Anti-Discrimination Law At Risk As Religious Pressure Builds

KENILWORTH, 2 JANUARY 2007 — Religious groups have launched an “onslaught of dishonesty” against new laws aimed at protecting gay people from discrimination. George Broadhead, secretary of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) said: “These evangelical groups are becoming hysterical and desperate as they pile on the pressure to destroy the new sexual orientation regulations.”

George Broadhead added: “The religious lobby is now resorting to the use of dishonest and misleading tactics to try to panic politicians into scrapping the regulations. Following their full-page advertisement in The Times – which made claims about the effects of the regulations that were simply a pack of lies (and this has been confirmed by recent parliamentary questions tabled by humanist peer Lord Lester of Herne Hill) – they are now petitioning the Queen asking her to put pressure on Tony Blair to withdraw the regulations, which have been introduced in Northern Ireland but have been postponed in Britain until April by minister Ruth Kelly.”

Mr Broadhead said that the Government must stand firm against this onslaught of dishonesty. “These regulations have already been seriously compromised by the granting of extensive religious exemptions. The religious groups will not be satisfied until they have destroyed them altogether. The gay community really must get its act together or these important new measures will be steamrollered by religious bigotry.”