Clause 10
Equality Bill
11:45 am
Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
The amendments cover different issues. They seek to probe the extent to which the Government agree with the case law that has emerged. Amendment 215 would clarify that
“The meaning of religion or belief does not include whether, or the degree to which, a person has one or more of another protected characteristic.”
There are two other amendments on the amendment paper, which were not tabled in time to be selected. They put it in better terms, and are in relation to the protected characteristic of religion or belief, so that a reference to a person’s religion or belief would not include reference to that person’s other protected characteristics.
The point about the amendment is to question whether the Government agree that it is not acceptable for people to seek to use the opportunity, which exists rightly, to discriminate on the grounds of religion in certain matters such as employment where certain conditions are met, on the basis that a criterion is set for religion, which is not met in the definition of religion, because someone is gay, or, less directly—although I think it goes to the heart of what one’s sexual orientation is—because someone is having sexual relations outside marriage. For example, someone may be having sex with someone of the same gender and, by definition, that will always be sex outside marriage.
We have had assertions from people representing religious organisations that they should be entitled to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, although they point out that it is not on the basis of the fact that a person is attracted to someone of the same gender, but on the basis that they act on that attraction and are engaged in otherwise lawful sexual relationships with someone of the same gender.
In case law, we have had a number of judges who were very clear.