Equality Bill [HL]

I hope that the noble Baroness will—as I am sure she will—give a great deal of thought to my noble friend’s amendment. I personally hope that some phraseology such as this will be accepted in the Bill. In the past 10 years or so we have come across the problems of transsexual marriage, marriages between people of the same sex, homosexual marriages and so on. These are new concepts that bring with them their own problems. We have an Equality Bill saying that all these people should be equal. However, as my noble friend said, people who have religious convictions often find that they are discriminated against if they do not want to take part in these marriage ceremonies. My noble friend gave the example of a person who took a pay cut of £10,000 in order not to have to do that. In an Equality Bill there ought to be equality for those people. Those people ought to be able to continue with their profession but exempt themselves from conducting that part of the ceremony with which their conscience does not agree, in the same way that nurses who have strong views about abortions do not have to carry them out. As I say, this is an Equality Bill. It is very important that those people who have strong views should not find themselves being made unequal or being threatened with dismissal.