Europe is generally regarded as the most secularised continent
in the world.
But in few EU member states is there a complete separation
between church and state.
The old interweaving of religious and worldly
authority still makes itself felt in many countries today.
In
England, the head of state is also titular governor of the church and
bishops are members of the House of Lords.
Finland and Denmark still
have an official state religion, and in Greece up until recently, the
Orthodox church was in charge of the public civil status register.
Everywhere, churches maintain a firm grasp on education, the care and
medical sectors, and the media.
Churches have formal and informal
positions of exception by law, which are sometimes used to refuse public
services such as abortion or same-sex marriage, or to evade secular
authority in cases of child abuse.
Europeans may take a sceptical
view of political leaders who are too quick to express religious faith
in public (while in the US an atheist president is virtually
inconceivable), yet churches have a greater influence on politics than
many people realise.
The Vatican has a special position due to the
highly centralised organisation and its status as a state.
Worryingly,
religion is also increasingly making its presence felt in the corridors
of the European Union – even though the EU was designed as a strictly
secular project.
The treaty of Lisbon includes article 17 on the
dialogue of the EU institutions with churches and non-confessional
organisations.
This forms the basis for an annual summit of religious leaders with the leaders of the EU institutions. Secular organisations are largely ignored.
José
Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, and Herman Van
Rompuy, the European Council president, have special high-level cabinet
officials whose job it is to maintain relations with churches.
The EU
has official diplomatic relations with the Vatican.
The Conference of
Catholic Bishops is one of the most powerful lobby groups in Brussels.
Other
religions also have representatives in Brussels, but they are less
influential than the Roman Catholic church.
Their collective influence
is not to be underestimated, however.
In addition, religions have
influence from the pulpit, if necessary by threatening excommunication
if politicians adopt standpoints that are at odds with official
doctrine.
We are witnessing the emergence of the European
equivalent to the "religious right" in the US. Areas affected by this
rise include women's rights, gay rights and sexual and reproductive
health rights as well as healthcare (such as contraception, abortion,
condoms and IVF).
Freedom of expression is also affected, generally in
the form of laws against blasphemy.
Freedom of religion is often
conceived as a collective right of religion to exempt itself from the
law, particularly the EU fundamental rights.
Religious lobbies are, for example, highly active against the broad European anti-discrimination directive
that is in the works.
Under intense pressure from religious lobbies,
the European commission was initially reluctant to table a directive by
which discrimination against gay people could be combated.
Invoking
religious freedom, the lobbies are negotiating exceptions to the ban on
discrimination, including discrimination against gay people, or for the
right of confessional schools to discriminate.
In this way,
discriminatory practices are effectively being written in stone, while
the principle of equality is one of the explicit pillars of European
unification.
The European commission scarcely dares to take action
when member states invoke religious freedom to disregard EU-fundamental
rights.
For example, in the case of Lithuania, when a law was passed that bans the "promotion of homosexuality", effectively rendering gay people invisible.
The controversial Hungarian media law
also includes a paragraph of this type, which states that the media
must show respect for marriage and the institution of family, whereby
the government aims to constitutionally enshrine the definition of
marriage as being between a man and woman.
The new Hungarian media
supervisor has already qualified public expressions of homosexuality as
in conflict with these standards, and therefore potentially punishable
under the new law.
Discrimination of this type is clearly in conflict
with the ban on discrimination in the EU treaties.
In the asylum
and immigration legislation, religious lobbies are advocating for a
conservative definition of "family" for purposes of "family
reunification", or against the recognition of homosexuality as grounds
for seeking asylum.
The fight against HIV/Aids and the reduction
of maternal mortality also form targets for the religious lobbies, which
are attempting to impose their own sexual morals such as a ban on
condoms.
This is abuse of freedom of religion, which was intended
to protect the individual against oppression and coercion on the part of
the regime.
Religious organisations do not determine where the
boundaries of fundamental rights should be set.
The EU fundamental
rights are currently in the process of finding increasing expression in
legislation.
It is unacceptable for this legislation to be biased
according to a strict religious morality.
It is high time for the
secular nature of the European project to be re-emphasised.
Europe
doesn't do God.
Perhaps it is time to replace "freedom of
religion" by freedom of beliefs or conscience, an individual right that
can be claimed by 500 million Europeans in all of their diversity.