Tony Blair was accused of caving in to evangelical Christians last night after it emerged that new government legislation will allow faith schools, churches, hospices and other religious employers to sack lesbian and gay staff.
Equal rights campaigners were furious when they discovered that regulations intended to combat discrimin- ation in the workplace contain wide-ranging exemptions for any employer "with an ethos based on religion or belief".
The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement said that the move would institutionalise homophobia in a way that "makes Section 28 look like a tea party". Others claimed that the exemptions exposed the "dangerous" influence church groups have over the Prime Minister.
The 2003 Employment Equality Regulations were originally drafted by ministers with the aim of achieving a historic breakthrough in combating harassment and bias in the workplace on grounds of sexuality or religion.
Drawn up to comply with an EU directive on workers' rights, they were meant for the first time to give protection to Muslims and to gays. An employer found to discriminate when hiring, promoting, demoting or training staff would be in breach of the law.
But The Independent on Sunday has learned that the statutory instruments slipped out to Parliament last week were watered down following direct intervention by Downing Street. A Whitehall source said the decision was made "at the highest level" and that Barbara Roche, the equalities minister, had been overruled.
One key clause inserted into the regulations states that an exemption applies when an employer acts "so as to comply with the doctrines of the religion – or so as to avoid conflicting with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the religion's followers".
The wording of the clause is almost identical to that submitted by the Church of England. The Archbishops' Council's submission, which was leaked to the IoS, states that an exemption should apply "to comply with the doctrines of the religion or avoid offending the religious susceptibilities of a significant number of its followers".
Other major changes to the original draft, allowing discrimination against atheists or others who do not share the religious beliefs of their employer, were made following strong lobbying from evangelical groups. One of the biggest loopholes allows an employer to dismiss or fail to hire an individual if he is "not satisfied" that they fit his own "ethos based on religion or belief".
Critics claim that this would allow firms such as Stagecoach, run by Scottish evangelist Brian Souter, or Vardy, the North-east car dealership owned by millionaire Christian Peter Vardy, to discriminate freely.
Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrats' equality spokesman, condemned the new regulations, pointing out that they would actually weaken current employment rights of gay men and lesbians by institutionalising in law justifications for discrimination.
"When faced with pressure from those who wish to continue to harass and discriminate against people on the basis of lawful private behaviour or their sexuality in circumstances where sexuality is patently irrelevant to their ability to do the job, the Government has simply caved in," he said.
Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said the regulations were a "witch-hunter's dream come true". "Organisations with a 'religious ethos' employ around 200,000 people, most of them in jobs paid for out of the public purse. This includes over 100,000 teaching posts in faith schools," he said. "The Government has given in to religious pressure at every stage of this process."
The Deputy Prime Minister's Office said that religious employers were a special case "as they bring diversity to public life and delivery of services".
"We listened very carefully to responses in the last consultation and on reflection we decided it was right in very limited circumstances that the Government wouldn't interfere in matters of religious doctrine or strongly held religious convictions," said a spokeswoman. Full: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=405181 --- Sent from UnionMail Service [http://mail.union.org.za]