It may also be a sideswipe the current equality bill, which narrows the existing exemptions enjoyed by religious groups, permitting them to insist that employees abide by their doctrines.
(...)
[O]n the matter of employment, the Pope has a rather stronger case, albeit on strictly secular grounds. It is not the province of government to rule on whom any voluntary association may or may not accept into membership or put on its payroll. For the sake of a healthy relationship between state and civil society, this point really has to prevail.
Perhaps the first significant erosion of this principle came with the Tory anti-union laws of the 1980s, which withdrew from trade unions the ability to exclude strike-breakers, and forced them to accept applications from active fascists.
We will see if the rightwing commentators who will no doubt speak up in favour of Benedict XVI in the days ahead possess sufficient logical consistency to accept this elementary point.
And writing as a leftwing commentator, yes, precisely the same consideration applies to the nonsensical decision that the British National Party should be forced to accept black members. Isn’t hating black people the very point of being in the BNP?
If the same yardstick was applied universally, Hizb ut Tahrir would be debarred from turning down evangelical Christians, for instance. I’m looking forward to the test case already.
Common sense alone dictates that the League Against Cruel Sports has no duty to be an equal opportunities employer in respect of illegal cock fighting aficionados. If you apply to be a Conservative parliamentary candidate and then inform the selection meeting that you are an anarcho-syndicalist, you do not have grounds subsequently to bring a discrimination case.
Peter Tatchell – a man with whom I usually agree on much – has been widely quoted taking the Pope to task on this one. But my guess is that he wouldn’t hire an overt homophobe for an admin job at OutRage!
By the same token, if you want to work for the Catholic Church, your potential bosses might reasonably expect you to uphold the teachings of Catholicism.
[Volto a notar que eu re-postar um texto não implica necessariamente concordância]
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