[Miguel]

4) Education

• The Regulation 16 exemption does not cover faith schools (Regulation 16(2)(b)). Thus there is no
protection in the Northern Ireland SORs guaranteeing teachers in faith schools the right to teach
that marriage is preferable to a homosexual civil partnership or that marriage is the best context
for the upbringing of a family, even though these are beliefs and values adhered to strongly in
Northern Ireland. The Council for Catholic maintained schools is also covered under harassment
or discrimination on sexual orientation in carrying out education orders and the curriculum is also
affected (by virtue of Regulation 10(b) and the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 (NI. 11).

• Because of the presence of the harassment provisions (see above), the potential for an aggrieved
student to sue his faith school if they taught from the Bible about the importance of marriage and
all sex outside marriage is wrong, is alarming: he would simply need to argue that as a gay
student, this teaching put him in a ‘hostile’ or ‘insulting’ environment.

• By way of example: a Church of England school provides education, and were the Regulations to
become law without an exemption for faith schools, it would be illegal for that school to have a
‘bias’ on their curriculum in favour of heterosexual relationships – this would discriminate (it
would constitute ‘less favourable treatment’ (Regulation 3(1)(a)) against any homosexual pupils
or homosexual parents who wanted there to be teaching about the acceptability of homosexuality
and who wanted to be given relevant information regarding homosexual relationships. And yet
many parents in faith schools would want teachers to be free to articulate such principles about
sexual chastity. This does not seem to accord with Article 9 ECHR (below).

• There are substantial concerns that these Regulations may be contrary to Article 9 of the
European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which states that “Everyone has the right to
freedom of thought, conscience and religion, this right includes freedom to change his religion or
belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to
manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance”.
Conclusions

• The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship urges careful consideration of the procedural and
substantive problems which beset these Regulations.

• The Northern Ireland SORs should not be allowed to set an unworkable precedent for
British law: they pre-empt the England, Wales and Scotland SORs which have been
given much more detailed and careful scrutiny. The Northern Ireland SORs should not
be used to undermine this.

• The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship believes the Northern Ireland Regulations should be
annulled in order that amendments can be made so that exemptions can be included in
order to i) ensure that the ‘non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation’
provision is targeted correctly at outlawing irrational prejudice against homosexuals
whilst ii) ensuring that Christians are free to continue to adhere to and uphold the
Bible’s teaching that all extra-marital sexual practice is wrong.