Discriminating between the discriminators

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is keen on fairness. But its own version. The spat with the BNP was absurd, with both sides looking to enjoy the fight. I can't imagine many ethnic minorities jostling for the door to get into the BNP. That would give entryism a whole new meaning if they did.

Some on the liberal left desired that the Church could be defeated over female ministers' employment. They hoped that the Roman Catholics would be given a lesson. Turned out not to be the case. The EHRC has a blurb about "genuine occupational requirements". It reads like this -

"A Catholic theological college can refuse to admit women to a course which is only designed to prepare candidates for the Catholic priesthood as women cannot become Catholic priests. However, a Church of England college could not confine training for the priesthood to men since women may also become Anglican priests."

What it fails to acknowledge is that a sizeable number of Anglicans do not agree with this and are afforded legal protection for the beliefs. It would be interesting to know what the EHRC might do if the See of Ebbsfleet wished to set up a training courses for priests of traditional belief.

I get the impression that the EHRC is trying to sneak a bit more onto the scales on one side only and if their side is too much up in the air they try to do something about it. All this means is that a Roman Catholic priest can be trained in a certain way but an Anglican Catholic priest may not. Is the law an ass?

Posted in: Discrimination,priesthood,women priests