I am inescapably reminded of the quip after reading about the intervention of the world’s most prominent former Hitler Youth into current UK debates about equality.
Benedict XVI believes that British legislation runs contrary to natural law, placing ‘limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs’. This is widely taken as a reference to the ban on adoption agencies, including Catholic adoption agencies, discriminating against gay adoptive parents.
It may also be a sideswipe the current equality bill, which narrows the existing exemptions enjoyed by religious groups, permitting them to insist that employees abide by their doctrines.
Well, New Labour in office has been adamant about its wish for ‘dialogue’ with ‘faith communities’, so it can hardly feign surprise when a religion with over 4m adherents takes it up on the idea.
It’s worth noting here that well into the 1970s, many inner city Catholic priests in England wielded a de facto block vote, and this remains the case today in parts of Scotland. The faithful have traditionally been advised to ‘vote Labour with no illusions’, to borrow a catchphrase.
Benedict XVI’s appeal to Lex Naturalis instantly makes me uneasy. It’s an elastic concept that indisputably forms part of the western liberal tradition, but does have a certain protean quality.
Catholicism endows the term with a very specific Thomist understanding. As I understand it, natural law is the philosophical basis of the Romanist job lot rejection of rubber johnnies, birth control pills, inappropriate self-stimulation of one’s pudenda and homosexuality.
Conception is the natural end of sex, and therefore procreation must be open to the possibility, even if that means large numbers of Africans coming down with HIV.
What of the issues at hand? I’ve heard it said that Catholic adoption agencies do good work, frequently finding homes for severely handicapped kids that are the hardest to place. Religious believers are seemingly more motivated to take on this difficult task, and the rest of us should be thankful for that.
But why have specifically Catholic adoption agencies in the first place? Aren’t they a throwback to the days when knocked-up Catholic schoolgirls needed somewhere to dump the unfortunate sprog before getting carted off to the nearest Magdalene Laundry?
Given the change in social mores, adoption nowadays is more properly the job of local government. The interests of the children involved are the only real priority, and to deny them loving care on the grounds of an adopter’s sexuality is not the best way to advance them. Catholicism needs either to get with the programme. If it feels it cannot do so, it should butt out of the field.
But on the matter of employment, the Pope has a rather stronger case, albeit on strictly secular grounds. It is not the province of government to rule on whom any voluntary association may or may not accept into membership or put on its payroll. For the sake of a healthy relationship between state and civil society, this point really has to prevail.
Perhaps the first significant erosion of this principle came with the Tory anti-union laws of the 1980s, which withdrew from trade unions the ability to exclude strike-breakers, and forced them to accept applications from active fascists.
We will see if the rightwing commentators who will no doubt speak up in favour of Benedict XVI in the days ahead possess sufficient logical consistency to accept this elementary point.
And writing as a leftwing commentator, yes, precisely the same consideration applies to the nonsensical decision that the British National Party should be forced to accept black members. Isn’t hating black people the very point of being in the BNP?
If the same yardstick was applied universally, Hizb ut Tahrir would be debarred from turning down evangelical Christians, for instance. I’m looking forward to the test case already.
Common sense alone dictates that the League Against Cruel Sports has no duty to be an equal opportunities employer in respect of illegal cock fighting aficionados. If you apply to be a Conservative parliamentary candidate and then inform the selection meeting that you are an anarcho-syndicalist, you do not have grounds subsequently to bring a discrimination case.
Peter Tatchell – a man with whom I usually agree on much – has been widely quoted taking the Pope to task on this one. But my guess is that he wouldn’t hire an overt homophobe for an admin job at OutRage!
By the same token, if you want to work for the Catholic Church, your potential bosses might reasonably expect you to uphold the teachings of Catholicism. If you are gay, it will presumably not have escaped your notice that the Vatican has a longstanding downer on hot man-on-man legover action.
And why would a self-respecting gay man or woman want to be a member of an organisation that teaches them that same-sex personal relationships are sinful, anyway? There are plenty of wussy denominations that take a more inclusive line, not least the Church of England.
A substantial wing of the CoE even lays theological claim to a brand of camper than a row of tents Catholicity, and will happily do you all the smells and bells you can handle. What’s not to like?
