A UK Government body designed to give religious voices an input into
equality legislation has collapsed in 
acrimony after most of the major
churches and faiths left the forum blaming the British Humanist
Association and the National Secular Society for the situation.
According to a report in the London Times, the Religion and Belief Consultative Group, set up in 2004 as a reference group for the religion and belief representatives on the Steering Group for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. is on the brink of disbanding.
“The British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society use the group to argue for the exclusion of religious voices from public life”, Dr Malcolm Brown, the Church of England’s representative on the group, said.
Dr Brown added: “Despite the most careful chairing, every meeting has degenerated into an impasse between the secular and the religious voices.
“The group is not fit for purpose as a consultative body.”
The Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church and the Salvation Army have all left the group.
Representatives of the Islamic faith had already departed and now only Hindus, Baha’is and secularists remain.
The forum consults with the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a “semi-formal” basis.
Dr Brown, the Church of England’s Director of Mission and Public Affairs, said the EHRC “needs to find ways to consult with all its stakeholders without assuming that we can sit around a table with those whose objective is to remove us from that table”.
Keith Porteous-Wood and Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society (NSS), accused the Christian denominations of leaving because they were “not getting their way”.
Although the group advised the Equality and Human Rights Commission, it received no government funding and all attendance was voluntary.
In a joint letter sent to the group’s chairman Barney Leith, of the Baha’i faith, the Christian members said the meetings had not been achieving “all that had been hoped”. They admitted that the group’s members are “incapable of reconciliation” and that its consultative role had been “disappointing”.
Keith Porteous-Wood and Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society, which represented atheists, accused the Christians of leaving because they were “not getting their way”. The secularists have accused the church groups of attempting to use the group to lobby for the right to continue to discriminate according to religious doctrine in areas such as education, employment and gay adoption.
The Reverend Peter Colwell, of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, said the group was unable to deliver and the churches wanted to engage “more constructively” with the Equality and Human Rights Commission. “The hope is that this will precipitate the folding up of the group.”
A spokesman for the Commission said the group was set up to provide a joint framework for faith communities and non-religious belief organisations to keep in touch with developments.
“Unfortunately, it has become clear that some Christian church members of the group felt unable to continue in the group in its current form,” he added.
