Responding to proposed Sexual Orientation Regulations

URGENT ACTION REQUIRED OVER PROPOSED SEXUAL ORIENTATION REGULATIONS

All churches linked with Affinity are encouraged to take action with regard to the Sexual Orientation Regulations which are due to take effect later this year.

In the run-up top this new legislation, there are two important stages in the timetable:

[1] The period before the government announces what exemptions it is prepared to accept on behalf of churches and individual Christians.

[2] Once the government has made its proposals clear, there will be a period for lobbying MPs and peers, as both houses of Parliament will have to approve the measures before they can become law.

At that time, churches and individual Christians can seek to persuade Parliament, through MPs and peers, to extend the exemptions if the government’s permitted exemptions fall short of what is fair, sensible and necessary.

Churches are urged to take action in connection with both of the above stages.

In connection with period 1, if your church did not send a submission in response to the formal Consultation, please write immediately to Meg Munn, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Women and Equality), Department for Communities and Local Government, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DU (Tel. 020 7944 4400; email: ), urging that exemptions are permitted in respect of:

• All activities involving worship or teaching by and within a church
• Decisions by churches regarding the use of their premises by outside organisations
• The arrangements and requirements imposed in respect of church-related and other Christian holidays, conferences, and other residential events
• Activities which promote marriage and which advocate the supremacy of marriage over all other possible types of personal relationship
• Decisions regarding the use of church-owned residential property and main residences owned by individuals.  Churches and individual Christians must remain free to refuse to have same-sex couples as tenants without incurring legal penalty or liability.
• The lawful freedom to decline business commissions without penalty (e.g. a Christian photographer must remain free to decline, on grounds of conviction and conscience, a commission to photograph a Civil Partnership occasion.)

Please refer specifically to particular examples of how your church or any of its members will be directly affected.  If, for instance, your church premises are used by outside organisations, point out that unless exemption is granted to churches to discriminate over the type of user, then because you will be unwilling to run the risk of having to let the premises to groups linked with or supportive of same-sex relationships, all use by outside organisations will have to stop, which will be no social benefit at all to anyone.

If you have a Christian business person in your membership whose business will be at risk if it is not permissible to discriminate between clients, point out how unjust this is, when the person concerned is not following a vindictive personal agenda, but a moral and biblical understanding which was widely shared within the nation, and reflected in English criminal law, only a matter of 40 years ago. 

Whether your church submitted a response to the Consultation or not, please contact your MP immediately, asking him or her to make representations to Meg Munn, in support of the case for exemptions.  The weight of the arguments presented, and the amount of political concern being expressed, will help to persuade the government to take seriously the need for exemptions.  If the clamour grows quickly and immediately, this will be in time to influence the extent of the exemptions the government will announce.

When it comes to stage 2, make yourself aware of what exemptions the government has or has not already granted in its published proposals, and concentrate on those which the government has not adopted.

Make contact with your MP – by personal visit to his or her “surgery” or by letter – and ask him or her to support the extension of the exemptions to cover the areas not included by the government.  Again, use examples of the ways in which the church and its members will be particularly affected if the exemptions are not extended.

The JULY 2006 issue of The Bulletin contains two articles pertaining to the proposed Sexual Orientation Regulations.  The Bulletin can be downloaded from the Affinity web site.  Print off as many copies as you need and send one to your MP, with your letter, and to anyone else to whom you make representations. 

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUERIES ABOUT THE SEXUAL ORIENTATION REGULATIONS, OR ABOUT HOW TO PROCEED, PLEASE CONTACT ROD BADAMS AT THE FIEC OFFICE, 39 THE POINT, MARKET HARBOROUGH LE16 7QU.  Tel. 01858 411554; Email:

Rod Badams
28 July 2006