The letter said that due to Catholic teaching, their agencies would not be "able to recruit and consider homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents." It threatened that all 7 Catholic adoption agencies in the country would close rather than submit to the Equality Act.

Under this law, no provider of goods, facilities and services to the public may discriminate on various grounds, including the sexual orientation of the customer. Thus a restaurant cannot refuse to serve a group of lesbians having a night out; a hotel cannot deny a gay couple a room if one is available.

The Sexual Orientation Regulations, which are expected to clarify the scope and operations of the Equality Act, were due to be published in February and come into effect in April 2007; but the threat issued by the Catholic Church may have put the deadline into doubt. The British cabinet is said to be split on the matter, though a majority of ministers are likely to refuse to yield to what many consider the Catholic Church's attempt at blackmail.

Catholic adoption agencies placed about 4% of the 2,900 adoptions in 2006.

Adding to furore, the 2 leading Anglican bishops also wrote to say they supported the Catholics' request for exemption. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, wrote in their letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair that the "rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well-meaning".

The irony of course is that the Equality Act also bans discrimination on the basis of religion or belief. People who would dearly wish to enjoy the protection of this law are asking they be exempted from practising what the law requires.

Archbishop Murphy-O'Connor, in his letter, said the Catholic agencies currently serve gay couples by referring them to other agencies who were prepared to consider their applications.

Angela Eagle, Vice-Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party retorted that it would be inadequate and offensive. "It is the equivalent of telling Rosa Parks to wait for the fully integrated bus coming behind," she said. [2] 

* * * * *

 
This is a replay of the tension between liberty and equality. On the one hand, most of us believe that people should be free to act according to their own beliefs, prejudices even. On the other hand, we also recognise that as a society we ought to promote certain higher principles in the interest of justice, one of which is equality and non-discrimination. We recognise that if people were left to their own druthers, many would regress into atavistic identities with consequent dangers to social peace. The state and the more enlightened among us therefore have a positive duty to act in ways that advance equality and non-discrimination.

But where does one draw the line between imposing a positive duty and leaving the individual free to act on his beliefs? Should Catholic workers be required to serve gay couples? Should racist bar-tenders be required to serve patrons of another colour?

Some would be tempted to argue that there is a difference between the two: one is about religion, the other is racism. I do not accept that distinction. Both are personal sets of belief systems and it's merely a construct of modern discourse, particularly American discourse, that we treat racism as impermissible but religious belief -- and what constitutes a religion is itself undefined -- as, well, sacrosanct.

To illustrate the arbitrariness of this priviledge, consider gender discrimination. We seem to think it is wrong until someone demands it on the grounds of his religion. And then some people suddenly concede it's understandable in that context. How so? What if another religion comes along and says a certain race is the chosen people, and they should be free to discriminate against (enslave, perhaps?) other races?

As Madeleine Bunting wrote in the Guardian newspaper, 25 January 2007 [3],

all sides are limbering up for a fight -- and it's a fight over principles not practicalities. In reality, gay couples are extremely unlikely to approach the Catholic Adoption Agency, which only deals with 4% of all adoptions every year anyway. This was an area where the Equality Act's requirements were unlikely ever to reach. But that's not the point; both sides of this argument are agreed on one thing: they want to clarify the role of faith in public life and who has jurisdiction over it. Do faith institutions have a legitimate role in public life in a largely secular country? Are faith institutions subject to the laws of the land even when those are contrary to their own beliefs and doctrine? Does the state recognise the "rights of conscience" in the phrase used by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his letter to the prime minister?

It should not. The notion of "conscience" is woolly-headed to the extreme, often reduced to mean whatever powerful lobby groups want it to mean.

On the other hand, what we should watch out for is when the state invades privacy and compels private behaviour in a way that serves no reasonable public purpose. For example, while it is legitimate to ban spitting in public; it is not to ban it in people's own homes.

Running an adoption agency is not a private activity, nor, as Bunting also pointed out, central to a faith, unlike, say, worship. Equally cogent is the fact that the Catholic adoption agencies draw on public money for their operations. It is one thing to run your own business with your own funds, it is quite another to use taxpayer money (partly contributed by gay and lesbian taxpayers) to run an operation that discriminates against a group of people, when the law says you should not.

Ultimately, the so-called conscientious objection raised by the Catholic archbishop is nothing more than saying, we don't like gay people and we should be exempted from the law that requires us to treat them equally... and oh by the way, keep the money flowing.

* * * * *

 
People often think that I am an absolutist when it comes to discrimination. Even a close friend of mine was somewhat surprised to hear that I can accept quite a fair bit of leeway.

He had asked me whether a person advertising for a flatmate could, at least in his own mind, if not in the actual text of the advertisement, refuse to consider someone of a different race. I said yes. Firstly, it is virtually impossible to enforce; secondly, it's a question of sharing a home with someone, and this is really a private activity rather than a public one.

This is to be distinguished from the issue of Bed and Breakfasts -- another point of contention in the UK under the Equality Act. Prior to the adoption agencies row, this had been the chief topic: whether B&B owners could refuse to hire out rooms to gay couples. The British government came down clearly to say they could not.

It's like the difference between the freedom to choose who we wish to give a lift to in our car, and the taxi-driver's duty to carry any passenger who flags him down.

B&B owners, like taxi-drivers, depend on the state for licences. The issuing of licences involves using the resources of the state to inspect and certify these establishments or vehicles; these licences in turn provide a valuable basis for earning a living or commercial profit. Having acquired the right to position themselves as offering a public service, they should therefore be obliged to adhere to the laws and regulations governing the provision of such services, including fair trading and non-discrimination.

But what if an establishment does not depend on the state for funding or licensing? Say,  in the case of a convenience store that refuses to serve certain types of customers? The primary argument is still that such a store has put itself in the public domain the moment it purports to sell to the general public. Since it is in the public domain, it is subject to all laws that regulate behaviour in the public domain.

Even so, I recognise that exceptions can be made. In Bombay (Mumbai) recently, another row broke out when goldsmiths and jewellers agreed on an industry-wide rule that no one wearing face-covering may enter their shops. This is because they had suffered a spate of robberies by persons with masked or veiled faces.

Muslim leaders decried the rule as discrimination against Muslims, some of whom believe that women should keep their faces covered whenever in public. In reply, the jewellers pointed out that their rule was not aimed that Muslims, for it applied to those with motorcycle helmets too, and there had been cases where male robbers came into their shops dressed as women with veils. In any case, the fact is that humans as a species are very attuned to recognising others by their faces, and for security cameras to work, faces should be visible.