LONDON, September 16, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A senior Liberal Democrat MP, Sir Alan Beith, has said this week that “silly” interpretations of equality laws have led to a situation where British Christians are being increasingly forced to keep their beliefs “under wraps” for fear of legal repercussions.
“I think that what has arisen is that people feeling that not only does the State have to separate itself from religion under secularism, but they are being asked really to hide and keep under wraps their religious views in civil society,” he said.
Speaking at the party’s conference in Glasgow, Beith made reference to the case of Nadia Eweida, a Coptic Christian British Airways check-in attendant who recently won a complaint against her employers at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Eweida had been sent home from work for wearing a crucifix, an act which she said violated her right to religious freedom.
Beith, a former deputy leader of the far-left Liberal Democrats and chair of the Commons Justice Select Committee as well as a Methodist lay preacher, said that “completely false interpretation of laws, regulations and changes” lead to such “misunderstandings.”
In an increasing number of cases in the UK, Christians have been arrested, fired, fired, or demoted, for standing up for their beliefs.
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