Church of England’s equality law exemptions allow for ‘abuse, homophobia and sexism, says Bishop

Oct 9, 2017 by Andrew Symes

By Harry Farley, Christian Today.

A sitting bishop has called for the Church of England to be stripped of its exemptions under the Equalities Act to stamp out ‘deep structures of abuse, homophobia and sexism’.

Under the 2010 legislation the established Church has special rights to overrule equality laws meaning when it appoints people to new roles it can discriminate on the basis of sex, marital history, gender identity, sexuality and faith if they conflict with ‘strongly held religious convictions’. A 2013 document approved by senior bishops permitted church officials to insist clergy were ‘not a transsexual and were not married to a divorcee whose ex-spouse was still alive.

But the Bishop of Buckingham says these rules also allow for a culture of abuse, homophobia and sexism.

Rt Rev Alan Wilson has called for these special privileges to be removed and priests be allowed to conduct same-sex weddings if they wish.

‘If the church were far more observant of the Equality Act, then deep structures of abuse, homophobia and sexism would not be embedded in the church in the way they are,’ he told the Times.

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