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Labour Humanists at BHA Conference, Leeds

We were busy speaking to people and signing up new members at the British Humanist Association‘s annual conference, held in Leeds 7-9. The conference had an absolutely fantastic programme, with speakers moving from philosophy and chemistry, to astronomy, literature and media sexism. You can have a look at what happened on Twitter and searching for #BHALeeds.

Our leaflets were popular, and it was great to see so many people declaring their affiliation by wearing our new ‘Labour Humanist’ badges!

It’s important for us to attend events such as this so we can raise awareness of our group, and for us to sign up new members. Without people, our voice cannot be heard within the Labour Party.

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We support the Fair Admissions Campaign

A new campaign has launched which wants all state-funded schools in England and Wales to be open equally to all children, without regard to religion or belief. The Fair Admissions Campaign has support from a wide coalition of individuals and national and local organisations, including theBritish Humanist Association (BHA). We are affiliated to the BHA and fully support the aims of the Fair Admissions Campaign.

Our position

Labour Humanists advocates an inclusive and accommodating education system, and we oppose religious discrimination in admissions and employment by state-funded faith schools.

Schools selecting pupils on the basis of the professed faith of the parents are segregating children and young people along religious, socio-economic, cultural, and even ethnic lines. As such, discriminatory faith schools pose a big threat to social cohesion in this country. They also play their part in increasing social inequality, often taking the highest achieving students from their local areas, becoming what are in effect grammar schools by a different name. Their admissions policies also tend to favour those from more affluent backgrounds over children from poorer backgrounds.

Labour Humanists would like to see:

  • No new faith school being allowed to select in its admissions
  • Faith schools’ existing discriminatory admissions policies to be abolished and they cannot apply in future

 

Find out more about the Fair Admissions Campaign and how you can get involved.

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Blog News

Sorry Archbishop, equality before the law is a ‘general social good’

Despite an organised and concerted effort led by Conservatives, Bishops, and other religious Peers, to stop the equal marriage Bill in its tracks, a wrecking amendment was overwhelmingly defeated in a vote last night. The Bill is now likely to make swift progress through the House of Lords before becoming law.

Speaking in the debate, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who is the principal leader of the Church of England and who sits in the parliament by ‘right’ simply because of his position in the Church, opposed equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.

He stated, ‘The majority of faith groups remain very strongly against the Bill, and have expressed that view in a large number of public statements. The House of Bishops of the Church of England has also expressed a very clear majority view.’

He also referenced the issue of faith schools, referring to religious concerns that they would have to teach that same-sex marriage is equal to marriage between a woman and a man. A third of state-funded schools are faith schools and we firmly believe that they should not have opt-outs to allow homophobic teaching based on religious perspectives.

After setting out the strong opposition to equal marriage from his own church and other religious groups, Archbishop Welby went on to say, ‘It is not, at heart, a faith issue; it is about the general social good.’

Well, we firmly believe that valuing and enshrining people’s equality before the law is unquestionably a social good. We are pleased to campaign in favour of the equal marriage Bill alongside others including humanist groups, many religious people and groups such as Quakers and Unitarians, LGBT rights campaigners, and those from across the political spectrum.

The Church of England has tried to stop this important move for equality right from the off, even opposing equal civil marriage for same-sex couples let alone religious marriage. Through its representative in the House of Commons it also strongly opposed popular moves to legalise humanist marriage. Although it gained some wins – no same-sex Anglican couples will ever be allowed to marry in their own Church – ultimately it will lose. The Church should never have been in the position to wield so much influence in the first place. Disestablishment of the Church of England and abolishing the reserved seats for Bishops of the Church of England is long overdue.

Naomi Phillips

Chair, Labour Humanists

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Government objection to humanist marriage is ‘nonsense on stilts’ (says Tory MP!)

When a Tory MP describes his own Government’s top lawyer’s opinion as ‘nonsense on stilts’, you know you are watching something new in the Commons.

For three hours during the Equal Marriage Bill debate, Labour led a cross-Party move to change the law to have legal marriage for humanist couples in England and Wales, as there has been in Scotland since 2005. The majority in the Commons on the day supported the amendment (as pointed out by Dr Julian Huppert MP, vice chair of the Humanist APG). It was deeply disappointing then, that due to the Tory-led Government’s last-minute legal objections, the amendment did not pass.

We are confident, however, that Labour Peers, supported by humanist colleagues across the Parties, will bring the issue back when the Bill reaches the Lords.

Shadow Equalities Minister Kate Green led a storming defence of the rights of non-religious people (gay and straight) to have the right to have a marriage ceremony which reflects their beliefs, and MPs from across the Parties and from humanist and religious backgrounds attended to give their strong support for the proposal.

We would like to thank all of those MPs who worked so hard, and we will continue to work with and support Labour peers to get this important change in the law passed.

The debate is definitely worth reading – you can read the Hansard of the debate or (better!) you canread our Twitter feed from May 21 and those tagged with #equalmarriage.

You can also read more from the British Humanist Association (BHA), to whom we are proudly affiliated.

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Humanist marriage – email your Labour MP

Labour Humanists strongly supports equal marriage for same-sex couples. We also support equal marriage for humanists. That is why we are urging Labour MPs to vote in favour of an amendment to the Marriage Bill which would legalise marriage for humanist couples in England and in Wales, when the Bill reaches its Report stage on 20/21 May.

The amendment has been spearheaded by Labour frontbenchers, and has cross Party support.

Unfortunately the Government has stated that it will oppose moves to legalise humanist marriage, which is why it is even more important for Labour MPs to attend the debate and vote in favour of it to try to ensure that it passes.

To make absolutely clear – the amendment only applies to humanist marriage. It would not make the law any wider to accommodate any other belief system.

In Scotland humanist marriages have had legal status since 2005 and are now more popular than Roman Catholic marriages. The legal recognition of humanist marriage achieved through the amendment would be a progressive change in line with Labour values of equal treatment and non-discrimination. It would also be popular and remove unreasonable disparities between different parts of the United Kingdom.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has set up a facility to help you to email your MP about this important matter. Please do so today.

Thank you for your support.

Read an article by our Chair on equal humanist marriage.

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News

Labour Humanists on BBC One’s The Big Questions

Labour Humanists’ Chair Naomi Phillips was invited to take part in an hour long special episode of BBC’ One’s popular Sunday morning programme The Big Questions. The topic was ‘Should Britain Become a Secular State?’ and other guests included A. C. Grayling, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, Gita Sahgal, and Bishop Michael Nazir Ali.

Watch the episode.

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Blog News

Why Labour should support truly equal marriage

Chair of Labour Humanists Naomi Phillips writes for  LabourList, an independent progressive blog providing a platform for open debate about centre-left issues and the future of the Labour movement, on why Labour should support equal marriage for humanists in England and Wales.

Follow us on Twitter @LabourHumanists.

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Parliament should disestablish the Church, not waste time trying to reform it

Following the Church of England Synod’s vote against allowing women bishops earlier this week, Labour Humanists has restated its position that the Labour Party should speak out for equality and against religious privilege, and put secularism and disestablishment at heart of its policy and parliamentary agenda.

Naomi Phillips, chair of Labour Humanists, commented, ‘The refusal to comply with basic gender equality law and maintaining its sexist approach to women in employment shows the Church of England as completely unsuitable to be part of the state. It should certainly prevent it from having those automatic seats in Parliament from which it bars women, and it illustrates how out of touch it is with a modern, liberal and inclusive society.

‘Yet even if they did allow women to be bishops that would be no reason for the Church to retain its reserved seats in the Lords, or to remain as the established Church of England with all the unearned privileges and power that come with it.

‘Parliament should not waste time trying to reform the Church and instead use this as a good opportunity to focus on passing legislation to disestablish it, and to abolish automatic seats for its bishops in the Lords. As the Party which should have equality at its heart, we would like Labour to take the lead in that endeavour.’

Action on bishops in the Lords

Read Labour Humanists’ letter to Ed Miliband on the place of bishops in the Lords, and why Labour should take the lead on secular law reform.

Support the British Humanist Association’s (BHA) @HolyRedundant campaign to get the bishops out the Lords.

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Blog News

Discriminatory faith schools – update

Selective faith schools and One Nation Labour

A big concern for Labour Humanists is the near-silence from the Labour Party on the issue of permitting state-funded faith schools to discriminate in their admissions policies. Labour Humanists’ chair Naomi Phillips blogged about this on LabourList.org, and argued that support for selective religious schools went against One Nation Labour principles.

It is incoherent that on the one hand a Party which has equality at its heart, which has openly fought against academic and class selection by schools can on the other support, endorse, and enshrine in law the ‘right’ for faith schools to discriminate in their admissions.

We want the issue of discriminatory faith schools to be properly considered by Labour right across the board. If those who support inclusive education in all state-funded schools want to see change and Labour taking the lead against selective school admissions, then we need to get our voices heard in the Party now.

Judicial review of discriminatory faith schools

A legal challenge against approval of new schools because of religious discrimination, heard in the High Court last week, highlighted the growing problem of the proliferation of discriminatory faith schools. Regrettably, that judicial review taken by the British Humanist Association (BHA) and the Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign (RISC) which challenged the decision by the Tory-run Richmond-upon-Thames Council to open two state-funded Catholic schools with highly discriminatory admissions policies was lost. More details about the case and the judgement.

Many oppose selection by state-funded faith schools

The negative impact on social cohesion, caused by dividing up more and more children along religious, class, and often ethnic lines through many faith schools operating highly selective admissions criteria, is far from being solely a humanist concern. A new survey last week had a clear majority of respondents agreeing that ‘state funded schools should not be allowed to select or discriminate against prospective pupils on religious grounds in their admissions policy’. The survey was commissioned by the Accord Coalition, which itself brings together religious groups, humanists, teachers, trade unionists, educationalists and civil rights activists, to campaign for truly inclusive education in the state school sector.

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Events News

Secularist priorities for the Labour Party

Speaking at our No Prayer Breakfast fringe event at Labour Conference, Angela Eagle MP implored those present to make their voices heard within the Party on the issues they care about. Although not speaking in her position as chair of the National Policy Forum, such a request from Angela strongly implies that action to change Party policy on key humanist and secularist issues may not fall on deaf ears.

And the issues and the policies to change are many.

Topping the list at conference were faith schools discriminating against pupils and teachers, and concerns about what children and young people are actually being taught (or not) by many faith schools – not least in the new government-supported, and highly deregulated, religious Academies and Free Schools. Unfortunately previous Labour governments actively gave faith schools of all different types wide permission to discriminate and to teach a curriculum highly skewed towards the religion of the school.

Selection, discrimination, narrow religious curricula. That should not be what a Labour policy towards state-funded schools looks like.

The handing over of public services to religious groups which are allowed to discriminate against staff on religious grounds and proselytise in the provision of services, despite working under contract with the state, was another hot issue at conference.

Our ‘Secular Public Services’ pin badges were extremely popular with delegates and it’s a simple message – public services should be shared, work on the basis of equality and human rights, and never be used as a vehicle for evangelical religious groups to proselytise to often vulnerable people. Labour’s policy in the past has not been to protect the secular nature of public services but we think it absolutely should be.

There are many areas where we believe the Labour Party can and should look ahead and support the secularist position, whether that’s on constitutional reform, equal marriage, public services, education, women’s and LGBT rights, and more. Equality, non-discrimination, human rights, freedom of thought and speech, a rational and evidenced-based approach to policy making. These surely are Labour values as well as humanist and secularist values, and we think they should be enshrined in Labour policies. 

But what should Labour Humanists’ priorities be, as we grow our supporter base working within the Party to affect real policy change for real equality?

Let us know what you would like to see us focus on. Tweet us @LabourHumanists or drop us an email info {at} labourhumanists.org(.)uk 

Don’t forget you can also show your support by joining us, for the equivalent of just £1 a month. Follow the PayPal link on our home page.