EU Directive may curb religious freedom

Imagine this, A Christian Organisation opens a Christian school in the Inverness area. They obviously need teachers and of course being a Christian school they want Christian teachers.
So they place an advert in the paper and have people in for interviews. One candidate is interviewed, very bright and with very good qualifications but he is not a Christian. Of course the candidate is rejected. Unfortunately, this candidate takes the school to court for discriminating against him on the grounds of religion. Ridiculous, you say, he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. How can the candidate say that he has been discriminated against? It’s a Christian school!
This may sound ludicrous but if the government backs a proposed EU employment directive he will have every right to take the school to court. The directive, or more specifically article 13, states:

“within the limits of the powers conferred by it [the Treaty] upon the Community, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation”.

Notice that religion or belief could not be discriminated against if this was passed into law. So any Christian organisation could be forced to employ Muslims, Sikhs or even homosexuals. As the directive stands the only posts that are secure are those of religious education teachers.
As Christian Institute Director, Colin Hart, has said: “Unless the Government vetoes the directive and removes ‘religion’, ‘belief’ and ‘sexual orientation’ from its remit, the secular Courts will be given legal teeth to wreak havoc with the ethos of Churches and the non-Christian denominations”.

“...It seems strange that some organisations wish to discriminate against people on the basis of whether their life partner is of the same or opposite gender.”

As with Section 28 it seems the government once again will not stand up for those with serious concerns about this directive. In a House of Commons debate this July, Ms Jowell, the Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities stated “We are keen to protect people who have risked discrimination on grounds of their religious faith, but by the same token, that should not enable bigotry to be dressed up as religious necessity”. Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon) argued “I would give a good performance at teaching something that I did not go along with. Hon. Members do it all the time…It seems strange that some organisations wish to discriminate against people on the basis of whether their life partner is of the same or opposite gender”. If MPs like this get there way, how will we ever have a true Christian Organisation? The time is coming brethren, and I believe it is not far off, when we will be imprisoned for our beliefs. We may soon be shaken out of our slumber and the apathy that infects many Christians today will be made all too apparent when we are put to the test and asked, “Do you discriminate against a homosexual, an atheist or Jew in our protestant Christian Organisations?” - and the answer must be a resounding “yes”.
However, this answer may well put you at odds with the law and land you in prison. Will we stand by and allow government to legislate in this way or shall we once again pray fervently, write to our MPs and MSP’s to campaign against this directive?

Web Sites
The Christian Institute: http://www.christian.org.uk
Department for Education and Employment, press release