Thinking Anglicans

Winchester views the Equality Bill

Jonathan Petre at the Daily Mail has a report: ‘Britain has become a cold place for Christians’ – Bishop warns.

A leading Church of England Bishop has warned that Britain has become a ‘cold place’ for Christians because of a raft of controversial equality laws.

The Bishop of Winchester, Michael Scott-Joynt, criticised the new Equality Bill, due to be law next year, which will force religious organisations that regard same-sex relationships as sinful to employ gay workers.

In a foreword to a report by the pressure group Christian Action Research and Education, the Bishop wrote: ‘The sad fact is that Britain – which owes so much to its Christian heritage – is increasingly becoming a “cold” place which, as any reflection on the fruit of Christian good works will demonstrate, is not in the general interest of society.’

He said there appeared to be a ‘concerted’ attack on the rights of Christians and when there were clashes, gay rights triumphed.

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Rev L Roberts
Rev L Roberts
14 years ago

This poor bishop feels so atttacked and out in the cold because his scope for attacking gays has been lessened -as he sees it. But not that much, or else we wouldnt be treated to this regular hateful, anti-gay diatribe. He feels attacked because he wants to attack. He seems to know nothing of the processes of projection, and does not inquire much into his own motivations. Briitain is more godly now than it has been in a long time. The spirit is at work, but those who ‘speak for the churches’ cannot discern it. The spirit has left the… Read more »

BobinSWPA
BobinSWPA
14 years ago

It all comes with the price of being the established state church.

Fr Mark
Fr Mark
14 years ago

Double-barrelled Old Wykehamist living in Wolvesey Palace says that his illogical social prejudices (anti-gay, yet pro-church remarriage after divorce) are not given sufficient welcome when he attempts, unelected, to influence legislation in the House of Lords.

And he thinks this is something to complain about?

Pat O'Neill
Pat O'Neill
14 years ago

The problem, of course, is in seeing a conflict between the rights of Christians and the rights of gays. It undoubtedly does not occur to the bishop that many of these gays are, in fact, Christians themselves.

Joan_of_Quark
Joan_of_Quark
14 years ago

Of course he’s right – remember Jody Dobrowski being murdered in London a couple of years ago for being a Christian? No wait, that was because he was gay.
Or Christian teen suicide attempts running at a rate four times that of atheists? No, wait, that was gays again.
Sure, a lot of people assume Christians are stupid, benighted, unable to think for themselves – I wonder why we got that reputation? But the worst “problem” I’ve had since converting is getting sneered at ONCE on a train for reading a bible.

toby forward
14 years ago

Scott-Joynt and his colleagues in the House of Lords are following a long tradition in which the Bishops use their place in the House to prevent the enactment of humane and liberal legislation, to the harm of vulnerable people in society. In his excellent book ‘Hanging in Judgement’, Harry Potter (really, he is a priest and a barrister) charts the way in which, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the bishops in the House of Lords subverted the attempts of reformers to abolish the death penalty. It’s a long story, but, basically, people had grown disgusted at the… Read more »

Merseymike
Merseymike
14 years ago

Of course, the real mistake was thinking that religion should be any part of equality legislation. It should be a matter of private belief, not affecting secular, civil society. I don’t think opinions should be protected

Pat O'Neill
Pat O'Neill
14 years ago

The problem, of course, is in seeing a conflict between the rights of Christians and the rights of gays. It undoubtedly does not occur to the bishop that many of these gays are, in fact, Christians themselves.

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