Equality Bill

I, too, would like to resist this amendment. The inclusion of the word "philosophy" is really rather important—for religious people as well. The distinction between religion and philosophy could be too sharply drawn. In the Explanatory Notes, paragraph 71 talks about religion or belief having, ""a clear structure and belief system"." It then uses some rather general, catch-all descriptions like "Catholics" and "Protestants". Belief systems are much more complex than are reducible to simple denominational or institutional forms. "Philosophy" here introduces into the scope of the law that degree of freedom for recognising that people actually occupy a number of different positions in relation to the wider belief system in which they find themselves. I therefore wish to resist this amendment.