Gay humanists are questioning the charitable status of the Christian Institute – the main opponents in Britain of gay law reform – following a refusal by the homophobic Christian pressure group to reveal where it gets its funding.
GALHA is complaining to the Charity Commission about the lobbying activities of the Christian Institute, after it waged several high-pressure parliamentary campaigns against the repeal of Section 28 and the lowering of the gay age of consent.
Terry Sanderson, a spokesperson for GALHA said: “The charity laws are complicated, and we know that the Christian Institute has very good legal advisors telling it how far it can go with its campaigning and lobbying before it breaches the law. However, we are outraged that because it calls itself a religious body it is automatically entitled to charitable status, giving it huge financial relief on donations and other tax perks. Lobby groups on the other side of the argument do not automatically get charitable status and are therefore at an immediate disadvantage.”
The challenge follows hot on the heels of a survey conducted by Xalt.co.uk, a Christian website which discovered that the largest grossing and most political Christian groups refused to say where they got their funding. Xalt surveyed 20 of the biggest Christian campaigning and lobby groups asking whether they would be prepared to make public the names of donors who had given over £5,000. 18 of the 20 – including the Christian Institute – said they would not do so.
When questioned about this by the Church of England Newspaper, Colin Hart, the Christian Institute’s director, said: “We would not reveal the donors over one penny. We would get into serious trouble with the Charity Commissioners if we were telling people who had given anonymous or private donations”. He insisted that the Institute was “not a lobbying group – or we would not be a charity. We are a charity that engages in lobbying. Charities are allowed to do certain political activities. If that’s all they did they would not be allowed to have charitable status. We also give talks and produce publications because we want to promote the Christian faith. Jesus was very clear when he said ‘do not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing’.”
Terry Sanderson commented: “We feel that the Christian Institute’s lobbying activities far outweigh any other activity it engages in, and we want the Charity Commissioners to look into that. It is disingenuous of Mr Hart to say it is a Christian group that engages in lobbying rather than a lobbying group that happens to be Christian.”