Confusion About Religion Rights

Thursday March 12

The largest ever public consultation carried out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission has found widespread public confusion and misunderstanding about the laws protecting freedom of religion or belief.

The Commission wanted to find out what people experience in their day to day lives following extensive media and public debate about how people are able to express their religious and other beliefs. Often that included how to deal with the right to express beliefs which others might view as offensive.

Nearly 2,500 people responded to the call for evidence. They included people holding a wide range of religious beliefs as well as humanists, secularists and atheists, and covered employers and workers across the public and private sectors.

The largest number of responses came from Christians from a number of denominations. Some reported that they feared their religion is losing its place in the workplace and in society more generally, that they felt they were under pressure to keep their religion hidden and were discriminated against when it came to wearing religious symbols or expressing their beliefs.

People reported being mocked for their beliefs including Christians, who said their colleagues assumed they were bigoted. Jewish and Muslim participants said they found it hard to get time off work, even as part of their normal annual leave, for religious observance. Others alleged that they were excluded from meetings, or passed over for promotion or recruitment due to their beliefs and felt unable to raise the issue for fear of repercussions.

Humanists and atheists reported that they experienced unwanted religious proselytising at work, and they did not have access to counselling support in hospital as chaplains were provided on a religious basis. This group also reported feeling excluded in workplaces which held prayer meetings or events in religious buildings.

The treatment of religion or belief in educational establishments was also a cause for concern. Christian and humanist parents both reported their children being ridiculed in schools for their beliefs.

Some Christian-run services or businesses said they felt ‘in turmoil’ about behaving in ways that they feared might breach the Equality Act 2010, which protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in access to goods and services.

The results of the consultation will inform a report on the adequacy of the laws protecting religion or belief to be issued later this year. The Commission will also be producing guidance for employers and people who provide services to the public.

Mark Hammond, CEO of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: “How the law deals with religion and other beliefs in work, in providing services and in public debate has become a matter of considerable controversy. We carried out this consultation to gather first-hand evidence of how people deal with this issue in the workplace and in service delivery.

“What we found from the thousands of responses we received was a complex picture of different opinions and experiences. However, what came out strongly was the widespread confusion about the law, leading to some resentment and tensions between groups and anxiety for employers who fear falling foul of what they see as complicated equality and human rights legislation.

“We also found examples of organisations which had taken a constructive approach to dealing with issues of religion or belief, with employees providing positive experiences of diverse and inclusive workplaces. We’ll use this evidence as we examine how effective the law is in this area and develop guidance which we hope will help everyone address some of the issues which have come out of the consultation.”

The Evangelical Alliance called for clarity into the right to express religious beliefs. Dr Don Horrocks, head of public affairs, said: “We warmly welcome the new constructive tone from the Commission and that they finally seem to be trying to take religion and belief seriously and focus on properly recognising the protected characteristic of religion and belief. This comes after many years of largely ignoring Christians and actually opposing their concerns in the courts.

“However, there remains a clear reluctance to tackle infringement of freedom of conscience and the emergent hierarchy of human rights, which has left people of faith firmly at the bottom and often wondering whether in practice religion and belief is a protected right at all. There is a long way to go to achieve parity and equality on a fair playing field with other rights.”

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