The Evangelical Alliance is training its personnel and recruitment staff to weed out job applicants who do not fit in to their biblical view of the world. This would include gay people, non-believers, unmarried cohabiting couples and adulterers.
A story in today’s Church of England Newspaper reveals that preparations are already being made to take advantage of amendments to the new European Union Employment Directive on Discrimination. The Directive offers legal protection at work on the grounds of sexual orientation for the first time. But religious bodies are campaigning to be excluded from its terms and to have the right to refuse employment to those they don’t approve of – mainly homosexuals and atheists.
In a debate in the House of Lords last week, a Government spokesperson intimated that the Government was sympathetic to this demand.
The Church of England Newspaper’s story quotes Martyn Eden, Public Affairs Director of the Evangelical Alliance as saying: “ ‘If a member of staff says he is a Christian but then has an adulterous affair or cohabits outside of marriage in their private sphere, there is nothing that an employer can do about that.’ He said that the Evangelical Alliance has started personnel and recruitment training for Christian organisations in order to help them be much more certain that they are not likely to take on people who are likely to follow such a course.”
The story also quotes Ann Allen, Convenor of the Church of Scotland Board of Social Responsibility, the largest provider of social care in Scotland. “All our work is done in the name of Jesus Christ, so those who work in his name have to know him.”
A spokesperson for the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association said: “It is incredible that religious groups are being allowed to screen out people from jobs that are, in many cases, paid for by the taxpayer. If the amendments that they are demanding are agreed by the Government thousands of jobs in education and welfare will be simply closed off to gay people. It cannot be allowed to happen. All gay people should write to Mr Blair and their own MP to protest.”