The Head of UK government’s equality watchdog said that Muslims are better integrating into the British modern, multi-ethnic, multicultural community than many Christians, warning that people of faith in general were “under siege” from atheists. “Muslim communities in this country are doing their damnedest to try to come to terms with their neighbors to try to integrate,” Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, told the Sunday Telegraph on June 19.
“They’re doing their best to try to develop an idea of Islam that is compatible with living in a modern liberal democracy.”
The interview was published ahead of the release of a report by UK equality watchdog on religious discrimination in Britain.
The report states that some religious groups have been the victims of rising discrimination over the last decade, with the number of annual employment tribunal cases on religion or belief rising from 70 to 1000.
The report also cites examples of high-profile cases which have featured Christians claiming they have been discriminated against because of their beliefs, including a doctor currently fighting a reprimand from the General Medical Council for sharing his faith with a patient.
Praising Muslim integration in the modern, multi-cultural British society, Philips accused Christians, particularly evangelicals, of being more militant than Muslims in complaining about discrimination.
“I think there’s an awful lot of noise about the Church being persecuted but there is a more real issue that the conventional churches face that the people who are really driving their revival and success believe in an old time religion which in my view is incompatible with a modern, multi-ethnic, multicultural society,” Phillips said.
“The most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian.”
Britain is home to a sizable Muslim minority of nearly 2 million who have taken full brunt of anti-terror laws since the 7/7 attacks.
Political Gains
The key British equality official stressed that many of the cases brought by Christians on issues surrounding homosexuality were basically motivated by a desire for greater political influence.
“I think for a lot of Christian activists, they want to have a fight and they choose sexual orientation as the ground to fight it on,” Philips told the Sunday Telegraph.
“I think the whole argument isn’t about the rights of Christians. It’s about politics. It’s about a group of people who really want to have weight and influence.
“There are a lot of Christian activist voices who appear bent on stressing the kind of persecution that I don’t think really exists in this country.”
On the other hand, the UK official expressed concern over the rise of atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, who were attempting to “drive religion underground.”
“I understand why a lot of people in faith groups feel a bit under siege,” he said.
“There’s no question that there is more anti-religion noise in Britain.
“There’s a great deal of polemic which is anti-religious, which is quite fashionable.”
Philips also confirmed that the commission he presides was committed to protect people of faith against discrimination and government interference.
The Church of England is under pressure to allow openly gay clergy to be made bishops, while the Catholic Church, which permits only men to be priests, also came under attack recently.
The head of the Government-funded equalities watchdog said religious institutions, either churches or mosques, should be entitled to rule on their own affairs.
“The law doesn’t dictate their organization internally, in the way they appoint their ministers and bishops for example,” Philips said.
“It’s perfectly fair that you can’t be a Roman Catholic priest unless you’re a man. It seems right that the reach of anti-discriminatory law should stop at the door of the church or mosque.
“I’m not keen on the idea of a church run by the state.
“I don’t think the law should run to telling churches how they should conduct their own affairs.”
Source: OnIslam & Newspapers