MLAs clash over religious freedoms and gay rights

Transcript

00:00You cite and directly challenge the Equality Commission when they're talking about the

00:07discrimination protections extended to volunteers. So in a church setting, where you have a church,

00:14bible-believing church, who has a stance against homosexuality, what problems could that cause?

00:23So if somebody turned around, they're a volunteer in the church and they said they're a homosexual,

00:29could they take a case against the church for that, if they were asked to leave their position

00:34as a volunteer? I mean at the moment, just starting with employment provisions before

00:41we come to volunteers, an employee would have protection on the basis of a number of protected

00:48characteristics, obviously sexual orientation being one of them. So if there were to be an issue

00:54where a particular employee is not abiding by the church's teaching in that area,

01:01those protections for the church would give them the right to remove someone.

01:09Gays don't apply, basically. I didn't hear you, sorry. Gays don't apply, that's basically what you're saying.

01:15It's about conduct consistent with the doctrinal teaching of a church.

01:26Churches have that liberty under the existing law across the United Kingdom to ensure that those who

01:33hold particular positions in the church abide by the teaching of the church. That's what we're

01:38talking about here. Do you want to finish off, Timothy? So if you apply discrimination law to

01:44volunteers and you've got a volunteer who is not abiding by the teaching of the church in that

01:50particular area, we would say the church should be able to say, I'm sorry but you can no longer

01:56volunteer in this role within the life of the church because it compromises the position of the

02:01church. So what we're saying is if you bring in the full panoply of discrimination law to volunteers

02:09it makes it a much harder job for churches to be able to, if you like, oversee who's volunteering,

02:16who's doing what, who's falling into helping out in certain ways in the life of the church.

02:23I think what it could actually have is a knock-on effect with the ability of churches to actually

02:28use volunteers. There'll be a lot more caution about letting volunteers simply start helping out

02:33in the life of that particular church or organisation. And churches will be thinking

02:39about also what exemption applies here. Does this exemption cover this particular role?

02:44And I just don't think churches, many of which are quite small, should have to be running off

02:47to lawyers the whole time to know whether or not that they're entitled to

02:54take certain decisions. I'd be very strong on the point that faith-based organisations who

03:02day-by-day use the Bible as their navigation tool should have that protection in

03:08place if somebody, whether it be an employee or whether it be a volunteer, if they weren't

03:14living that way, that they have the protections in place to say to that person, you know what, you're

03:19not keeping them fit in this organisation and bringing that to an end. And I think that's a

03:24very important freedom that needs to remain.