National Law Trumps Religious Law Says UK Equality Chief

Christians who wish to be exempt from national law when it goes against their religious belief are no different to Muslims demanding sharia law, said British Trevor Phillips, chairman of the British Equalities and Human Rights Commission at a debate on February 4. His remarks were reported by the Catholic newspaper the Tablet, and the story appeared on the front page of the Telegraph on February 17.

“The law stops at the door of the temple so far as I’m concerned,” he said. “When you’re inside the church, inside the temple, you’re governed by what you are. But once you start to provide public services that have to be run under public rules, for example child protection, then you have to go with public law.”

His statements came in response to a question about Catholic adoption agencies, which have been forced to close because they will not place children with homosexual couples as Britain’s non-discrimination laws require.

Mr. Phillips was agreeing with statements made by Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who said: “My personal view is that those who are providing public services which are funded by the state cannot discriminate.”

Mr. Phillips argued, “To me there’s nothing different in principle between a Catholic adoption agency saying ‘the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn’t apply to us.’ Why not then say, ‘Okay, then sharia law should apply in certain parts of the country’? It doesn’t work.”

Religion is under attack in both Britain and America, with leaders assuming that Christians will forget their deeply held beliefs and submit to national law.