The government’s new ‘prevent duty guidance’ – imposing political correctness on university groups

The Government’s Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, currently being considered by the House of Lords, places a duty on specified authorities, including universities, to ‘have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’.

Who could possibly object to that, you might ask.

But in a Britain where rising state intrusion and the steady march of political correctness make frightening bedfellows eternal vigilance is required to preserve basic freedoms.  And there is real cause for concern here.

Official guidance out for consultation – which closes today - sets out the Government’s view that the promotion of ‘non-violent extremist views’ is a major way individuals are drawn into terrorism.

But it defines extremism as ‘vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’.

The problem is that these very same terms have already been used in various contexts to restrict and stifle orthodox Christian beliefs and behaviours such as opposition to abortion, protection of marriage as a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman, prayer, wearing of religious symbols and the preaching of the Gospel . The fact is that some people regard such Christian beliefs and behaviours as offensive and intolerant.

The guidance says universities should have policies in place for dealing with external speakers, such as ‘advance notice of the content of the event, including an outline of the topics to be discussed and sight of any presentations, footage to be broadcast etc’.

It adds that Universities should also have at least 14 days’ notice of the event ‘to allow for checks to be made and cancellation to take place if necessary’.

CMF has responded to the consultation today to express its concerns.

Whilst we affirm the importance of free speech on campus, and recognise the potential risk of misuse of higher education institutions as platforms for drawing people into terrorism, we are also concerned that the guidance as currently drafted would have a chilling effect on free speech and freedom of association, wholly disproportionate to its impact on the prevention of terrorism.

Of particular concern are the draft recommendations on ‘Speakers and Events’ (paragraphs 64-71). The draft rightly notes (paragraph 65) the duty of the university to ensure freedom of speech. However we see the provisions expected in paragraph 66 as being incompatible with ensuring freedom of speech.

Fourteen days’ notice for booking a speaker for an event is impractical for a student society such as a Christian Union that may well have an external speaker visiting every week, and where last minute changes are sometimes necessary. A small group of Christian medical students might well arrange for a local doctor to join them for a meeting on campus to discuss an ethical issue at short notice. Such events would appear to be banned by this guidance. What about a long planned event where a speaker is unwell the day before, and a replacement is brought in?

Submission of content for such an event would restrict the nature of events on campus. If a debate or discussion is held, it may be very difficult to know the exact content of such an event in advance. Is such debate to be stifled?

 Institutions of higher education will not want to see their students cloistered as a result of an overprotective bureaucracy, which places unreasonable demands on many perfectly legitimate outside speakers who will be effectively censored. This guidance will perhaps unintentionally lead to an increasingly narrow spectrum of views being represented and debated on campus. Without exposure to a broad range of views and healthy debate, how can students choose their worldview in the marketplace of ideas, fight extremism and prepare for life beyond study?

‘A system for assessing and rating risks’ for such events is likely to be bureaucratic in the extreme, and expose small student societies to large amounts of paperwork, simply to be able to have any external speaker at their event.

We would urge that the specifics of these draft regulations be reconsidered.  

UCCF's response here
CI coverage here 

Ten People Punished for Believing in Traditional Marriage

Freedom to disagree and the right to private conscience are fundamental liberties in any truly open society. Yet, the Government has utterly failed to consider the impact on civil liberty of its plans to redefine marriage (See their proposals here).

I have already given ten ways in which these new proposals will undermine civil liberties.

The Coalition for Marriage has just released a new leaflet outlining ten case histories of people who have already been punished in various ways for standing for traditional marriage.

In it they argue that redefining marriage is sold as a permissive measure, but it will quickly become coercive. In fact, they say, it already has. Too many people have already been punished for expressing their sincere beliefs about marriage. If marriage is redefined, it will get much worse. The ten examples they quote are as follows. In each case I have added links to the relevant news coverage.

1. Adrian Smith (pictured) was demoted and had his salary cut by 40 per cent, all because he said gay weddings in churches would be ‘an equality too far’. He wrote those four words outside work time on his personal Facebook page which was not visible to the general public.

2. Peter and Hazelmary Bull were ordered to pay £3,600 in damages because their B&B had a policy of only allowing married couples to share a double bed.

3. David Burrowes MP received a death threat after he said redefining marriage is unnecessary because civil partnerships already give same-sex couples legal equality with married couples.

4. Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, received hate mail – some of a racist nature – after he spoke out against the Government’s plans to redefine marriage. North Yorkshire Police investigated the correspondence as hate crimes.

5. Rhys & Esther Curnow are young newly-weds who delivered a 500,000-strong petition against redefining marriage to Number 10 Downing Street. They were targeted online with threatening and hate-filled messages, sparking a police investigation.

6. World Congress of Families had a conference about redefining marriage banned by the Law Society and the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre because just discussing the subject would be a breach of ‘diversity policies’.

7. Arthur McGeorge is a bus driver who faced disciplinary action by his bosses just because he shared a petition backing traditional marriage at work during his break time.

8. Dr Bill Beales, a respected headmaster, faced calls for his suspension after he said in a school assembly that people were being ‘placed on trial’ for holding traditional beliefs about marriage.

9. Lillian Ladele, a registrar at Islington Council, was pushed out of her job because she asked her managers to accommodate her belief that marriage is the union of one man to one woman.

10. Dr Angela McCaskill is a deaf diversity officer at a university in America. She was suspended because she signed a petition saying voters should decide whether marriage should be redefined.

Ten ways redefining marriage would damage civil liberty

Freedom to disagree and the right to private conscience are fundamental liberties in any truly open society. Yet, the Government has utterly failed to consider the impact on civil liberty of its plans to redefine marriage (See their proposals here).

The Coalition for Marriage has just released a new leaflet outlining ten ways redefining marriage would damage civil liberty.

If the meaning of marriage changes in law, they argue, based on expert legal opinion that:

1.Teachers in state schools will be forced to endorse the new definition of marriage. Those that refuse could be disciplined or even dismissed. Such action would be legal.

2.Parents will ultimately have no legal right to withdraw their children from lessons which endorse the new definition of marriage across the curriculum.

3.NHS/University/Armed forces chaplains could be lawfully fired by their employers if they express, even outside work time, the belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.

4.Foster carers could be legally rejected by local authorities on the basis that they fail to embrace the new definition of marriage.

5.Public sector workers could be demoted or dismissed for expressing support for marriage between one man and one woman.

6.Registrars who have a conscientious objection to the new definition of marriage will be dismissed unless they are prepared to act against their beliefs.

7.Churches/mosques/synagogues could ultimately be forced to perform same-sex weddings if a Government ban on such weddings in religious premises is overturned by the European courts.

8.The Church of England may have to disestablish or face the prospect of court action because, as the established church, it must provide a wedding to any person who is legally eligible to get married.

9.Faith-based charities could be banned from hiring public facilities if they refuse to endorse the new definition of marriage.

10.Clergy who disagree with same-sex marriage, but who are in a denomination which has no such objection, could be taken to court if the Government allows religious same sex weddings.

The scenarios above are based upon a legal opinion written by Aidan O’Neill QC, a leading human rights lawyer. A summary of the legal opinion is available from the C4M website

See also (on this blog site) - Same-sex marriage - 24 articles on all aspects of the UK debate

I'm happy to publish links to longer responses to this post on this page on request:

Responses

1. Dan Abrahmsen

How British society marginalises Christian health professionals

Earlier this year Christians in Parliament, an official All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), chaired by Gary Streeter MP, launched an inquiry called ‘Clearing the Ground’, which was tasked with considering the question: ‘Are Christians marginalised in the UK?’

The inquiry was facilitated by the Evangelical Alliance and the report was published in February 2012. (You can read the executive summary here)

The inquiry’s main conclusion was that ‘Christians in the UK face problems in living out their faith and these problems have been mostly caused and exacerbated by social, cultural and legal changes over the past decade.’

I gave both written and oral evidence to the inquiry and part of my oral evidence is quoted in the report. Unfortunately my written evidence was not acknowledged or included, I suspect due to an administrative error but it is available on the CMF website.

I have pasted below the answers I gave to two key questions in the report.

What key issues face Christians in public life today?

With the rise of the secular humanism and, in particular, the new atheism, there is in British society generally a loss of historically held belief in the existence of a transcendent communicating God incarnate in Jesus Christ, in biblical authority and in biblical ethics, which is combined with an active agenda to impose an alternative secular world view through our laws, institutions and media. This is leading to an erosion of laws that were based on a biblical worldview and to some loss of Christian freedoms.

For Christian doctors the major impact has been felt in the areas of sharing Christian faith (evangelism), expressing beliefs about Christian doctrine or ethics or manifesting Christian behaviour especially in the areas of prayer and/or sexual and life ethics.

Conflicts arise when Christians are:

1. Prevented from sharing, expressing or manifesting their beliefs
2. Required to perform tasks or conform in ways which go against their beliefs
3. Excluded from consultation or decision-making or advisory roles because of their beliefs.
4. Prevented from meeting on public or institutional premises for worship/prayer/teaching/events.

These are the key issues in public life not because they are more important than other areas of Christian faith and practice but because they are the specific areas where recent laws, or regulations/guidelines based on those laws, have impacted.

The main laws implicated are:

1. Employment Equality regulations on religion and belief and sexual orientation (2003)
2. Equality Acts 2006 and 2010
3. Section 5 of the Public Order Act (less applicable to Christian doctors)
4. The Abortion Act 1967 and Mental Capacity Act 2005 also have some influence through interpretation by official bodies about the scope and application of their provision for conscientious objection.

Guidelines based on these laws by the Department of Health, NHS trusts and professional bodies like the GMC and BMA also have an impact on how legal policy is interpreted and implemented. Examples of such guidelines include:

1. Religion or belief: a practical guide for the NHS (Department of Health, January 2009)
2. Sexual orientation: a practical guide for the NHS (Department of Health, February 2009)
3. Personal beliefs and medical practice - guidance for doctors (GMC, March 2008)
4. The law and ethics of abortion (BMA, November 2007)
5. Treatment and care towards the end of life: good practice in decision making (GMC, July 2010)

Which specific aspects of law, or its interpretation, do you consider unfair?

1. The Employment Equality regulations on religion and belief and sexual orientation (2003) and the Equality Acts 2006 and 2010
A. The requirement for Christian organisations with a Christian ethos to employ people who either do not hold to Christian faith
B. The definition of harassment is too broad and too open for misinterpretation or perverse action: ‘unwanted conduct which takes place with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person and of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading or humiliating environment.’

2. The Department of Health practical guides on ‘religion and belief’ and ‘sexual orientation’ over-interpret the law with respect to evangelism and expression of Christian belief about sexuality and have created an environment where normal Christian behaviour is inappropriately open to censure or discipline. These documents were not made open to full consultation or review when implemented but are being used by NHS employers. Both these documents should be reviewed and opened to consultation.Examples of problematic clauses are given below.

3. The implementation of the Abortion Act 1967 and Mental Capacity Act 2005 conscientious objection clauses needs to be kept under regular review to ensure that Christians are not being unlawfully discriminated against.

Examples of problematic clauses in Department of Health documents which can be used to discriminate against Christians:

Members of some religions... are expected to preach and to try to convert other people. In a workplace environment this can cause many problems, as non-religious people and those from other religions or beliefs could feel harassed and intimidated by this behaviour… To avoid misunderstandings and complaints on this issue, it should be made clear to everyone from the first day of training and/or employment, and regularly restated, that such behaviour, notwithstanding religious beliefs, could be construed as harassment under the disciplinary and grievance procedures.(Department of Health, Religion and Belief)

Any NHS employer faced with an employee who by virtue of religion or belief refuses to work with or treat a lesbian, gay or bisexual person, or who makes homophobic comments or preaches against being lesbian, gay or bisexual, should refer to its anti-discrimination and bullying and harassment policies and procedures, which should already be in place… If the conduct has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity, or creating an intimidating environment, and it is reasonable for the complainant to take offence, then it is harassment. (People) should not be subjected to discrimination or harassment on any grounds whatsoever. It should be made clear that such behaviour is unlawful and could result in legal proceedings being brought. (Department of Health, Sexual Orientation)

Christian GP in appeal against home office for unjust sacking

The Daily Mail this weekend has run a long feature on Dr Hans-Christian Raabe, which is well worth reading.

Dr Raabe, a Christian GP from Manchester, was sacked by the Home Office from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last February for failing to declare that he had co-authored a paper in 2005, while he was living in Canada, suggesting that there was an association between homosexuality and paedophilia.

The German-born doctor has since been granted permission for a judicial review against Home Secretary Theresa May, which is set to commence later this year.

Dr Raabe, who is being represented by leading human rights lawyer James Dingemans QC, hopes to win back his committee post and, in so doing, stand up for Christians, who he believes are becoming increasingly marginalised and excluded from public office.

The Home Secretary has come under pressure from a variety of sources to offer an apology to Dr Hans-Christian Raabe, but has so far declined.

The paper in question summarised scientific evidence, which was in the public domain, and it was one paragraph, mentioning homosexuality and paedophilia together, which apparently caused the Home Office ‘embarrassment’.

The offending paragraph states: ‘While the majority of homosexuals are not involved in paedophilia, it is of grave concern that there are a disproportionately greater number of homosexuals among paedophiles.’

However, the Home Office had also made essentially the same point in a document it published, which states (2nd para, page 14): ‘Twenty to 33 per cent of child sexual abuse is homosexual in nature and about 10 per cent mixed.’ (See also here)

As I have reported previously there are actually a significant number of articles in peer-reviewed journals supporting Dr Raabe’s view.

I also noted that a major review on the subject of paedophilia published in 2007 and available on line, which reviews all 554 papers published on Medline on pedophilia, also acknowledges that the jury is still out on the matter:

’The main evidence in favor of a relationship between pedophilia and homosexuality is the common cause of fraternal birth order and postnatal learning… It seems to be questionable logic to view these two conditions as completely unrelated.’

That Dr Raabe should be sacked from his role as a drugs advisor on the basis of his expressed opinions on an entirely unrelated issue (homosexuality) is itself at very least unfair.

But the fact that the data he quoted were actually derived from peer-reviewed scientific journal articles (including one quoted approvingly by the Home Office itself!), and on a matter where experts agree that there is a diversity of learned opinion, makes his dismissal both outrageous and inexcusable.

In a democratic and multicultural society people should be free to hold, express and act in accordance with their beliefs and convictions rather than being pushed out of public life.

Dr Raabe has been treated appallingly by the Home Office. I wish him all the very best in his appeal.

Humiliating defeat for Council of Europe pro-abortion activists who attempted to criminalise conscientious objection to abortion

You may not read about this in any British newspaper but, as reported on LifeSite News, an attempt to erase the conscience rights of EU health care workers with respect to abortion was soundly defeated at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) this evening. The report reads as follows:

'In a vote of 56 to 51, the PACE rejected the proposal of Christine McCafferty, a British politician and abortion activist, to ‘regulate’ conscientious objectors to abortion across Europe.

The McCafferty Report, titled ‘Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection’ is the latest in a string of EU and PACE efforts to establish abortion as a universal human right.

As of tonight, Resolution 1763, re-titled ‘The right to conscientious objection in lawful medical care’ (see revised wording), instead of creating a requirement for doctors to participate in abortion, actually affirms their right to refuse.

The provisional edition published tonight reads, ‘No person, hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in any manner because of a refusal to perform, accommodate, assist or submit to an abortion, the performance of a human miscarriage, or euthanasia or any act which could cause the death of a human foetus or embryo, for any reason.’

Irish senator Ronan Mullen (pictured) and Luca Volonte of Italy, led the assembly in passing a series of amendments which totally reversed the thrust of the report. These changes forced McCafferty and other pro-abortion Assembly members to vote against their own proposal.

Had the measure been passed in its original form it would have placed pressure on European governments to pass legislation limiting the right to conscientious objection. This will now not happen. The vote is being called ‘a victory for common sense and for freedom’.

The move to defeat the proposal received support from unexpected quarters earlier today when Ann Furedi, chief executive of BPAS, Britain’s largest abortion ‘provider’, outlined in her Independent blog the reasons she did not support McCafferty. ‘We think it is better that doctors with a moral objection to abortion do have the opportunity to opt out of services’, she said.

The principle of conscientious objection to abortion is upheld in the 1948 Declaration of Geneva, which was originally adopted by the World Medical Association in response to the atrocities performed by some doctors under the Nazi regime.

This declaration includes the phrase ‘I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception; even against threat I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity’.

The British Abortion Act 1967 enshrines in law the right for doctors to abstain from ‘participation’ in abortion. Although this clearly provides an exemption to those who object to physically performing the procedure, it is still not clear what protection it offers to those who refuse more peripheral involvement.

The application of the law has recently been reviewed in Triple Helix in the light of the General Medical Council’s 2008 guidance, ‘Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice’.

This review mentions a letter I received from the GMC at the time confirming that doctors who objected to involvement in abortion are not breaching the GMC guidance if they refuse to:

1. Sign abortion authorisation forms
2. Clerk patients for abortion (ie carry out pre-op examination and assessment)
3. Refer patients seeking abortion to other doctors who will authorise it

Were a law restricting conscientious objection to abortion ever to be passed in Britain, Christians would of course be obliged to obey the higher law of conscience and take whatever consequences came their way. But for now conscience remains legally protected.