Services funded by public money should be open to all, without alienating anyone.
The recent drive to contract out public services to faith groups risks undermining equal access.
Help us keep public services free from discrimination and evangelism.
The government is increasingly pushing for more publicly-funded services to be provided by religious organisations.
Many faith-based groups have carried out social service without imposing their beliefs. But religious groups taking over public service provision raises concerns regarding proselytising and discrimination.
65% of people have no confidence in church groups running crucial social provisions such as healthcare with only 2% of people expressing a lot of confidence.
Any organisations involved in delivering public services should be bound by equality law and restrictions on proselytisation.
Those advocating for faith organisations to take over more public services risk undermining these restrictions, which exist to protect both the public and third sector.
"We have concerns that some religious groups that seek to take over public services, particularly at local level, could pursue policies and practices that result in increased discrimination against marginalised groups, particularly in service provision and the employment of staff. Non-religious people and those not seen to confirm to the dominant ethos of a religious body, such as being in an unmarried relationship or divorced and being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered, could find themselves subject to discrimination."
Unitarian Church (Submission to the Parliamentary Public Administration Select Committee about the Big Society agenda)
There are also concerns about faith-based mental health and pastoral care in public institutions, including chaplaincy programmes in the NHS and the armed forces. Where such services are funded by the state, they should not be organised around religion or belief.
Religious commentators are often keen to document the contribution of religious organisations to the third sector and social activism. But they fail to demonstrate why it should be the state's role to build this capacity or why local authorities shouldn't have legitimate concerns about religious groups running services.
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1. Write to your MP
Ask your MP to protect secular public services.
2. Share your story
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3. Join the National Secular Society
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
Latest updates
Judicial office rejects complaints against equal treatment coroner
Posted: Fri, 23 Feb 2018 13:54
The office charged with reviewing complaints into judicial office holders' conduct has rejected all complaints against a North London coroner who treats people equally, regardless of religious sensitivities.
In an email to Stephen Evans, the National Secular Society's chief executive, a spokesperson for the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) said "all complaints made about senior coroner [Mary] Hassell's decisions have been rejected by this office".
The JCIO confirmed it had received a number of complaints about Ms Hassell's handling of burial requests for Jewish and Muslim families. But it said it could only accept complaints which contained allegations of misconduct, rather than those about how a judicial office holder had handled their cases or their subsequent decisions.
The coroner still faces a judicial review into her decision not to priorotise religious burials. In granting permission to bring the case to the Adath Yisrael Burial Society (AYBS) in Stamford Hill, the judge said the case "clearly raises issues of considerable importance to the Jewish and Muslim communities". The case is due to be heard at the end of March.
In October Ms Hassell wrote to 'representatives' of the Jewish community in Hackney and said no death would be "prioritised in any way over any other because of the religion of the deceased or family". She withdrew an agreement which made special arrangements for deceased Jews' bodies.
She said the decision had come after a Jewish burial society "bullied" and "persecuted" her officers by demanding the swift release of bodies in her charge. In one incident a woman made 210 phone calls to the St Pancras Coroner's Office in four days.
Mr Evans wrote to the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice last month to express support for her decision to give "equal, non-preferential treatment" to all. He said it was unclear "why any group of people have the right to demand to be prioritised over others".
"By prioritising those who give religion as their reason for a quick burial, those who want rapid burials for other reasons are being unfairly treated. I trust you will ensure that the judicial response to this matter is not be unduly influenced by those who shout the loudest."
He added that Ms Hassell and her staff were "entitled to carry out their work free from harassment or intimidation". In a previous conduct investigation the JCIO found that Ms Hassell had not "misrepresented or distorted" her experience of being bullied and intimidated by the Orthodox Jewish community over the handling of deaths in religious communities.
Mr Evans's letter came after religious lobbying groups and prominent politicians made clear their intent to complain about Ms Hassell.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote to both office holders to request the removal of Ms Hassell from her position. Their call was backed by several politicians. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, said the Board had "done the right thing". David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, said he "supported" the Board's call for the Lord Chancellor to "act" and had made representations of his own.
The London Assembly unanimously approved a motion to write to the JCIO, Lord Chancellor, chief coroner and Lord Chief Justice expressing "serious concern about the comments, decisions and actions of the coroner".
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, are among those who have complained to the chief coroner about Ms Hassell's stance. Mr Corbyn and Ms Thornberry both represent Islington constituencies.
Earlier this month the prime minister responded to a question about the case in the House of Commons by saying: "It is important that we take into account specific requirements of someone's faith, especially when they've lost a loved one and they are grieving."
And Matthew Offord, the Conservative MP for Hendon, called Ms Hassell's stance "reprehensible" in Parliament.
Ms Hassell's jurisdiction covers the London boroughs of Hackney, Camden, Islington and Tower Hamlets.
In response to the latest developments Mr Evans said Ms Hassell was "being hounded for upholding the principle of fair treatment and resisting the unreasonable bullying of staff".
"If a preference for an expedited coroners' service can be satisfied without disadvantaging anybody else, or creating an unreasonable burden on the state, then that's fine. But religion isn't a trump card that gives anyone the automatic right to preferential treatment.
"Judicial office holders certainly shouldn't have to face intimidation simply for failing to satisfy the demands of religious communities. And if the unwarranted calls for her dismissal are successful it will set a very dangerous precedent."
Right of withdrawal from sex education will continue, says Hinds
Posted: Wed, 21 Feb 2018 17:46
Parents will continue to have the right to withdraw their children from sex education at secondary school, the education secretary has confirmed.
Damian Hinds's comments come as the teaching of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) are due to become compulsory in England.
Relationships education will be taught at primary school and full RSE will be taught at secondary school. This weekend Damian Hinds said parents would continue to have the right to withdraw their children from the sex education part of RSE at secondary school.
"There's an established right for parents to be able to withdraw their children from the sex education bits of relationships and sex education," he told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC1. "That right exists and will continue."
The Government recently closed a consultation on changes to these subjects. In its response to the consultation, the National Secular Society welcomed the proposal to make RSE compulsory and said young people's access to RSE should not be restricted on religious grounds.
The NSS campaigns for faith-free sex and relationships education and opposes the 'right' to withdraw children from it on religious grounds.
This week it also emerged that councillors in North London had unanimously backed a motion that faith schools should be allowed to omit important aspects of sex education.
The motion, which was passed at a full meeting of Barnet Council in January, called on the Government to allow faith schools to teach sex education "in a manner consistent with their religious ethos". It says the Department of Education should "allow for this in its pending guidelines and to call on OFSTED inspectors to be sensitive and understanding of this when carrying out their inspections".
It also says the Council "very much recognises and values the diversity of faith schools within this Borough, notes the excellent achievements of many of them and would not wish to see these schools undermined".
Cllr Brian Gordon, who put forward the motion, said: "It is wrong, and I would say counter-productive, for faith schools to be penalised or marked down for failure to teach particular aspects of sex and sexuality that are counter to their religious ethos."
In January Cllr Gordon represented the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations (UOHC) as part of a delegation of Orthodox Jewish 'community leaders' who met with Sir Theodore Agnew, a minister at the Department for Education. The 'representatives' said there would be "no compromise" with requirements to teach children about gender and sexuality. He described the expectation for schools to teach about gender and personal relationships as "unprecedented external pressure under the grand pretext of community cohesion and diversity".
UOHC is an umbrella organisation of Charedi Jewish groups in London. One of its most recent activities has been to call for its members to boycott the J3 Jewish Community Centre in London due to its activities supporting LGBT+ Jews.
The NSS expressed disappointment over Mr Hinds's comments and criticised Barnet Council for siding with groups which put religious concerns above children's educational needs.
Alastair Lichten, the NSS's education and schools officer, said: "Getting Relationships and Sex Education on a statutory footing, so every child has access to age appropriate provision, was a major success. Unfortunately some faith groups are determined to undermine this.
"We should cut through the euphemistic language about 'teaching in accordance with their ethos'. These groups want schools to be able to pretend LBGT+ people don't exist. They want to be able to deny pupils information about contraceptives. Very often they just want to use the subject to promote narrow religious views, for example about gender roles, or just don't want to teach it at all – regardless of how unprepared this leaves pupils."
Image: © The People Speak!, via Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0]
