Secularism and Religious Rights

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has once again been intervening in public debate. The case in point concerned the dismissal of Gary MacFarlane who was dismissed from a job for the marriage guidance counsellors Relate due to his refusal to engage with gay couples. MacFarlane's appeal against this dismissal consisted in the claim that dismissal on these grounds violated his rights since, as a committed Christian, he could not endorse people living "in sin".


The tribunal that judged MacFarlane's case argued fiercely against the claim that there was a religious right here that had been violated but was even clearer in making a specific attack on Lord Carey. Carey had called for the case to be tried by a special panel of judges who had "proven sensitivity and understanding of religious issues". This call, when coupled with Carey's support for viewing the case as one of religious rights led Carey to claim that the case was one of competing rights where the right of gay couples to equal treatment is one that needs to be balanced against the rights of religious believers.


Carey's arguments betray deep confusions concerning the nature of rights, confusions that partly grow out of the unfinished secularisation of the British state and partly reflect the pandering to notions of religious rights that have been reflected in the behaviour of the Labour government since 1997. The historic basis is the fact that Carey is a member of a state church that retains a specific place in the British constitution enabling its bishops to act as legislators in a manner not granted to other religious believers, its schools to receive unprecedented state aid and state ceremonies to be held in its buildings. This historic basis to a view that Anglican Christians have special rights has been buttressed by the promotion of "faith schools" on the part of the Labour Party.


Given this background it is less surprising than it would otherwise be that Lord Carey should have the view that he does. It is still the case however that his view is deeply and grievously wrong. The judge who presided in the tribunal Lord Justice Laws made many correct statements in striking down the appeal in the case. Laws states that the precepts of no religion or belief system have any special place in law as, if they did, those who did not have such convictions would be less than citizens under the law. In following up on this claim Laws stated that there is a distinction between the law's protection of the right to hold and express a belief on the one hand and protection of that belief's substance and content on the other. This distinction is the core of the argument. It is due to the fact that Lord Carey assumes that religious rights involve protection of the substance and content of belief that he believes there is a conflict of rights, a view that he has been given support in due to the government's promotion of faith schools. Should there be protection of the substance and content of belief then one of two impossible situations will result. Either the protection would support one religion or belief system or it would support all. If the former is the case then, as Laws rightly stated, the step towards theocracy would be very large. Should the latter however, be the case, then the contradictory nature of distinct belief systems would create an insoluble problem.


Further, Carey's specific request for tribunals based on tests of sensitivity to religious beliefs is intrinsically unjust. Such tests of belief would have to favour one view of such beliefs hence would be sectarian in nature and guided by an evaluation that had nothing to do with the possession of rights. Carey argues that the result of this case is to move Britain in the direction of a "secular" rather than a "neutral" state but gives no definition of the latter. By a "neutral" state one can only mean a state that is not guided by the promotion of a given belief system and is impartial with regard to all. This is precisely what a consistent secularism involves. Secularism does not mean state embrace of irreligion but instead lack of preference to any religion. Given that Britain has historically given preference to Carey's religion then it is true that the drift of law now is towards a notion of the state that is no longer sectarian as it historically was. This is also why it is plausible to speak of the head of state of Britain being something other than an Anglican. The logical thing is systematic and clear separation of church and state, the same as occurred in the founding of the United States. The head of the National Secular Society correctly stated that the judgment enforces the view that anti-discrimination laws apply to people not to holders of beliefs. There is no "conflict of rights" as there is no right to the substance and content of a belief being given any special status and Carey's arguments against betray a reactionary desire to maintain a special status for a state church whose time of dominance in Britain is due to end and whose special legal rights are not only an anachronism but an offence.

The Archbishop, Religion and the Public Sphere

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the official head of the world-wide Anglican Communion, has provided some thoughts in an interview given yesterday to the Daily Telegraph. The interview provides some gems, not least the one concerning "faith initiatives" tending to treat followers of Christianity and other religions as "oddballs" who, for some incomprehensible reason, are viewed generally as being "a problem". During the course of the interview itself, however, the Archbishop is reported as stating some things that might well lead one to view both himself and the Communion he heads as being, indeed, problematic.

Questioned concerning the recent initiative in Uganda to pass a bill that would have led to death penalties being enforced for homosexuals in some instances the Archbishop, who has been very vocal about the decisions of the American Episcopal Church to promote homosexual people to the level of bishop, was noticeably more reticent about this bill that threatens to end a number of homosexual lives. Mentioning that the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, has "not taken a position on the bill", Archbishop Williams does not follow up this observation with the kind of rounded condemnation of Orombi that he was not afraid to make of Gene Robinson. Could it be that Archbishop Williams is less bothered by the passage of this bill than by the promotion of equal rights for gay people?

Not only is Archbishop Williams, in this bizarre failure to make the key issue one of homosexuals being viciously attacked by the Ugandan government, out of step with general opinion in the UK, but he is also apparently surprised by the nature of the Roman Catholic Church. When questioned about the recent attempt of the Pope to run off with members of the Anglican Communion who are unable to accept such heresies as gay and women bishops, Archbishop Williams mentions surprise about the way he was wasn't consulted and laments that: "The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the whole doesn't go in for much consultation".

As is made clear by the Vatican itself, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is what, in less polite times, was known as the Inquisition so, no, it would follow that such a body isn't really a consultative one, more, shall we say, directorial in its view of the world. In its constitution (article 51, sub-section 1) it makes quite clear that it sees its competence to include examination of "books and writings" in order (article 51, sub-section 2) to "reprove" those thought to contravene Church doctrine. It is, in other words, as it always was, the censorial arm of the Church, the one that spreads universal love by means of as harsh repressive apparatus as it is able to build in any given country.

The existence of such bodies as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and of such duplicitous people as the Archbishop of Canterbury are doubtless the reason why governments (and not just in the UK) have a tendency in the contemporary world to relate to certain manifestations of "faith" as indicative of an "oddball" mentality. Not only is this so but the formation of states that are in their general outlook, if not always in their constitutions, secular in character, is indicative of an acceptance that there are problems with viewing government and public policy as open to being shaped by the orientations of those of "faith".

It is often pointed out that there are contrary tendencies in most religions and that religious leaders are capable of mobilising the resources of their traditions in any number of ways. This is certainly true and it is beyond doubt that the Reverend Martin Luther King and such contemporary luminaries as Bishop Desmond Tutu, derive authority when opposing oppression (which Bishop Tutu extended, unlike Archbishop Williams, to opposing oppression of homosexuals) from their status as people of faith. On this basis it is then argued that there are good reasons to fear "privatization of faith". However, in response it has to be said that the general basis of intervention of religious leaders in politics has not been and is not likely to become, encouraging. The notion that there should need to be an appeal to doctrines that are said to rest upon historical revelations in order to condemn oppression is one that hardly merits examination and, noticeably, those religious leaders who do engage in such condemnation necessarily have to offer secular rationales for doing so, rationales that include accounts of the common good.

All debates that involve reasoned accounts of policy in the public sphere should be welcomed but there is no specifically privileged role that religious leaders have in such discussion and certainly no grounds for listening to them when they claim that oppressive laws are required because mandated by some obscure reference of ancient provenance in their sacred texts. Public discussion of policy in a contemporary society should not be grounded on texts that were produced in societies of quite a different sort to ours and whose moralities often do not bear critical examination.