The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, has been challenged to distance himself from the campaign being waged by evangelical Christians to scupper job protection for gay people. The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) has written to Dr Carey calling on him to make clear his opposition to the campaign being waged by the Christian Institute and the Evangelical Alliance which aims to have a European Union employment directive amended to exclude “sexual orientation” from its protection.
GALHA Chairperson Derek Lennard commented: “We feel that if Dr Carey is going to be true to his religious principles he will not want to see gay people disadvantaged in employment. We have asked him to make a public statement condemning the Christian Institute’s high pressure campaign to have sexual orientation removed from the terms of the new European Union directive. Dr Carey has repeatedly stated that he is not homophobic and that his opposition to the repeal of Section 28 and the lowering of the age of consent for gay men was on the grounds of ‘protecting children’, but no such consideration can be involved in employment protection. The Archbishop should therefore give a lead to Christians and encourage them to support the directive’s aim of making discrimination against gay people at work illegal.”
For the past week, the Christian Institute’s representatives have been busily visiting MPs in Westminster in an effort to persuade them to oppose the directive. At the same time, the Evangelical Alliance is organising a training day for personnel officers and human resources directors in Christian organisations telling them how they should deal with the new human rights legislation.
A report in the Church of England Newspaper 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, 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 newspaper report also quotes Ann Allen, Convenor of the Church of Scotland Board of Social Responsibility, the largest provider of social care in Scotland, which already has a policy of employing only committed Christians. “All our work is done in the name of Jesus Christ”, said Allen, “so those who work in his name have to know him.”