There and Back Again

[steepholm]

I went to visit my mother yesterday, and bought a Daily Telegraph for the train journey (only for the crossword - honest!). Anyway, after I'd given up on the puzzle I read this piece about the Equality Bill, which several of the Bishops in the House of Lords want to amend so that people will be able to refuse to do things that conflict with their conscience without being penalized in terms of employment. Thus:

Peers claimed that the Equality Bill should be altered to allow people to act according to their conscience when providing goods and services, in the same way that doctors are allowed to refuse to carry out abortions.

Bishop Scott-Joynt, the fifth most senior cleric in the Church of England, pointed out that similar exemptions had been requested but refused in the case of civil partnerships. A Christian registrar, Lilian Ladele, lost a case for unfair dismissal after she refused to carry out the ceremonies for homosexual couples.

The bishop said in a debate in the House of Lords: “The implication of the [conscience] amendment is that each of us... is bound to work as hard as we can to hold the whole range of different people's rights, because there is a sense around that some rights are better than others."

This "some rights are better than others" line strikes me as very unconvincing, not least because I can think of many examples of people's consciences conflicting with their work duties where no one else's rights are affected at all. For example, a vegan who works in an abbatoir, whose conscience won't let them be involved in the killing of animals. A pacifist in the SAS, whose conscience won't let them kill people. A person who works for Huntingdon Life Sciences but is against vivisection. Pacifists, vegans and anti-vivisectionists are all people of conscience for whom I have the greatest respect, even more than for those who believe homosexuality is a sin. So, would the bishops argue that all the people in these examples should be allowed to keep their jobs without penalty? And if not, why not? Am I missing some vital part of their argument?





How times change! On the platform of Romsey station this morning I saw a poster advertising my old comp, though why a state school needs to advertise is beyond me. I see it's changed its name, from plain "Romsey School" to "The Romsey School" - presumably to sound more upmarket. There's a picture of some typical students, too, which, despite the town's being so white that visitors sometimes suffer snow blindness, tries for a multiracial image. "So that's what a black person looks like," is what I imagine the two kids either side of him are thinking. The school has even sprouted a mission statement:

The Romsey School is a community that aims for all...

• To experience and enjoy new challenges and opportunities


• To have a sense of belonging and pride in our school


• To treat others with fairness, kindness and respect


• To make healthy, informed and responsible choices


• To be able to cope with life's ups and downs


• To have a sense of awe and wonder


• To acquire a lifelong love of learning


• To be an active and caring citizen


• To be successful


• TO BE HAPPY

I can sign up to most of that list, but I rather wish they'd mentioned something about, say, being able to write a grammatical sentence, add up, and get some, like, you know, knowledge. But that's probably the influence of the Daily Telegraph.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

You have a good point there about the job changing around Lilian Ladele, and to that extent I have some sympathy with her. However, the bishops are not proposing to change the law only to cover that fairly unusual situation, as I understand it, but rather wanting a general opt-out for anyone who finds that the duties of their job doesn't accord with their conscience. I suspect they haven't thought this one through.

And yes, there's no reason as far as I can see that this provision couldn't be used by a sincere racist to "opt out" of having to provide services to black customers/clients/students, etc.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I think the proposed law is horribly wrong-headed. But I'm not entirely sure that the principle is a bad one -- after all, we allow conscientious objection from military service, and I think that's a good thing.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm all in favour of allowing conscientious objection (I was raised a Quaker, after all), but in that case one doesn't usually insist on being allowed to stay in the army. Similarly, a registrar who refuses to carry out the functions of a registrar on conscience grounds should certainly be allowed to do so. However, it's not so obvious that they should continue in that job.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Agreed, absolutely.

[sheenaghpugh]

but in that case one doesn't usually insist on being allowed to stay in the army

Now and again, though... J K Jerome, in WW1, did a Private Godfrey; stayed in and drove an ambulance in France.

The swapping-responsibilities solution, IMO, doesn't take account of other constraints. If some docs refuse to do abortions, others could find themselves doing little but, and may reasonably object that they aren't getting a full spectrum of experience. A mag editor I used to know had difficulty getting male reviewers to review books by women. The result wa that his female reviewers, and we weren't many, got nothing but books by women to review. Why should the blokes have had the choice?

PS

[sheenaghpugh]

should have made clear, of course, that the male reviewers weren't refusing to review women on grounds of conscience - they just didn't like writing by women.

Re: PS

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Or thought they didn't because they never read any... see also the phenomenon of academic conferences where men and women talk about male writers and only women talk about women writers.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's a good point: some of these jobs are zero-sum games. How that consideration plays off against a legitimate desire to specialize, or simply to recognize that there are some aspects of the job for which you have more talent, is a difficult question. But I've no patience with your "just didn't like writing by women" colleagues: that's just sexism wearing a gauze-thin veil of aesthetics.

Btw, Jerome's wasn't a case of conscientious objection, as I understand it. He actually tried to join the army but was rejected on age grounds (he was 55 at the start of the war), and drove an ambulance as the next best thing. But yes, he'd have had quite a few COs amongst his colleagues, I imagine.