Formed in 1979 to give a voice to the many non-religious in the lesbian and gay community in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, GALHA promotes a rational humanist approach to homosexuality and LGBT rights as human rights. We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Equalities Review, and urge the team to contact us without hesitation if any clarification or expansion on our responses below is needed.
(i) What progress do you think has been made over the past 60 years to reduce inequalities?
Since 1945, the inequalities suffered by both humanists and LGB people have been considerably reduced but not entirely eliminated. The European Convention on Human Rights and the UK’s own Human Rights Act 1998 have established that non-religious convictions and religious beliefs are equal before the law and barred public authorities from discriminating against citizens on the basis of their beliefs. The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 outlawed belief-based discrimination in the workplace and in vocational training. These represent advances in the strand of “religion or belief”. The decriminalisation of homosexuality, the introduction of the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, and the introduction of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 represent advances in the strand of “sexual orientation”. So, there has been some progress.
(ii) What helped in making that progress?
The twentieth-century decline of religion as the arbiter of morality and the increasing freeing of society from the restrictions imposed by religion was undoubtedly of ultimate importance in the liberalising of attitudes towards both humanists and LGB people. Discrimination against the non-religious and men and women without an exclusively heterosexual orientation has always been inspired by religious teaching. The acceptance of gay and lesbian rights as human rights, and the placing of the strand on the equality agenda, has meant that progress has been accelerated.
(iii) What do you think are the most persistent and stubborn inequalities?
There are inequalities that the law cannot eliminate alone – primarily those perpetuated by social attitudes that limit the individual’s life chances by the operation of discrimination or hate. There is no law against the incitement of hatred against people on the grounds of their sexual orientation as there is for race, or that proposed for religion. Religious teachings and groups loom large in the inspiration of such social attitudes through their homophobic rhetoric and actions. When the Government announced its intention to introduce civil partnerships, religious groups fell over themselves to declare that, as far as they were concerned, marriage was between a man and a woman. The Catholic Church continues to proclaim homosexuality a moral disorientation and a sin.
So, the inequalities that exist at meeting of sexual orientation and religion persist still – even in law. Religious groups can claim exemption from the general law against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment. At a community level, the influence of religion can result in terrible oppression and persecution of LGB people, if they happen to have been born into a religious family.
Inequalities also exist as a result of the failure of Government to accept that “religion or belief” constitutes a strand in which the two constituent parts are inseparable. There continues to be a privileging of religion in official policy – for example, in broadcasting by the BBC and in the provision of services such as chaplaincy in prisons or hospitals.
In education law and policy, both humanists and LGB young people face considerable inequality and discrimination. The non-religious (and those from non-Christian religious minorities) are discriminated against by law that requires a daily act of broadly Christian worship in community schools and by the fact that Religious Education is woefully narrow in its scope (which only recently, in the QCA’s non-statutory national framework, included secular philosophies and even then as an optional added extra); they suffer too from the default Christianity that prevails in the school system. The current proliferation of religious schools also works to discriminate against the non-religious – both the parents who are increasingly denied the choice of non-religious schools for, and the children who are denied their entitlement to, a broad-based and diverse curriculum.
Religious schools, of course, also discriminate against LGB young people, by denying the validity of their sexual orientation. LGB young people are also discriminated against in community schools. Although the inexcusable Section 28 has now been repealed, the full consequences of that repeal have not been enjoyed. Too many teachers are still hesitant to explore issues of sexuality with their pupils in a way that would improve the experiences of the many children of every orientation who need reassurance at that age. The general anti-discrimination provisions of the National Curriculum include requirements to respect difference and promote equality in gender and religion, but not in sexual orientation. Sex and Relationships Education, and PSHE do not address issues of sexual orientation.
(i) What are the barriers to improving equality?
First, the social attitudes that are bolstered by the residual religious element in contemporary morality. Second, a government that is unwilling to challenge homophobia and discrimination at the same level as it is willing to challenge racism, for example – especially when this homophobia comes from the religious.
(ii) What interventions have worked in tackling those barriers?
The unequivocal intervention of the law. For example, when homophobes on local councils threatened not to offer civil partnerships, it was only that fact that the law on their obligation to do so was unequivocal that forced them to do so.
(iii) Where are the gaps in intervention?
Where religion restrains the progressive tendency of the law, and where not enough attention is given to the importance of sexual orientation as a strand or to the place of non-religious belief in the strand of “religion or belief”.
(i) What would success look like?
In one year?
Legislation has been introduced on sexual orientation on exactly the same model as exists for the equality strand of race: in employment (through a repeal of the current exemptions for religions), goods, facilities, services, a positive duty on public authorities, and the incitement to hatred.
A framework for dealing with “religion and belief” is established which makes it clear that this concept embraces a full range of philosophies and convictions, and does not privilege religious ones.
In three years?
A full programme of reform in education has been completed which has replaced the requirement for collective worship with one for inclusive assemblies, replaced RE with a broad-based National Curriculum subject of beliefs and values education, and mainstreamed consideration of sexual orientation in the values of the National Curriculum and in PSHE and Sex and Relationships Education.
There is a single law on marriage for both same-sex and heterosexual couples.
In 10 years?
An assumption of equality on the grounds of sexual orientation pervades both the personal belief systems of most individual citizens as well as the national media. There is no disparity of treatment between LGB individuals and couples and heterosexual individuals and couples in law, education, or anywhere else.
In 40 years?
Sexual orientation as a factor has become irrelevant in the public sphere completely. As a descriptive term, it is taken to mean only the sexual preferences of the individual, with no extraneous connotations.
(ii) What should our top three priorities be for this review?
Ensuring that the principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender or any other characteristic sees universal application, no matter what the private religion of the discriminator – including a repeal of those current laws where religion is privileged.
Ensuring that sexual orientation gets equal treatment on exactly the same model as exists for the equality strand of race – in employment, goods, facilities, services, a positive duty on public authorities, and the incitement to hatred.
Ensuring that neither humanists nor LGB people are discriminated against in education by urging a repeal of the law on collective worship, the evolution of RE, the inclusion of LGB issues in Sex and Relationships Education and PSHE, and the inclusion of equality on the grounds of sexual orientation into the values of the National Curriculum.
(iii) What are the priorities for the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights?
Ensuring equality for the non-religious and LGB children in schools through a total examination of the National Curriculum and all DfES policies. Disseminating best practice in these areas, once it is established, to schools.
Challenging negative social attitudes to sexual orientation through programmes of public education.
Monitoring the implementation of the equality enactments as they affect sexual orientation, and pursuing the ideal of parity with the current provisions on race for sexual orientation as a strand.
(iv) What are the priorities for Government? Other sectors?
The speedy introduction of the positive duty for sexual orientation, and the harmonisation of anti-discrimination law on sexual orientation with the levels of protection currently enjoyed by race.
An end to the privileging of religious groups in official consultations and in the social cohesion agenda and the speedy recognition of “religion and belief” as a strand that is not solely or primarily about “faith”.
The provision of service to meet pastoral, moral, or social needs of a religious sort, in public service such as hospitals should always be accompanied by provision for humanists and the non-religious.