Equality Bill: religious organisations and sexual orientation

Under the current sexual orientation regulations, religious organisations can restrict employment “for the purposes of an organised religion” to those of a particular sexuality (usually heterosexual) to comply with religious doctrine or to avoid conflicting with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the religion's followers due to the nature of the employment and the context in which it is carried out.

The Equality Bill, which is currently going through its final stages in parliament, sought to define the meaning of employment for the purposes of an organised religion so that the exemption would only apply if “the employment wholly or mainly involves...leading or assisting in the observance of liturgical or ritualistic practices of the religion, or...promoting or explaining the doctrine of the religion (whether to followers of the religion or to others).”

Religious organisations took the view that this would severely restrict their freedom of choice over who to employ.  The Bill was debated in the House of Lords last week and, in a debate which saw an unusually large turnout, three amendments were passed by the Lords in an attempt to return to the status quo.  The Government's attempt to introduce a re-worded clause to "provide more clarity and greater legal certainty" about the scope of the exception was defeated. The debate intensified when, on Monday, the Pope said that the Bill violated “natural justice” and urged bishops and Roman Catholics to fight it.

It now seems from reports that the Equalities Minister, Harriet Harman, has backed away from the confrontation; she has made it clear that she will not bring back the amendment when the Bill returns to the Commons.

However, although the status quo will be maintained in the Equality Bill, this is unlikely to be the end of the story.  The gay rights group, Stonewall, has said that it will support the case of any person, refused employment in a religious organisation on the grounds of their sexuality, so it is likely that we will see more case law on this point in the future.