Richard ClementsYesterday, the DUP’s Paul Givan launched a public consultation on an amendment to the Equality Act Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006, entitled the ‘Northern Ireland Freedom of Conscience Amendment Bill’. The Consultation Paper can be found here. I want to comment on several aspects of the proposed amendment as well as some non-legal points relevant to the broader discussion on equality and the perceived conflict of rights in particularly religious societies such as Northern Ireland.
In previous posts which can be accessed here, I discussed the issue of the Asher’s bakery ‘gay cake row’ which erupted during the summer. Without even a hint of doubt, the DUP’s latest move is a direct response to this debacle. In order to foster some debate, I want to present the question in two ways, to accommodate the two main strands of the argument:
- Should equality legislation apply without exception, ensuring equal treatment of both rights and duties?
- Should a minority be forced to renounce their beliefs to accommodate wider society?
As you can see, each of these questions begs a very different answer, mainly as a result of the way in which they are phrased. The second question is the standard setting for those within the DUP, including Givan, who wish to control the debate and steer it in a favourable direction. This question, and variations of it, appear conveniently in the consultation paper linked above. I would invite anyone reading these questions to consider the absolute bias inherent in them, it requiring a very staunch critic of the paper to answer the questions in the negative.
If such questions were to be used in a referendum, they would be immediately rejected as exhibiting bias and predetermining the answer. This is why I find the first question to be more preferable. Not only does it ask the real question behind this wider debate, but it is also likely to result in a much more genuine and broader discussion within society on the significant of human rights protections and dealing with tensions between them.
Looking to yesterday’s publication, then, several issues jump out. I would first, however, note that for me at least this document is intentionally obfuscating and needlessly complex. The wording itself appears to have been thrown together and I lost track of the number of times the word ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ were used and in which context.
Whichever DUP work experience person wrote this document will, or at least should, be somewhat embarrassed. The preliminary point, however, is that Givan makes no mistake as to the subject/object of this proposed amendment. The context which he will have us keep constantly in mind is that of a harmless family business being bullied by gays or lesbians into selling them the most obscene materials.
Luckily, most of us have the wherewithal to understand that every debate has nuance and that retaining this complexity is one of the hardest tasks when confronted with an over-simplified statement from a public figure whom has 20 seconds to pitch their idea.
The main issue with the document is that it admits of a serious misunderstanding of human rights law. In modern society, particularly those like Northern Ireland in which the effects of liberalisation appear to have all come at once, it is often difficult to make sense of, or indeed to adequately appreciate the value of certain concepts. In the NI context, though, the local population are lucky enough to have a national government to guide them through the thick jungle of tradition versus liberal ideology. Whatever we might think of the current UK government, its predecessors at least have given effect to these ideas in the form of the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 and various other pieces of legislation within the European Union.
A comprehensive overview of discrimination legislation in a user-friendly format is available here. With this basic overview, it is clear that the “balance between the rights of people not to be discriminated against and the rights of conscience of religious believers” is a false dichotomy. Non-discrimination is not the enemy of religion although sadly religion has not taken note of this. Indeed, the most over-used word in this context is that of ‘persecution’.
Givan and others appear to have mellowed in this regard, but once the Bill enters the Assembly this word will surely receive a lot of traction from supporters of the amendment. Not only are non-discrimination rights available to all without a need for a special label for those of faith, but to employ this language rides roughshod over the potential genocide being committed against Yazidis by ISIS in Iraq.
These people are the subject of persecution and to inflate the term degrades the truly horrific situation the Yazidis find themselves in. When religious minorities begin to understand the mutually beneficial nature of equality legislation rather than presuming that “some are more equal than others”, this debate will be able to progress in a meaningful way.
The second issue is the question of how this legislation “enhances” the existing 2006 Regulations. Although not included in the final document (thankfully), Givan cites the example of a law from 1757 designed to safeguard Quakers’ rights not to be conscripted to fight in wars. Well, the difference is hardly worth pointing out.
How a bakery selling cakes to customers can in any way be equated with the forcible conscription and possible killing of enemy combatants as a member of an army is something I would appreciate elaboration upon from Girvan. This example in fact damages Givan’s argument more than supports it. Should a modern, progressive society be looking to mid-18th century laws (in whose company one would have found laws on the legal transport of slaves, and in Ireland at least, severe discrimination against Roman Catholics) to dictate social mores and values?
If Givan wishes to rely on such examples, he has to be prepared to respond to these kinds of arguments, as embarrassed as I am to make them. Enhancing equality laws is not possible when the proposed change wishes to provide ‘differential treatment under the law’. Indeed, it seems that Givan (or whoever wrote this document) has trawled the dictionary for every synonym of ‘discrimination’ in the hope of justifying to himself even if not to others that he really isn’t discriminatory. Again, the truth isn’t hard to find.
Thirdly, Givan makes quite an interesting comment when he states that “the cause of equality is not best served by arming different equality strands with different pieces of legislation they can use to press against and damage each other”. This is undoubtedly true. Indeed, the purpose of the Equality Regulations are to provide a level playing field for all without the need for specific laws that might overlap or provide varying levels of protection.
In this sense, Girvan cannot see the wood for the trees. He states that different laws should not be used as weapons by certain minorities before presenting a clause which seeks to elevate the ‘equality’ of those with religious beliefs above all others. If this is not using legislation as a weapon, then I’m Lady Gaga and this is a perfectly ‘bad romance’.
The unintended negative consequences that Givan seeks to avoid are precisely those he espouses, namely to ensure that “not everyone/everything is treated by the law in exactly the same way”. I wish this quote was out of context, but unfortunately it isn’t.
Fourthly, and dealing now with the amendment itself at the end of the document, the standard phrase appears to be that those with religious beliefs (of course those of you who heard about Peter Robinson’s remarks concerning Muslims will consider this to be quite a turnaround from total mistrust to ‘hey, you’re one of us now for politically motivated purposes!’) are not obliged to “endorse, promote or facilitate same-sex sexual relationships”. I find this construction sloppy and am sure most of the LGBT community also find it offensive.
These terms are by no means interchangeable. For a start, for me to endorse or promote sexual health does not go quite so far as to facilitate nurses at the GUM clinic every Saturday morning. An amusing example though it may be, the latter scenario involves heightened participation which would appear to most to go well beyond the requirements of Givan’s intentions. This therefore strikes me as a way in which extreme arguments are being employed to ensure that agreement can be found on a widely accepted point, and importing the more troublesome phraseology by stealth.
I also take issue with the word ‘sexual’ in ‘same-sex sexual relationships’. Although Givan makes it clear that this amendment is a rough draft (very rough, one might add) the use of this term exposes Givan’s stereotyped view of the LGBT community.
He again employs this form of extreme language to appeal to those who might easily equate homosexuality with sexual promiscuity. Givan is well aware of what he has done here and it is not lost on myself nor on many others in the LGBT community. Indeed, the opposite is the case when the term ‘higher loyalties to God’ is employed – fervent language with capitalisation to boot makes the drafter’s intentions crystal clear.
LGBTs, and many other minorities (including, ironically, religious minorities when they clash with others – again one wonders who wins out in a Christian-Muslim conflict) should take this amendment as an assault on the decades spent campaigning for equal treatment across the globe which has cost countless lives and which sowed the seeds of conflict in NI itself when the NI civil rights movement were fighting for equal treatment. One wonders whether loyalties to god come before loyalties to the laws of the state.
To conclude, I should nail my colours to the flagpole and state that this amendment will amount to a bigot’s charter insofar as it seeks to legalise discrimination. It is a step back in time and thus a victory for those who believe that ‘any faith is better than no faith’. This blatant anti-atheism or anti-agnosticism is not suitable for a Northern Ireland that is hoping to put its darker days behind it and enter an era of tolerance and co-existence.
The latent homophobia that this amendment will sanction cannot be permitted to even make it to the Assembly’s order paper and I would invite anyone who considers that the answer to the first question I posed above to be ‘YES’ to complete the questions at the end of the Consultation Paper and consign this grubby piece of paper to the bin where it belongs.
