LONDON, January 23, 2007 – A leading Labour Member of the European Parliament has today called the threat by the Roman Catholic Church in England to close down its adoption agencies if they are not exempt from the sexual orientation provisions of the Equalities Act as “moral blackmail”.Yesterday, it was revealed that the Primate of England and Wales and Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, had written to every member of the Cabinet threatening to close the Catholic Church’s seven adoption agencies if the Sexual Orientation Regulations did not have an exemption for the Church.
“No one is about the law,” insisted Michael Cashman, MEP for the West Midlands and president of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on gay and lesbian rights.
“Nowhere in the Bible does it state that lesbian and gay men should be discriminated against, Mr. Cashman said.
“Such assertions are examples of a cosy construction invented by the institutions of religion.
This Labour government has had the courage to create a fair and equal society and to modernise Great Britain, making it a place where everyone can feel at home, at ease with themselves and at ease within society.
“Religion and belief are deeply private and personal issues and they must remain so,” he continued. “We must defend the right of religious belief and difference but we must not impose a chosen religious belief upon others, especially if such imposition diminishes civil liberties.
“I do not believe that Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor represents the views of decent, ordinary Catholics across this country.
“His recent comments come as a timely reminder to me, as an ex-catholic, of why I left the Church of Rome.
“I urge the government and all my colleagues to stand firm in the face of what can only be called ‘moral blackmail’,” he concluded.
This morning, the BBC reported from the ‘lobby’ of the House of Commons that Prime Minister Tony Blair had not yet made up his mind as to whether there should be a ‘faith-based’
exemption in the Sexual Orientation Regulations, which would make it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation, in the provision of goods and services.
Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Minister, introduced the equivalent of the Sexual Orientation Regulations in Northern Ireland on January 1, the date they were scheduled to be introduced in Great Britain.
But Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, a member of the Opus Dei group in the Catholic Church, put the brakes on, saying that there needed to be more consultation.
The Regulations are said to be coming into effect in England, Scotland and Wales in April.
The current furore is over possible ‘watering down’ to exclude faith groups from some of the provisions, a move that the Education and Skills Secretary Alan Johnson rejected for faith-based schools.