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2) Publicly funded religious organisations


• According to the Northern Ireland Sexual Orientation Regulations (Regulation 16(8)) a religious
organisation that would otherwise be exempt from the Regulations loses that exemption if they
provide their goods, services etc on behalf of a public authority under the terms of a contract.
Most often this will be a funding contract.

• Thousands of Christian organisations lovingly and caringly provide essential services to the public
across the country – whether community centres, homeless shelters, services for the elderly,
drug rehabilitation or others. Almost all work in partnership with the local authorities, and many
receive funding from those authorities for the excellent work they do.

• The fact the exemption will not apply to such service providers means that those which wish to
refuse to promote or assist homosexual practice will lose their funding and therefore will possibly
be forced to shut down. The protection afforded to charities by Regulation 26 is only very limited
– this is indicated by the fact that Regulation 16(8) expressly ensures charities (and other
organizations) who receive public funding are not exempted from the non-discrimination
provisions of the SORs.

• The problem with the SORs is not that, for example, a Christian community centre which receives
public funding wants to refuse to serve food to homosexuals. Of course Christians would not wish
to do this. The problem is that the same Christian community centre does want to be able to say
(as they are currently able) 'we believe that all people are created as equals but we cannot allow
our premises to be used to promote something contrary to the Bible' and therefore turn away a
homosexual group wishing to use the centre for such purposes.

• The recent case (featured in The Telegraph, 12/12/06) with Haringey Council illustrates the point.
The Christian lady running the voluntary Family Centre explained very clearly to the local council
that her position was "We welcome gay people but we will not promote gay values". This was not
enough to satisfy the local council who threatened to withdraw funding from the centre. The
Northern Ireland SORs will have the same impact in hundreds of other cases.

3) Harassment
• Contrary to the clear position of the Government consultation into the Regulations, the published
Northern Ireland SORs outlaw harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation (Regulation
3(3)).

• The Government consultation paper (at page 47) had stated: “On the basis of the complex
arguments put forward we are minded to accept that it is not appropriate to legislate
for harassment within these Regulations. We feel that the future Single Equality Bill
will provide a more appropriate vehicle to consider harassment in terms of goods,
facilities and services, and allow more time to deal with the complex arguments that
have been put forward”.

• None of the 21 questions asked of the public in the consultation paper made any reference to
harassment. Despite this, the Regulations laid before Parliament do make harassment on the
grounds of sexual orientation illegal.

• Only 9 of the 373 individuals and organizations who responded to the consultation sought the
outlawing of harassment through the Regulations (page 9 of the consultation).

• The new law on harassment is worryingly broad in ambit. As the Northern Ireland SOR
consultation openly acknowledged (at page 47) “During the passage of the Equality Act 2006,
members of the House of Lords argued strongly that, while the concept [of a harassment law]
sat more easily in the employment sphere, it was extremely difficult to define what constitutes
violation of dignity in terms of goods or service provision”.

• The scope of the harassment provisions relies heavily on the perception of the person who feels
harassed: if someone (of any sexual orientation) feels their ‘dignity has been violated’ or that
they have been subjected to a ‘humiliating or offensive environment’ then they will be able to
sue the person involved in a stand-alone ‘injury to feelings’ claim.

• There is a concern that the courts may be burdened with unmeritorious claims by those who are
sensitive about their sexual orientation and who dislike and seek to silence the legitimate
opinions of others.

• We also believe that the breadth of the harassment provisions will lead to an unacceptable
chilling of freedom of speech and expression in a similar way to that threatened by the original
version of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill which was defeated in Parliament in January 2006.
The high level of the standard penalties for an injury to feelings claim under existing
discrimination laws (£500 - £5000 for a one-off offence rising to £5000 - £15,000 if the offensive
action has occurred on a few occasions) further increases the likelihood that the Regulations will
have a chilling effect on free speech.

• The following example illustrates these points: A member of the ‘lesbian and gay Christian
movement’ goes to a Christian bookshop in his home town in Northern Ireland. The bookshop
contains many books, some of which refer to homosexual practice as a sin. There are posters on
the walls of the shop promoting marriage as the only right sexual relationship and the only right
context for bringing up children. If the man felt the presence of this material ‘violated his dignity’
or created a ‘hostile environment’ he would be able to bring a legal action under the Regulations
claiming that he had been unlawfully harassed. The test for whether the claim would succeed is
whether it is reasonable (and the court is required to pay special attention to the claimant’s
perception of the situation) for the man to have felt harassed. It would certainly be an arguable
case. If the man won, even if the alleged harassment occurred on one single occasion, the
bookshop could be ordered to pay him up to £5000.

• Crucially, because the religious exemption in the Regulations (Regulation 16) does not cover
harassment, churches are also subject to the harassment provisions. For example: a church
welcomes a homosexual couple. After a number of months of attendance, whilst the homosexual
couple are clearly continuing in their practising homosexual relationship, the vicar speaks to
them in private and explains that while they are welcome to continue attending church and
seeking God, he does not feel he is able to give them communion while they are unrepentant of
their extra-marital sexual behaviour. Should the couple take offence at this, then they would
have an arguable case that their dignity had been violated by this action of the vicar, and could
sue the church.