Quote from: TonyLBNow maybe there's just a misunderstanding of what the law will cover.  Or maybe the law is vaguely worded enough that it could, indeed, apply to vicars in the pursuance of their religious duties.  Personally, that's the kind of thing that I'd want to have nailed down beyond any possible doubt, wouldn't you?  Especially since ...

It is a a misunderstanding of the act.  Actually, it's a blatent and irresponsible lie, but you get to expect this kind of thing.  It's got the stage where if a fundamentalist evangelical tells me a fact, I automatically assume that it's untrue unless I know otherwise.  You can find the text of the act and the parliamentary answers designed to clarify it for the hard of reading/thinking on the Net

Quote from: TonyLB£25,000 is a fair chunk of change ... especially if the vicar now has no job because the church has decided to stop being a place of employment

The CofE never has been a place of employment - at least not for vicars, but that's another matter entirely (and a sore point with many vicars and the trades union that represents them)

Quote from: JimBobOz; and a roleplaying game forum is not the place talk about - for example - religion and the law. If the church lets me talk about Jesus' body, or the in-laws let me make sex jokes, or the rpg forum lets me talk about religion and the law, that's simply a courtesy on their part, a courtesy they're in no way obliged to give, and which they can fairly withdraw at any time.
I don't believe in absolute freedom of speech, nor of religion. But if you believe in one, you must believe in the other.

Thanks to everyone who has posted on this thread and contributed to this debate.Thanks also for keeping it relevant and not letting it descend into a complete verbal fistfight. I find the question of liberty to do what people want has to be set against the responsibility of getting on in society with each other. How this is done is a very tricky thing indeed and your answers to this question are very interesting. I hope to read some more food for thought.

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonIt is a a misunderstanding of the act.  Actually, it's a blatent and irresponsible lie, but you get to expect this kind of thing.  It's got the stage where if a fundamentalist evangelical tells me a fact, I automatically assume that it's untrue unless I know otherwise.  You can find the text of the act and the parliamentary answers designed to clarify it for the hard of reading/thinking on the Net

Wow!  Thanks for the link (I'm clearly not as net-savvy as I should be ... I just barely managed to figure out by references to the march being on Westminster and the previous legislation enacting in Northern Ireland that this was a British regulation we were discussing).

As to the outrage of church groups, given what I know now:  WTF?  I am hard pressed to imagine how they possibly get from this very specifically employment-only regulation to talking about who can share a hotel room, who can adopt a child, who a vicar is compelled to bless.  I mean ... WTF?

I'm way more inclined to concur with bigotry, given how specific the act is.  I mean ... it even has a cut-out clearly made for the churches (paragraph (7)(3)(a-b), which exempts any employment relevant to religion from the protection of the act).

Yes, there are areas where there is a fuzzy line between belief and discrimination, but this act isn't touching anything anywhere near that line.

WTF?  And they sounded so reasonable

Uh ... Hastur?  I think you got the wrong act.

You've pointed to the "Employment Equality Act."

There's also a (separate) "Equality Act" which deals with the disposition of goods and services (i.e. all the stuff being discussed in the article).  I'm having the devil's own time tracking down the British version of the act (here's the closest I've gotten) but the version enacted in Northern Ireland is more readily available.

It discusses exactly the type of things being discussed in the article.  It has nothing to do with employment.\

EDIT:  Now let me be clear:  I personally think that the church cut-outs enacted in the Northern Ireland version to protect religious practice are good enough to do the job.  But I certainly do not think that they are so iron-clad that it is unreasonable for groups that are more personally concerned about the issue to want to have their voices heard.  Like I was saying earlier (before I got misinformed) I don't agree with the beliefs these people have, but I think that they're doing a good job of advocating those beliefs within the context of respect for the system.

Quote from: AnthrobotMuslim and Jews join gay-laws protest
BY STEVE DOUGHTY Last updated at 22:00pm on 3rd January 2007
 
 Prominent Muslims and Jews united with Christians yesterday to voice concern at laws boosting gay rights.

Campaigners claim the rules will force religious groups to promote homosexual rights in contradiction to their teachings and could persecute those who disapprove of homosexuality on irrational grounds.

Its an irony that Xtian, Jewish and Muslim hardliners are united to a common purpose.
I would have thought that, what with the Iraq debacle and Palestinian hassles still going off, these people would have been at each others throats.
The common purpose is of course the irrational hatred of a group of people who have done nothing to hurt either Xtians, Jews or Muslims, or anyone else for that matter.
I find these hardliners an anachronism that should be dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty first century.

Churches should not be forced to let out their halls to or bless homosexual unions.

However, catholic adoption agencies should have to follow the laws - and if the laws state homosexual couples may adopt, then they should be religiously blind.  Would they refuse to adopt out to a muslim or hindi couple?  If these agencies recieve some government funding, then they should not be able to discriminate.

People should be free to hold their own personal views, but anything that remotely touches upon government money or sponsership needs to be discrimination free, religious beliefs be damned.

Shows a tremendous amount of callousness that catholics would rather shut down adoption agencies, and thus impact the lives of the children in their care, than adopt to a homosexual couple.

Quote from: AnthrobotIts an irony that Xtian, Jewish and Muslim hardliners are united to a common purpose.
I would have thought that, what with the Iraq debacle and Palestinian hassles still going off, these people would have been at each others throats.
The common purpose is of course the irrational hatred of a group of people who have done nothing to hurt either Xtians, Jews or Muslims, or anyone else for that matter.
I find these hardliners an anachronism that should be dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty first century.

Anthro... You fail to understand that the Palestinian situation is not a religious one but a territorial one.  In many ways, so is Iraq.  Iraq was a largely secular nation, while predominantly Islamic, prior to the invasion and the hardline religious nuts have only gained power in the wake of the invasion.

These are not holy wars by any means.

Quote from: AnthrobotIts an irony that Xtian, Jewish and Muslim hardliners are united to a common purpose.

They're not.

The three have members - not even representatives - who are all saying about the same thing, and there's one Dr Katme who's urging his fellow Moslems to "join our Christian friends in their campaign against the new proposed law on sexual orientation." Note that Dr Katme is not even an imam, not a religious figure, but head of "the Islamic Medical Association." So it seems unlikely that the 40 imams he wrote to will pay any attention to what he said.

But you are not actually seeing Moslems, Christians and Jews rallying together, waving placards and chanting, "burn the gays!" or whatever. Nor are you seeing their representatives getting together to plan such a thing.

"A few people having the same opinion about X," is not the same thing as "all the people united to a common purpose." The distinction is important, because when people are "united to a common purpose," there's a fair chance of that common purpose being achieved; when people are just mouthing off, there's not a shit's show in hell of anything being achieved. Right now, we're in the "mouthing off" stage.

Don't get carried away. Read the article, what it actually says. No-one is actually going to do anything, nor will the three faiths be united in a common purpose.

Quote from: HackmastergeneralChurches should not be forced to let out their halls to or bless homosexual unions.

However, catholic adoption agencies should have to follow the laws - and if the laws state homosexual couples may adopt, then they should be religiously blind.  Would they refuse to adopt out to a muslim or hindi couple?  If these agencies recieve some government funding, then they should not be able to discriminate.

People should be free to hold their own personal views, but anything that remotely touches upon government money or sponsership needs to be discrimination free, religious beliefs be damned.

Shows a tremendous amount of callousness that catholics would rather shut down adoption agencies, and thus impact the lives of the children in their care, than adopt to a homosexual couple.

By the same token, groups that religions discriminate against should not be forced to pay more taxes to cover their tax exempt status. As is, churches get to claim tax exempt status, prteach against the rights of gays, women, etc, and those same groups have to take up the slack for the taxes they get to not pay.

Quote from: SpikeAnthro... You fail to understand that the Palestinian situation is not a religious one but a territorial one.  In many ways, so is Iraq.  Iraq was a largely secular nation, while predominantly Islamic, prior to the invasion and the hardline religious nuts have only gained power in the wake of the invasion.

These are not holy wars by any means.

No mate, you are in error there. I do recognise that the Palestinian situation is a territorial one. It is just that people tend to mix the two together sometimes.I agree with you about Iraq too.These may not be holy wars to most folk, but to Al Qaeda any battle is a jihad.
The secular philosophy has its problems, like any other philosophy, but it is looking more and more like the sanest way to run a country.

Quote from: JimBobOzThey're not.

But you are not actually seeing Moslems, Christians and Jews rallying together, waving placards and chanting, "burn the gays!" or whatever. Nor are you seeing their representatives getting together to plan such a thing.

"A few people having the same opinion about X," is not the same thing as "all the people united to a common purpose." The distinction is important, because when people are "united to a common purpose," there's a fair chance of that common purpose being achieved; when people are just mouthing off, there's not a shit's show in hell of anything being achieved. Right now, we're in the "mouthing off" stage.

Don't get carried away. Read the article, what it actually says. No-one is actually going to do anything, nor will the three faiths be united in a common purpose.

I never said "all the people united to a common purpose", please read my post again. As far as I can see protesting against gay rights has made these folk act in like manner, in unison if you will. Mouthing off they may be
, but they're all mouthing much the same irrational bilge against a minority pretty much blameless of any crimes against these hardliners.I disagree that they won't actually do anything. Religious hardliners have become more militant recently, if you follow the news you can see this trend becoming stronger. Though I hope that I'm wrong about this particular trend. The only people who are getting carried away are the Muslims/Jews and Xtians who imagine that this legislation will impinge on their worship.And you Jimknob who has an axe to grind because you misperceive me as being somehow more intelligent than you and thus try to hallucinate stuff,in an attempt to score points in some private game:
6
.Hallucinate entirely different points. For example, if someone says apples grow on trees, accuse him of saying snakes have arms and then point out how stupid that is.

Quote from: TonyLBUh ... Hastur?  I think you got the wrong act.

You've pointed to the "Employment Equality Act."

Ooopsie.  Here you go.  Similar exemptions

Apparently most of the 200-odd protesters outside Parliament were from the same church (Peniel), one that even fundamentalist evangelicals think goes a bit too far, so I think that Anthrobot's concerns are ill-founded.

I was having a chat with my vicar last night and he told be that the Church of England Newspaper had an article about the act, written by a friend of his, a barrister who specialises in human rights legislation.  I can't link to it as it's a paysite, but apparently it came to the same conclusion as me - it's nothing to worry about unless you make a habit of being deliberately offensive while denying people access to goods and services

As an insider, I'm noticing a different trend.   After the "Jerry Springer" debacle mainstream Christians in this country began to realise that they were being manipulated by a lunatic fringe and this time they've been a little more savvy

Hastur:  Yeah, there are similar exemptions.  But I'm not as inclined to say "Those jerks!" now that I know that the act they're talking about actually is about the examples they were citing (rather than some completely unrelated topic like employment).  I spot them their right to disagree with me (and virtually everyone else) on whether the exemptions will be strong enough.  Y'know what I mean?

Quote from: TonyLBI spot them their right to disagree with me (and virtually everyone else) on whether the exemptions will be strong enough.  Y'know what I mean?

I do and the part of me that doesn't regard these people as Christianity's Lawncrappers has sympathy.  It can be scary to live in a world that's changed so much and so fast