TIMES ONLINE: We may not agree with the Vatican line on homosexuality. But the State is trampling on our rights as individuals
There are times when human rights become human wrongs. This happens when rights become more than a defence of human dignity, which is their proper sphere, and become instead a political ideology, relentlessly trampling down everything in their path. This is happening increasingly in Britain, and it is why the Pope’s protest against the Equality Bill, whether we agree with it or not, should be taken seriously.
Let me make it clear that I believe homosexuals have rights that need defending. Like Jews, they have been a persecuted minority for far too long. They too, like Jews, were victims of the Holocaust. They have a case that should be heard.
I believe, too, that religious beliefs have no privileged status in a democratic society. Religions should have influence, not power. I do not believe that the religious convictions of some should be imposed on all by force of law. In a free society, the religious voice should persuade, not compel.
We all have an interest in freedom, the freedom to act differently from others. Indeed, at the core of human rights is a religious proposition: that we are all, regardless of colour, creed or culture, in the image of God. That religious vision burned brightly in the minds of those such as John Locke, who first formulated the idea of rights in the 17th century.
It was integral to the American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal [and] that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” John F. Kennedy made a similar statement in his great inaugural address: “The rights of Man come not from the generosity of the State, but from the hand of God.”
That is why using the ideology of human rights to assault religion risks undermining the very foundation of human rights themselves. When a Christian airport worker is banned from wearing a cross, when a nurse is sacked after a role-play exercise in which he suggested that patients pray, when Roman Catholic adoption agencies are forced to close because they do not place children for adoption with same-sex couples and when a Jewish school is told that its religious admissions policy is, not in intent but in effect, racist, we are in dangerous territory indeed. >>> Jonathan Sacks | Wednesday, February 03, 2010
