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One Year Anniversary of the defeat of the Government’s version of the Religious Hatred Bill: Praise the Lord!

Published: January 31st, 2007
Printer-friendly version 31st January 2007


Summary


  1. Please take time to pray and thank God for his miraculous and gracious intervention last year to defeat the government’s version of the Religious Hatred Bill. Exactly one year ago (31st January 2006) the House of Commons met to vote on the Government’s manifesto pledged Religious Hatred Bill which threatened Christian liberty to speak about the Gospel. God dramatically answered our prayers as Parliament historically rejected the Government’s wording of the Bill by 1 single vote.


    Remind yourself of God’s wonderful intervention by reading an extract from an e-mail we sent out before the vote on the 30th January 2006 and after the victory on the 1st February 2006 in the ‘Full Update’ (below).


  2. We must also continue to pray for a miracle in the situation surrounding the Sexual Orientation Regulations. Please write and thank the Catholic and Anglican bishops who have boldly spoken out against the Government decision not to grant any exemptions for adoption agencies or any Christian individuals. Please see the ‘Full Update’ section below for a selection of the best comments that have been made in the media.


  3. There will be a vote in the next month or so in the House of Commons and the House of Lords on the SORs. Please in particular contact David Cameron ( ) and other Conservative MPs to express disappointment that David Cameron publicly expressed his support for the Government’s position not to grant a freedom of conscience exemption in the SORs.

  4. Please pray for the tribunal who are meeting tomorrow to make a decision in the Andrew McClintock case (see link below) as to whether as a Christian magistrate, he can refuse to place children to be adopted with same-sex couples. Please pray that they will make the right decision.

  5. Please also consider voting on a poll undertaken by the London newspaper ‘London Lite’ regarding whether you are in favour of the £100m Mega-Mosque proposed for West Ham (see link below). There is also a gay adoption poll on the same site.

  6. Please consider financially supporting the work we do by making a donation: http://www.christianconcernforournation.co.uk/donation.php


LET US TAKE TIME TO PRAISE GOD FOR HIS SOVEREIGNTY AND FOR HIS MERCY IN ANSWERING OUR PRAYERS ON THE RELIGIOUS HATRED BILL. LET US PRAY FOR HIS CONTINUED HAND OVER OUR NATION AND HIS INTERVENTION WHEN THE GOVERNMENT SEEKS TO PASS LAWS WHICH THREATEN OUR FREEDOM TO SPEAK OPENLY AND LIVE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE BIBLE’S TEACHING.


Links

Full Update

Religious Hatred Bill

Two days before the RHB vote in January 2006, we sent an e-mail to all the Christians on our list saying “The vote in the Commons on the 31st January (next Tuesday) is critical. Many MPs opposed to the Bill are maintaining their strong opposition to the Bill, but others are wavering for no other reason than their perception that there is no point opposing the Bill because not enough other MPs are standing up to the government... We should pray that the outcome in Parliament next week is the outcome which affords most protection for the freedom to preach the gospel without fear of unwarranted punishment, and the outcome which will help eradicate the malicious stirring up of religious hatred in Britain.”

The day after the victorious vote, we wrote in a new e-mail: “What can we say but PRAISE GOD!! It was by his glory and grace that our months of prayer and petition were answered! Last night the government’s version of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill was defeated, despite the government’s majority of 67MPs and the immense pressure exerted by the government to get people to vote for the Bill. It is only the second time in 9 years that Labour have lost a vote in the Commons. It was a vote which even the opposition MPs said could not be won. It is a vote which Christians knew, faithfully trusting in God’s sovereignty, could always be won.”

“The BBC news website described it as a ‘surprise defeat’, the London Metro and The Daily Mail described it as a ‘Shock defeat’, and in the Guardian, Labour minister Mr. Hain ‘admitted the government had been taken by surprise by the defeat.’”



Press quotes about the Government’s decision not to grant exemptions from the SORs


Dr Tom Wright (Bishop of Durham) in The Times (30/1/07): The Government’s decision on gay adoption agencies “completely fails to take into account the views and beliefs of all those involved. The idea that new Labour - which has got every second thing wrong and is back-tracking on extended drinking hours, in a mess over this cash-for-peerages business, cannot keep all its prisons under control - the idea that new Labour can come up with a new morality which it forces on the Catholic Church after 2000 years; I am sorry, this is amazing arrogance on the part of the Government”.


Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor (Head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales) in The Telegraph (31/1/07) “Leaders of these faiths have appealed for space in which this conviction can be respected in the public sector. They have appealed for respect for their religious conscience, so that the contribution of well-established agencies, working for the common good, such as Catholic adoption agencies, can continue. These appeals have been turned down. We are being told that, in this matter of adoption, religious conscience is over-ruled by regulation.”



Let us give thanks to God. It is good to know that He is sovereign and that though we are in the midst if the battle the victory belongs to Him.

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