The chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission has sparked controversy after claiming that Christians who want to opt-out of equality legislation are like Muslims trying to impose sharia law on Britain.
Speaking at a debate in London earlier this week, Trevor Phillips
made the comments while discussing Christian-run adoption agencies who dislike working with gay, prospective parents.
He said: "You can't say because we decide we're different then we
need a different set of laws. To me there's nothing different in
principle with a Catholic adoption agency, or indeed Methodist adoption agency, saying the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn't apply to us.
"Why not then say sharia can be applied to different parts of the
country? It doesn't work. Once you start to provide public services that
have to be run under public rules, for example child protection, then
it has to go with public law.
"Institutions have to make a decision
whether they want to do that or they don't want to do that."
The comments have been described as inappropriate, given the harsh nature of Sharia law.
Dr Philip Giddings, chairman of the Church of England’s public affairs
council, told The Telegraph that he rejected Phillips’s analysis. “It is a strange comparison,” he
said.
But Phillips dismissed the criticism, insisting his comments should
not be seen as controversial.
“You would have to really work hard to make
what I said 'inflammatory',” he said.
Photo from Wikipedia.
