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
Tell us why you support this campaign, and how you are personally affected by the issue. You can also let us know if you would like assistance with a particular issue.
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
Call to secularise NHS chaplaincy services
Posted: Wed, 8 Oct 2014 13:10
Secularists have criticised new draft NHS England chaplaincy guidelines for failing to adequately recognise the needs of patients who do not identify with a religious faith.
NHS England is consulting on new chaplaincy guidelines intended to update and improve the provision of chaplaincy and spiritual care across the NHS. The guidance includes an explicit recognition of the need to provide guidance "for the care of patients and service users who do not identify with a religious faith".
However, in a joint submission to an NHS England consultation, the National Secular Society and the Secular Medical Forum criticised the guidelines for being too focussed on religious care rather than providing an inclusive service that benefits all patients and NHS staff.
Chaplaincy services are funded from NHS budgets. Despite purporting to provide 'spiritual care' to all, the role is only open to individuals who can obtain satisfactory recommendation and authorisation by their faith community.
Antony Lempert, Chair of the Secular Medical Forum, said: "We think it's essential that chaplaincy moves from a religious service to one fit for – and equally welcoming to – all members of the public.
"Whilst chaplaincy remains a paid job exclusively for religious applicants, then any mention of the inclusion of the needs of non-religious patients remains a lip-service, and the justification for public funding is seriously undermined."
Stephen Evans, National Secular Society campaigns manager, said: "In a multi-faith society where half the population are not religious, the provision of a hospital chaplaincy service within a uniquely religious framework is neither suitable nor sustainable. If health providers and patients deem pastoral care valuable, such support should be provided in a non-discriminatory and secular context."
"Religion-specific services should be provided by faith communities themselves, rather than the NHS", he added.
The submission also criticises the consultation process for being "insufficiently transparent."
Despite being NHS England guidance, no information about the consultation was made available on the NHS England website. The draft guidelines were hosted onthe College of Health Care Chaplains website and requests to comment were sent by invitation only.
Terry Sanderson, NSS president, said: "Whilst the views of chaplains have been widely sought, we do not believe a genuine attempt has been made to engage with patients and the wider public on issues that affect the services which patients receive."
Our response to the draft NHS chaplaincy guidelines consultation.
Church blocks NHS job offer to clergyman over same-sex marriage
Posted: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 12:48
The first British clergyman to marry a same-sex partner has had a job offer as an NHS chaplain withdrawn after a Bishop revoked his permission to officiate.
Jeremy Pemberton, who currently works as an NHS chaplain in Lincolnshire – having been stopped from operating as a priest in Nottinghamshire following his marriage to Laurence Cunnington – had been offered a job as chaplaincy and bereavement manager in the Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust. According BBC reporting, the Trust informed Mr Pemberton last week that it had withdrawn its offer of a job after the acting Bishop for Southwell and Nottingham, Richard Inwood, had refused him the official licence, known as a permission to officiate, in the diocese.
In a statement the Bishop Inwood, said: "In its pastoral guidance on same-sex marriage, the House of Bishops said that getting married to someone of the same sex was clearly at variance with the teaching of the Church of England.
"The statement said it would not be appropriate conduct for someone in holy orders to enter into a same-sex marriage, given the need for clergy to model the Church's teaching in their lives."
78.5% of recipients in a Church Times poll opposed the Bishop's decision.
Commenting on BBC Radio Nottingham, Mr Pemberton said: "I've now been treated, I think, in an unfair and rather harsh way in Southwell and Nottingham, whereas I'm now going to carry on doing the job I have been doing in Lincolnshire where I have a licence".
Raising the possibility of a legal challenge, Mr Pemberton said: "I'm not going to bow out gracefully and take a low profile. I think this needs to be tested and I think in due course it probably will be somewhere."
NHS chaplains are salaried employees funded by the taxpayer; in 2012 National Secular Society research revealed that the NHS spends around £29 million a year on the provision of hospital chaplains. According to the NHS careers site, the "vast majority" of NHS chaplains are Anglicans, while chaplains of other faiths are "recruited in proportion to the belief patterns of the local population."
Stephen Evans, campaigns manager at the National Secular Society, said: "NHS chaplains are supposed to be offering a service to all patients. It's therefore concerning that the Church of England can block an individual from such a position on the basis of their sexual orientation or their entering into a legal marriage.
"In today's diverse and pluralist society, where the majority are non-religious, the provision and funding of NHS services within a specifically religious framework needs urgent review."
