Children and schools
The truth is that every survey shows that there is widespread harassment of children who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, or just as likely, are thought to be, in playgrounds and school rooms up and down the country. The word 'gay' itself continues in teenage use as a term of abuse, meaning something bad, poor, useless. The misery suffered by children facing this harassment has been well documented over several years, and the Government has undertaken changes to its education policies to tackle this head-on following an OFSTED report identifying weaknesses in the teaching that should serve to counter such views. Everyone, apart from the opponents of LGB equality, recognises that this is a widespread and serious problem.
Underlying such harassment is the association of 'gay' with inferior. How can people achieve acceptance as equals in society if the teaching is, as some faith schools want to be able to say, that they are, by their very nature, inferior? Instead, schools need to convey to their pupils, in all parts of their education, the recognition of different sexualities as an equal part of the diversity of human life. The Northern Ireland version of the regulations spells out that no school can discriminate on grounds of sexuality between those they admit, and that every school must act to prevent harassment on grounds of sexual orientation.
Yet the campaigners for exemption want faith schools to be allowed to avoid the commitment to present a true picture of lesbian, gay and bisexual people and their lives, and to continue to preach that they are second-class people. The Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham argued to the Parliamentary Education Select Committee (11 December 2006) against schools having to introduce specific policies to tackle homophobic bullying.
- The TUC argues - and is supported by the real-life experiences of education workers and of students growing up lesbian, gay or bisexual - that this continuing and enormous problem of homophobic bullying can only be defeated if it is consistently, and specifically, challenged. Nothing less will work.
Adopted and fostered children
Why shouldn't children be brought up in same sex adoptive households? Everyone (and the law) agrees that the most important consideration is, what is in the best interest of the child? There is currently debate on what constitutes the best environment for raising children. The Scottish Assembly has just voted by a large majority to make adoption as available to same sex as it is to opposite sex couples. The real life examples known to the TUC give no credence to the notion that adoptions in same-sex families are necessarily an inferior environment in which to raise children. But they do confirm that the attitudes of religious adoption agencies can be skewed by dogmatic prejudgements.
- Martin has lived with his (male) partner Chris for fifteen years. They have been successfully adopting a disabled child, and are interested in fostering other children.
- When Martin rang a Roman Catholic adoption agency, and claimed that he was a single man, and an atheist, but heterosexual, and asked the Agency if these characteristics would be an obstacle to proceeding with an adoption, he was told that this would be no problem. When his partner Chris rang the same Agency a little later, and presented himself as a committed Roman Catholic, but gay, he was immediately told he was unsuitable.
- Martin and Chris's story tells us that the reality is that agencies are practising discrimination right now (currently legal), and that the grounds of their discrimination are purely ideological, but strangely limited to the sole ground of sexual orientation.
- Grace and Nettie are a same-sex couple who for the last eight years been fostering hard-to-place children. Their success has been such that they have been selected by the National Fostering Network to be among the 'faces for fostercare', as part of a campaign to persuade more same sex couples to come forward as potential foster carers.
- But those calling for exemptions from the regulations for religious organisations want this to include adoption agencies, to allow them to continue to practice discrimination based on nothing other than prejudice against same sex families.
Accommodation
Many examples of the discrimination faced by same sex couples trying to book accommodation in hotels, guest houses and other forms of accommodation were exposed during the campaign to secure inclusion of the outlawing of sexual orientation discrimination in goods and services provision in the Equality Act 2006. Why should owners of hotels and guest houses be prevented from denying their services to people because of their gender, race, or disability, but be allowed to do so because of their sexual orientation? The law will cover the letting out of accommodation as a commercial transaction. In other words, a business designed to make a profit, not a religious vocation.
Those calling for exemptions are promoting stories of the problem the law would cause to sincere believers if required to let double rooms to same sex couples. But the regulations as consulted on, and as published in Northern Ireland, have exempted small residences lived in by the owner who wants to let space to one other household. So what are they worried about?
Religion and Equality
Does religious belief require discrimination?
One might think, reading the words of supporters of religious exemptions for the goods and services regulations, that having almost any religious belief requires one to deny equality to lesbian, gay and bisexual people. The truth, once again, is otherwise. The big disputes that have been taking place within the Anglican Church show that many believers in that body have a different view.
The General Secretary of the Modern Church Union, Jonathan Clatworthy, told the TUC:
'The campaign by some Christians to exempt religious organisations does not represent majority Christian views in the UK, but it does discredit Christianity by presenting it as committed to inferior moral standards. Church leaders who claim that most Christians oppose homosexuality are only hearing the echoes of their own voices ...'
Similarly, the organisation Inclusive Church's chair, Giles Goddard, stated:
'We believe that the churches should be sent to be willing to engage with the world around them. The continued campaign for exemption from the Goods and Services Regulations is not only ill-conceived but a distraction from the concern the churches should be expressing for the well-being of all people.'
Young religious believers also reject the approach of the opponents of equality. The Student Christian Movement's coordinator, Liam Purcell, told the TUC:
'The Student Christian Movement does not support the 'Coherent and Cohesive Voices' campaign for religious organisations to be exempt from new regulations outlawing discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. We support the Inclusive Church campaign for gay people to play a full role in the life of the Church...'.
Even in the Catholic Church, where the Vatican bans placing adoptees with same sex couples, some Catholic adoption agencies in Britain and in the USA have taken a more pragmatic approach by referring cases to another agency to complete the process, where the adopters are (and are known to be) lesbian or gay. Clearly, their experience did not suggest that they found that such adoptions were harmful to the interests of the children involved. If they were, why would they continue to make them? [2] .
Do the Goods and Services regulations prevent believers from maintaining their religious views?
Opponents claim the regulations are a challenge to religious freedom. It is right and proper that every citizen has the right to their religious belief (or absence of religious belief), and the right to live their own life according to what they understand to be the precepts of their religion. At the same time, it is necessary that every citizen be required to comply with the law of the land, even if that law conflicts with their perception of what they believe their religion requires. The advocates of sweeping exemptions for religious organisations from having to comply with this law want to be able to discriminate in the services they provide, because they start with the prejudice that lesbians, gay men and bisexuals should not be treated the same as everyone else. The proposed regulations will not prevent anyone from continuing to hold that prejudice, to live their own life according to their beliefs, nor will anyone be prevented from stating that view, either. But what the law must prevent is anyone being able to claim that their religious views give them licence to treat a whole section of the community with less favour than they would anyone else.
Conclusion
In bringing forward regulations to outlaw discrimination in the provision of goods and services on grounds of sexual orientation (and, in due course, gender identity) the Government will be putting in place one of the final pieces in the legal jigsaw, by which people who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual (and, later this year, transgender) will benefit from the same protection as any other citizen against unfair discrimination. The TUC has long campaigned for such a development. Lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans people have always paid the same taxes abided by the same laws, and made as great a contribution to our society as anyone else: but until now, have not been treated as equals. Now is the time to bring that disgraceful situation to an overdue end.
Any and every service provided to the public must be provided without discrimination.
The TUC urges the Government to hold firm to this principle.
[1] This case has been set down for a full hearing in March 2007.
[2] In the USA, it is estimated that between 200,00 and 400,000 children are being raised by same sex couples and that they fare just as well emotionally and socially: article by Terry Philpot in The Tablet, 19 August 2006.
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