My Lords, before I address the amendment, perhaps I may refer to an earlier speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, in which she referred to me personally, I think in relation to Amendment 9. What she did not know was that I had withdrawn my name from that amendment and I think that the reference should have been to the noble Lord, Lord Dear.
The Government have been at great pains to stress that the Bill constitutes no threat to religious liberty in the sense of how religious organisations conduct
themselves. I am greatly reassured by the Government’s comments and we have heard them repeated this afternoon. Nevertheless, it is an important test of the Bill that religious liberty, so defined, can stand varied tests in line with the view expressed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in the other place. She said:
“Our proposals will ensure that all religious organisations can act in accordance with their beliefs because equal marriage should not come at the cost of freedom of faith, nor freedom of faith come at the cost of equal marriage”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/2/13; col. 128.]
The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, told us that,
“no religious organisation or individual can be forced to conduct or participate in a religious marriage ceremony of a same-sex couple. The religious freedom of those organisations and individuals is protected”.—[Official Report, 3/5/13; col. 939.]
I welcome those statements. It is absolutely right that no religious body or minister of religion should be compelled to choose between a readiness to act in violation of their faith by withdrawing from the provision of marriages or getting into trouble with the law.
In following through on this intention, however, it is important for the Government to recognise that marriage ceremonies are not the only relevant service that a religious body or minister of religion might be asked to conduct. Increasingly today people who marry outside a religious context come afterwards to a place of worship asking for a blessing. If Members of the Committee are not sure what I am getting at, they may go online and type in “blessings” and see a very good one on the Church of England site, which I have used in the past after a civil marriage. I am particularly thinking of the predicament of nonconformist and minority ethnic churches.
A blessing ceremony may sound less weighty than a marriage ceremony but the Government must understand that officiating at a blessing would be just as problematic for a faith community whose celebrants could not officiate at a same-sex marriage ceremony without violating their conscience as would officiating at a marriage ceremony. Doing so would involve the religious body or minister of religion authenticating, celebrating and affirming something that their conscience forbids them from doing. The provision of a blessing ceremony in such a context would involve the minister of religion and the religious body in question acting in direct violation of their religious identity. Such a religious body or minister of religion would have to decline to provide such a service in just the same way that they would have to decline to marry a same-sex couple.
As things stand, however, if the Bill becomes law, Section 29 of the Equality Act means that religious bodies that cannot perform same-sex marriage blessings will be in just as much trouble as a church that could not provide same-sex marriages, were it not for the fact that Section 29 is being amended for that purpose by Clause 2. The point that I am making, with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who is not in his seat, has no belt and no braces whatever. It is entirely vulnerable. If the Government—