Opinion - News Analysis

Mixing politics with religion — U.K. style

Should lawmakers in a secular state be allowed to invoke their “religious conscience” to oppose government policy, especially one whose potential benefits to the wider society should outweigh any conscientious objection religious or otherwise?

The obvious answer should be an unambiguous “no” — “mullahs” should not be permitted to dictate state policy. Isn’t that what the idea of a secular state all about? To keep the church at bay?

Yet, of all places, in Britain, where we are told practically every day that religion is in free-fall, an explosive debate is raging over whether elected politicians should be allowed to vote in Parliament on the basis of their religious convictions. In other words, should the religious beliefs of MPs take precedence over policies they are elected to pursue?

In an extraordinary move, three senior Catholic Cabinet ministers — Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, Defence Secretary Des Browne and the Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy — have reportedly threatened to resign if they are forced to support a landmark legislation that would allow scientists to create hybrid embryos (part-human, part-animal) to find a cure for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.

The new law will also help lesbian couples have access to IVF treatment, obviating the need for a father. At present, doctors are required to consider a child’s need for a father before starting fertility treatment.

Britain’s Roman Catholic church is up in arms, saying the proposed legislation (the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill) is unethical and immoral, and that it will pave the way for creating “Frankenstein’s monsters” in the name of scientific research. It is also seen as an “attack” on the traditional idea of a family in which a child’s need to have both father and mother is considered paramount.

Scotland’s most senior Catholic figure Cardinal Keith O’Brien has called the Bill a “monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life” claiming that it will open the floodgates for scientific experiments of “Frankenstein proportions”.

At the weekend, the head of Britain’s five million Catholics Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor piled on the pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to allow his Catholic ministers and MPs a free vote on the Bill.

“I think Catholics in politics have got to act according to their Catholic convictions, so have other Christians, so have other politicians,” he said.

The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have already agreed to let their MPs vote according to their religious conscience. But Mr. Brown is reluctant, not because he is opposed to the idea of a religious conscience vote but because he fears that the Bill may fall if too many MPs vote against it.

On Tuesday there were signs that he is already wilting under pressure. After a number of party backbenchers and junior ministers also threatened to join the revolt, he indicated that they would be allowed a free vote on three contentious parts of the legislation.

Earlier, Health Secretary Alan Johnson, who will pilot the Bill through the Commons, assured MPs that their “sensitivities” would be accommodated and that nobody would be forced to vote against their conscience.

There is a touch here of the history repeating itself. The Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, faced with a similar revolt over the original 1990 legislation on the subject, gave a free vote on its more controversial aspects. And some Cabinet ministers then went on to vote against their own government and it is set to happen so this time as well.

The controversy, which has dominated headlines over the past week, could not have come at a worse time for Mr. Brown, under whose watch the Labour Party’s poll ratings have fallen to their lowest since its darkest days in the 1980s with the Tories comfortably placed, on current showing, to win the next general election, according to a string of recent polls.

The sudden momentum that the campaign has picked up in recent days and, especially, the intervention of two former Blair-ite Cabinet ministers — Stephen Byers and Charles Clarke — on behalf of those seeking a conscience vote has led to speculation that the anti-Brown elements in the party are using the issue for their own political ends.

In the media, particularly the pro-Tory Telegraph newspapers and the Murdoch-owned Times group, it is being portrayed as yet another sign of Mr. Brown’s “weak” leadership. And, not surprisingly, they have all come out in support of the conscience vote seeing in it a god-send opportunity to beat Mr. Brown with.

What is surprising, though, is that even the Left-wing press, while commending the legislation and attacking the religious lobby for misinterpreting it, has upheld the “principle” of a conscience vote with The Independent, paradoxically, arguing that “not the least benefit of this is to ensure that politics does not become too mixed up with religion.”

The fact is that, on the contrary, it is those who are invoking their faith to oppose the bill are mixing religion with politics in complete disregard for the spirit of the fundamental principle of an avowedly secular state. There is a danger that this could communalise British politics with voters starting to look closely at candidates’ religious affiliations when choosing their MP.

One Times reader pointed out that in the past he had never bothered about “the religion of candidates for public office” but warned that in future he might opt for a less “enlightened” approach, raising the spectre of the subcontinental style of politics coming to Britain too.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu