Equality Bill and religious organisations

A House of Lords vote means that religious organisations can legally rule out some applicants and deny jobs on the basis of gender or sexuality. Church leaders feared that the legislation introduced in the Equality Bill would force the Catholic Church to ordain women and make it almost impossible to discipline priests who contravened Church teaching.

For the third time the government had tried to amend the Equality Bill so that exemptions applied only to those whose jobs ‘wholly or mainly’ involved taking part in services or rituals, or explaining the doctrines of the religion.

Hoever, the 2003 Employment Regulations remain unchanged, allowing employers to discriminate on the basis of religion and sexual orientation with respect to employment for the purposes of organised religion.