Equality Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Alli, suffers, as do the churches, from the determination of the Government and others to use the language of orientation when it is perfectly clear—and I am sure that it is perfectly clear to him—that the issue for the churches and for people of some other faiths is of sexual behaviour, not of sexual orientation. However, granted the language that is used, both in European legislation and in our own, we have had no alternative but to go along with this language of sexual orientation when it is actually sexual conduct that is the matter at stake for the churches. I should be very surprised indeed if the noble Lord had any evidence of any clergy being put at any kind of risk at all simply on the grounds of their orientation, in the sense that the churches use the word, as opposed to their conduct in matters sexual. It also needs to be clear—the noble Lord himself was very clear—that the churches have a particular understanding of marriage. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester was right when he said that this is not distinctly aimed at gay people, but at the question of sexual conduct, whether marital, heterosexual or homosexual. Rather surprisingly, too, the noble Lord concentrated simply on priests. The churches’ interest in these matters—we will come to this when we discuss the next group of amendments—lies in our absolutely rooted conviction that a person of faith seeks to live in every respect according to the teaching, tenets and vision of the faith of which they are part. That is just as much a matter for certain lay people in the employment of the churches as it is for clergy. Lastly, there are exemptions in the Bill on a whole range of points, such as the need for disability organisations to be able to employ particular people, for organisations connected with race and ethnicity to employ people of a particular ethnicity at certain points, and for crisis centres and women’s refuges to employ particular people of a particular gender. It would be discriminatory if the House and Parliament went down the route suggested by the noble Lord’s amendment. On Amendment 119A, noble Lords will well remember the Civil Partnership Act, in which civil partnership was postulated in significant ways as being analogous to civil marriage, notwithstanding the fact that nothing in that Act says in any way at all what a civil partnership is or to what those entering into it are committing themselves. Her Majesty’s Government in that process made it absolutely clear that they did not regard the civil partnership as a form of marriage. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alli, and to which noble Baronesses have spoken so clearly, would blur the distinction between civil and religious marriage as two paths to effect what is in law the same relationship, because registrars by law are not permitted to engage in, or to allow others to engage in, any kind of religious ceremony in a civil marriage. It would also blur the characteristics of the civil partnership as distinct from marriage, whether conducted in a church service or by a registrar. Shortly down the line, were this amendment to be passed—I understand that Stonewall has made this intention entirely clear—is the likelihood of a steady and continuing pressure on, if not a forcing of, the churches, the Church of England among them, to compromise on our convictions that marriage has a character that is distinct from that of a civil partnership. Churches of all sorts really should not reduce or fudge, let alone deny, that distinction. That is why we should refuse the noble Lord’s amendment, enticing though it is.