No free speech on homosexuality.

Church leaders expressed fears last night that Christians could be sued under proposed new laws to protect gays from harassment.

The Government is proposing to introduce the laws to protect individuals from hostile or humiliating “environments” as part of an overhaul of discrimination legislation.

But Christian lawyers and the Church of England warned that Christians could face legal action if they offended gays by expressing the traditional teaching that homosexual sex was immoral.

The row follows the bitter battle last year over the Sexual Orientation Regulations, which many Christians fear will erode religious freedom and are part of a growing secularisation of society.

The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship said that the new proposals, which may be included in a Single Equality Bill, could allow gays to sue if they heard a sermon that condemned homosexuality.

It added that while a church could “gently refuse membership” to an unrepentant, practising homosexual, “that person, if they felt that they had been put in a 'humiliating position’, could sue the Church.”

The Fellowship also warned that suggestions that local authorities should have a duty to promote gay equality could be “taken too far” and result in state funding being removed from Christian projects.

The Church of England, in its official submission to the Government’s consultation on the Bill, said the proposed harassment laws were unnecessary...

**Oh dear the Govt. has really got itself all mixed up over this. Are they seriously suggesting that the forces of the state are going to come down on some local vicar or priest who quotes some bit from the Bible about how men should not lie with another man as a woman?

And if that is the case, does that also apply to other faiths that take a dim view of homosexuality? Will we seeing a Rabbi hauled before the justice for a similar comment, or even the local Imman taken away from the mosque by the plod for stating the same.

The fact is that homosexuals are protected by law in areas like employment law and that is as it should be. For the government to get into what religious leaders and can not say when preaching to the faithful is just asking for trouble.

Not all people like homosexuality and most homosexuals are strong enough to accept that. A pointless nannying in the affairs of religion in the aim to be right on and all inclusive.

Maybe New Labour can have a word with the Pope on that while they are at it.

I wonder if the Rev. Ian Paisley has anything to say on this?
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