LONDON, August 5, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – A proposed new and far-reaching law against terrorism could and would be used against Christian teachers in the United Kingdom, according to a letter from a government MP to a constituent.
Both Christian and secular rights groups have long been fearful of Prime Minister David Cameron’s promised Extremism Disruption Orders. The letter from Conservative MP Mark Spencer explaining EDOs to a constituent has made things worse.
Simon Calvert, deputy director of the Christian Institute, told The Telegraph, “I am genuinely shocked that we have an MP supporting the idea of teachers being branded extremists for teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman. This is exactly the kind of thing we’ve been warning about.”
Spencer began his letter, later passed on to The Telegraph, with assurances “that everybody in a society has a right to free speech” and that religious school teachers could express in the classroom their faith’s view that homosexuality is wrong. But he went on to explain how teachers could also provoke draconian EDOs and end up in jail if they taught students Christian morality on homosexuality as a fact. “The EDOs in this case would apply to a situation where a teacher was specifically teaching that gay marriage was wrong.”
In other words, an unnamed staffer at Spencer’s constituency office told LifeSiteNews, “the teacher would have to be incredibly overstepping the line” to trigger an EDO. A teacher, he explained, “can tell students that their religion teaches that homosexuality or same-sex marriage is wrong, as long as they balance that by explaining that the law says these things are okay and that many people believe they are okay.”
But if teachers “categorically” teach that same-sex marriage is sinful as a matter of fact, they could soon be facing court hearings and judge-ordered EDOs that would ban them from repeating their views in public places, on social or electronic media, or in print. And if they disobey the order, like anyone else in contempt of court, they can be jailed.
Calvert told The Telegraph, “The Government says we’ve got nothing to worry about from their new extremism laws, but here is one of its own MPs writing to a constituent saying EDOs would stop teachers teaching mainstream Christian beliefs.”
A staffer at the Christian Institute told LifeSiteNews that a big problem with with Spencer’s letter is that it does not distinguish between public schools and private Christian, Muslim, or Jewish schools. “As Christians we have the right to teach that homosexuality is wrong and that Muslims are wrong; and though we disagree, Muslims have the right to teach that Christians are wrong.”
Prime Minister David Cameron has justified the EDOs on the grounds that extremists in Britain have been able to teach hatred of democracy and Western values without fear of prosecution so long as they do not call specifically for violent action. “For far too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance.”
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Though the measure is believed to be a response to the hundreds of young British-born Muslims who have gone to the embattled Middle East to fight for the Islamic terrorist group ISIS, the examples cited by government spokesmen like Spencer often are Christian. “They often talk about Evangelical street preachers as the sort of people who might get EDOs,” the anonymous spokesman for the Christian Institute told LifeSiteNews. “The problem is that Christian teaching still held by many people in Britain, maybe a majority, is now being equated with extremism.”
Not only Christians are alarmed. Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, told The Telegraph: “If EDOs really could be used to prevent teachers from talking about same-sex marriage, unless they are inciting violence, they are an even greater threat to freedom of expression than I had feared…The spreading of hatred is far too vague a concept to be the basis of legal sanctions, and would be worryingly open to misuse, particularly by ideological opponents.”
Calvert agreed: “EDOs will be a gross infringement of free speech and undermine the very British values they claim to protect.”
