Somebody putting "Equal Opportunities" and "church" into Google will now think they've discovered a new piece of legislation. Tee hee.
I decided, though, today, that the government should grant all faith-based organisations full exemption from all employment and equalities legislation.
My reasoning is that the legislation has done very little to improve the employment conditions of employees in Christian organisations. All that has changed in the 30 or so years that such laws have been introduced is that Christian organisations have been more covert in their discrimination, pretending to follow the rules when they aren't, afraid to admit themselves unable to comply with or even understand what's legally being requested of them. This leads to the following problems
1. Job applicants and employees expect from Christian organisations legal rights and safeguards they will never receive
2. The vast majority of job applicants and employees do not have the time, money or courage to take Christian organisations to employment tribunals. The pressure "not to bring the name of Christ into disrepute" is immense and the adverse publicity generated can be vicious. John Reaney, who managed to win against the Diocese of Hereford was a rare exception.
3. Because the Reaney case was so exceptional, the majority of Christian organisations end up thinking they've got away with it.
If however, Christian organisations were to gain exemption from employment and equalities legislation
1. They could tell candidates the interview stage that they don't like gays/women/Blacks/immigrants so that the candidate would be aware at that stage what sort of organisation they were applying to.
2. They could stop using the Genuine Occupational Requirement clause to stipulate a youth worker who is "aged 24-26 with curly pink hair and a Scouse accent" so that they not longer look ridiculous in their own job ads.
3. Those Christian organisations who are known to be particularly good employers (such as the Faithworks Trust, Tearfund, Christian Aid etc) could receive the acclaim they deserve as outstandingly good people, properly motivated by grace, truth and love.
4. This would demonstrate that the guy who started the whole Christianity thing off was, despite never intending to form an organisation of any sort, an outstaningly kind, tolerant, welcoming, affirming and inclusive sort of bloke.
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Has Christian Aid changed, then? A close friend of my partner was once a very successful fundraiser for them until he came out as gay. They treated him so appallingly that he's not set foot inside a church since. Needless to say, he's not working for them any longer either.
This is a few years ago now, but I have always been very suspicious of Christian Aid ever since.
Really? I'm so, so sorry about that. All I'm going on is the experience of a friend who said they're great to work for. I suppose it just shows the dangers of generalising. And that it's not ultimately about organisations but about people. Which essentially was Jesus' point...
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