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, …
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Sorry Archbishop, equality before the law is a ‘general social good’
June 5th, 2013 | Posted by in Blog | News - (0 Comments)Government objection to humanist marriage is ‘nonsense on stilts’ (says Tory MP!)
May 29th, 2013 | Posted by in News - (0 Comments)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 …
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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 …
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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.
Why Labour should support truly equal marriage
March 6th, 2013 | Posted by in Blog | News - (0 Comments)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.
Parliament should disestablish the Church, not waste time trying to reform it
November 23rd, 2012 | Posted by in News - (0 Comments)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 …
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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 …
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Secularist priorities for the Labour Party
October 30th, 2012 | Posted by in Events | News - (0 Comments)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 …
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No Prayer Breakfast – write up and photos!
October 16th, 2012 | Posted by in Events | News - (0 Comments)Together with the British Humanist Association (BHA) we held an extremely successful fringe meeting at this year’s Labour Party conference in Manchester. 100 delegates packed out the room for our 5th ‘No Prayer Breakfast’ and as usual provided really lively discussion. We had a great panel of speakers – committed Labour Humanists Angela Eagle MP …
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We are pleased to be joining up with the British Humanist Association again to hold this year’s No Prayer Breakfast at Labour party conference, to discuss so-called ‘militant secularism’. We have a great line-up of speakers: Polly Toynbee (Guardian columnist and president of the BHA) Andrew Copson (Chief executive, BHA) Angela Eagle MP (tbc) Kelvin Hopkins MP Sunny …
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