The head of the UK’s
Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Philips, has compared [1] Christians
who want 
to protect their conscience rights
with Muslims who want to impose Sharia law
This is gravely
offensive to British Christians, and borderline disgraceful, for a number of
reasons.
Firstly, the
Christians in question are merely trying to reach an accomodation with a
legislative regime which violates their deeply held beliefs. They are manifestly
not trying to impose those beliefs upon anyone else.
On the contrary, it
is the State which is imposing its equality
absolutism on them.
Take the case of
Lilian Ladelle. Ms Ladelle was a marriage registrar with Islington Council and a
committed Christian. Because of her faith, she was unwilling to register same-sex civil unions. This would not interfere with the ability of same-sex
couples to have their civil unions registered because a colleague would do it
instead.
She wrote to the
Council requesting that they accommodate her
beliefs on this; they responded by charging her with gross misconduct. They also
stood by while many of her colleagues waged a campaign of bullying against her
over her stance.
Then there are (or
rather, there were, before they were forced to close down) the Catholic adoption
agencies. These agencies were widely recognised as having done sterling work.
They were noted for being the best placed to find places for children who no-one
else would look after.
But according to
Trevor Philips, their refusal to refer same-sex couples as adoptive couples
renders this work null and void. Instead, they are accused of being akin to
Taliban-like theocrats.
What Philips fails to
realise is that he inhabits a country whose laws bear the imprint of centuries
of Christian influence. Christianity is woven into the fabric of British law,
language and culture.
Sharia law, on the
other hand, is a system which is utterly alien to the UK.
For a start, it is
based on a completely different idea of the law. In Sharia, there is no concept
of the separation of religious authority and state authority. Sharia is applied
by Islamic judges, and religious leaders, imams, have a role in interpreting it.
Quite apart from
that, certain elements of Sharia are thoroughly incompatible with Western
standards of justice (standards, incidentally, which have Christian roots). Sin
is essentially regarded as crime, thus adultery, regarded as immoral by
Christianity, is regarded as both sinful and criminal under
Sharia.
The comparison with
Sharia is also outrageous because it effectively equates Christians with
Taliban-like extremists in the public mind.
The public, often unfairly, is inclined to associate Sharia
with Islamic militancy of the sort that has seen people killed in riots because
of cartoons insulting the prophet Muhammed, the fatwa against author Salman
Rushdie and the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
Muslims are far more
likely to react to insults to their faith than are Christians, and unfortunately
this reaction sometimes spills over into violence. For this reason, comedians
and satirists (unless they are very brave or very foolish) tend not to lampoon
Islam, but stick to attacks on Christianity, which are far safer. It is hard to
remember the last time there was a major protest against blasphemy against
Christianity which descended into violence.
Philips’ attack on
Christians was a cheap shot, and if he took his role as Equality and Human
Rights Commissioner seriously, he would apologise or
resign.