Harriet Harman has backed away from a confrontation with religious leaders over who they can employ, making clear that she will not force contentious amendments to the Equality Bill through Parliament.
Ministers were astonished on Monday when the Pope said that the Bill violated “natural justice” and urged bishops to fight it. But that attack, along with the strength of opposition in the Lords and the limited time left to get Bills passed before the election, has sapped the Government’s enthusiasm to continue the fight.
Ms Harman, the Equalities Minister, has been engaged in a long dispute with churches and religious organisations over their exemption from anti-discrimination employment law, and how it affects “non-religious” posts.
[i]“We have never insisted on nondiscrimination legislation applying to religious jobs, such as being a vicar, a bishop, an imam or a rabbi,†she said.[/i]
The real problem with this is twofold. On the one hand it gets the state into the business of defining what is a religious job. The assumption that accountants and youth workers have a common “secular” vocation ignores the fact that church youth workers are involved in instilling moral values based on the religious principles espoused by their church. What, moreover, are the implications for groups that hold an extreme view of the priesthood of all believers?
In the second place, in the secular world, a pattern of adultery or promiscuity would not be considered grounds for refusal to employ. But if an organization calls those who serve it directly to high standards of moral behavior, then it is not compatible with that to require them to hire someone with that reputation. An accountant might be fiscally responsible but if he or she has a record of serial monogamy, a church might surely be forgiven for wishing to look elsewhere.