Freedom at Risk
by
Prof. William Wagner
“Discrimination” and “Equality” laws may well force Christians into silence, to act against their conscience or risk being on the wrong side of the law. Thus, many Christians around the world are paying close attention to the E.U.’s so-called “Equal Treatment” Directive. This Directive extends “discrimination” law based on sexual orientation, religion or belief, to the provision of goods, facilities and services. Included within the parameters of discrimination is something the directive calls harassment.
Unfortunately, the Equality and Human Rights Commission recently endorsed the harassment provision of the proposed Directive. In doing so, the EHRC gravely threatens freedom of speech and the free exercise of religious conscience in the United Kingdom. “Harassment,” as vaguely defined in the Directive, allows an individual to accuse someone of discrimination merely for expressing something the individual allegedly perceives as creating an offensive environment. For example, once someone decides to perceive an offer of prayers or words of comfort by a hospital chaplain based on his faith as offensive, that person can bring legal action against the chaplain and the hospital, even if the chaplain at the hospital intended no offense. To further chill fundamental freedoms, the burden of proof then shifts to the chaplain to prove that the accuser was not offended.
Discussions about faith or sexual ethics, during the provision of a service to the public or commercial service, provide endless opportunities for individuals to allege offence – and to silence those whose views are informed by ancient sacred tenets. Censuring an idea simply because the idea is informed by a religious worldview, prevents thousands of years of wisdom from informing the civic ethic. A citizen who attempts to inform the civic ethic should not be punished or persecuted simply because the citizen’s ideas are informed by sincerely held Christian truths.
In a democracy, freedom of expression is not needed to protect the ideas of people with whom those in power agree – it is needed to protect people who express ideas with which those in power do not agree. Thus, the test of a functioning moral democracy is not whether the government protects speech with which it agrees – it is whether it will protect expression which is against its own viewpoint. Instead of censuring or punishing speech, good governance always allows more speech. Selective enforcement and punishment of expression sends a bitter chill throughout the citizenry in a democracy. Institutional integrity cannot exist without personal virtue. Good governance and civic institutional integrity rest on the virtue of its citizens. Christian ideas support and nurture this virtue and should, therefore, always be permitted within the marketplace of ideas.
Professor William Wagner teaches Ethics and Constitutional Law at the Cooley Law School. Before joining academia, he served as a federal judge in the United States Courts.
To view the EHRC response to the GEO Consultation which endorses the harassment provision in the Directive (which CCFON and CLC oppose), click here.
Please see the CCFON and CLC main response to the GEO consultation on the EU Equal Treatment Directive by clicking here.
Please also see the CCFON and CLC Appendix to our Main Response to the GEO with commentary on the EHRC response to the GEO consultation by clicking here.
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