In a submission to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has reportedly described how Christians in the UK have been ‘driven underground’ and are ‘excluded from many sectors of employment simply due to their beliefs’.
The submission has been made in support of four cases of supposed Christian discrimination that have all been previously lost when heard in English tribunals and courts. A previous intervention by Lord Carey into one of the cases received an extremely robust response from Lord Justice Laws in April 2010, with Lord Laws saying:
‘The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary. We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens; and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic.’
Commenting on Lord Carey’s submission to the ECHR, British Humanist Association (BHA) Head of Public Affairs Pavan Dhaliwal said: ‘It is regrettable that Lord Carey has again made an intervention in such provocative terms despite these cases having been publicly refuted and found to be without merit. Lord Carey’s comments play into the hands of socially-conservative Christian lobby groups by encouraging skewed and misleading coverage of religion and belief in society today.
‘This narrative of systemic Christian persecution in the UK is a harmful fiction that serves to pollute dialogue between people of different faiths and none, and has no basis in reality. The Church that Lord Carey used to lead remains the state church, with reserved seats in our legislature, and along with other religious organisations shares wide exemptions from equality legislation, and control over a third of state schools; these are not symptoms of persecution. ‘
Ms Dhaliwal continued, ‘It is notable that prominent religious figures, including Archbishop Vincent-Nichols, the leader of Catholic Church in England and Wales, have rejected this notion of Christian persecution, and we trust the ECHR will do likewise, and echo the earlier rulings of English courts when the cases are heard later this year.’
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For further comment or information contact Pavan Dhaliwal, Head of Public Affairs at pavan@humanists.uk or on 0773 843 5059.
Read the Daily Telegraph article on Lord Carey’s submission
The British Humanist Association is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people who seek to live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity. It promotes a secular state and equal treatment in law and policy of everyone, regardless of religion or belief.