Christian Institute rejects Sinn Fein 'gays don't apply' claim - arguing equality proposals could tie churches up in legal issues

The Christian Institute also says that proposals from the Equality Commission could result in churches having “to be running off to lawyers” before they make decisions.

The TUV has accused some MLAs of trying to steer a Stormont inquiry to a “predetermined outcome” – and of not having respect for freedom of religion and tolerance of belief. DUP MLA Brian Kingston said there is an attempt to squeeze faith out of the public square.

​An Executive Office (TEO) committee inquiry is looking at “gaps” in equality legislation, with some parties seeking a single equality act in Northern Ireland – such as is already in place in Great Britain.

The inquiry is comparing equality provisions here with the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland – and may leave Stormont politicians with some difficult choices to make. In recent years, Dublin introduced a ‘self-ID’ policy – with limited checks in place for people changing their legal sex, but that has been dropped in Great Britain.

In the last day of evidence, representatives from the Christian Institute (CI) gave evidence. Their appearance highlighted a fault line in the committee, reflected in Stormont more broadly, over a clash between rights of workers not to be offended and freedom of belief and religion.

The lobby group warned MLAs that creating new “third party harassment” rights would place additional burdens on employers, and that extending workers rights to volunteers would impact religious organisations.

The TEO Committee also saw a heated dispute over whether equality law protections for workers should apply to volunteers – with questions raised about whether churches could retain protections to dismiss people from positions if they weren’t living by their teachings – such as gay people.

Sinn Fein MLA Carál Ní Chuilín said the CI was saying “gays don’t apply” – a claim rejected by Sam Webster, the CI’s solicitor advocate.

“It's about conduct consistent with the doctrinal teaching of a church. Churches have that liberty under the existing law across the United Kingdom to ensure that those who hold particular positions in the church abide by the teaching of the Church.

“That's what we're talking about here. So if you apply discrimination law to volunteers, and you've got a volunteer who is not abiding by the teaching of the Church in that particular area, we would say the church should be able to say ‘I'm sorry, but you can no longer volunteer in this role within the life of the church because it compromises the position of the church’” Mr Webster said.

He said that bringing in “the full panoply of discrimination law” to volunteers would make it much harder for churches to be able to oversee who's volunteering.

“I think what it could actually have, is a knock on effect with the ability of churches to actually use volunteers, there'll be a lot more caution about letting volunteers simply start helping out in the life of that particular church or organization, and churches will be thinking about also, ‘what exemption applies here? Does this exemption cover this particular role?’

“And I just don't think churches, many of which are quite small, should have to be running off to lawyers the whole time to know whether or not that they're entitled… to take certain decisions”.

TUV MLA Timothy Gaston argued that protections must remain to ensure that churches have the ability to decide that people not living within their teachings can be removed from roles.

The CI also said that an unintended consequences of new equality legislation could include an increase in ‘cancel culture’ in hospitality venues, with staff objecting groups with which they didn’t agree – such as faith groups and churches – booking venues. They argued that this would encourage businesses to block certain organisations booking venues.

They also argued that certain protections applicable to paid staff should not be extended to volunteers – warning about their impact on churches.

TUV MLA Timothy Gaston asked the CI if they saw they legislation as an “attack on the church”. While rejecting that characterisation, they warned about the impact on religious freedom.

Sinn Fein MLA Carál Ní Chuilín said the evidence only focused on “the Christian denomination”, argued that it was “not appropriate” and said she heard “exclusion rather than inclusion” from the group’s evidence. CI said they were urging caution – not objecting to advancing equality.

Chair Paula Bradshaw pushed the group on why equality law couldn’t be consolidated in Northern Ireland in the way it had been in Great Britain – and why discrimination protections couldn’t be extended to volunteer workers.

The CI pointed out this wasn’t a requirement in EU workers directives, and said that the “danger” of bringing voluntary workers into regulation would “create a significant burden” on the voluntary sector.