Surely equality for all is the Christian way?

February 7, 2010

There was an old saying that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

It now seems that one person’s equality is another person’s discrimination.

A new Equality Bill is before Parliament, which will give equal rights, in employment as elsewhere, to all groups in society, including women and gay people.

Who could possibly oppose that? Step forward the Catholic Church.

The church is complaining it could be forced to go against its faith when hiring staff.

The church can still ensure none of its priests or ministers are women or gay. There is an exemption in present law which allows the church to turn down candidates for jobs as ministers or priests if they are actively homosexual or have changed their gender, or if they are women. This discretion actually goes wider than that and allows the church to discriminate in a similar fashion for senior staff posts.

At present the new legislation will only give exemptions to priests and ministers, which has the church in high dudgeon.

Some might wonder if the Catholic Church had more pressing problems to worry about and of course it would be difficult to miss the irony that historically few organisations have had a higher ratio of gay men in their service.

Perhaps the church, in demanding no gays and no women, would like to be more specific on how it thinks society in general should regard such groups. As a spiritual, social and political leader, does the Catholic Church believe that equality should be denied to these groups across society? Or should the rest of us be allowed to treat all people equally, with only the church having the right to discriminate? I guess it will be the latter, in a classic case of ‘Do as I say, not as I do’, which is hardly an inspirational path to take.

In picking this fight, and from the top, with the Pope leading the charge, the church runs the risk of not only looking somewhat outdated but also increasingly irrelevant.

I would have thought there were plenty of causes to fight for before becoming the champion of social discrimination.

It is also of dubious morality to offer their belief and faith to all, but their jobs only to straight men. I can well understand that the Catholic Church is unlikely to take my advice but were I them I would back off and quietly let the matter drop.

To finish on another old saying, if you are in a hole, stop digging.

■ WITH the General Election looming ever closer it is understandable if some of the county’s MPs might be getting a little nervous.

One thing they do not need to worry about, with the exception of Luton South, is the expenses scandal.

Margaret Moran did let constituents down badly but the other five MPs have all behaved pretty decently in that respect.

Luton North MP Kelvin Hopkins has been a paragon, which is what some might expect from an old Labour man. The other Labour MP Patrick Hall, of Bedford, has also been told by the Communications Commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy, that he took ‘commendable steps to keep the claim as low as possible’.

And the three Conservative MPs, Alistair Burt, Andrew Selous and Nadine Dorries have all come out of the expenses scandal with their integrities largely intact.

That is not to say all has been perfect but small errors are commonplace on expenses claims and this scandal has been much more about large-scale abuses, of which our MPs are innocent.

So, while not so good for local newspaper tittle-tattle, the electorate will be able to concentrate on policies and performance, which has to be good for democracy.