Our position on equality and religious privilege is as follows.

While the law must offer full protection of everyone’s right to hold and express their religious beliefs, it must offer no protection whatever of the moral or ritual substance or content of those beliefs, in the name only of its religious credentials. Such substance or content is subjective and unverifiable. It binds only the believer and no one else.

The law also offers protection against discrimination based on religion or belief. For the same reasons, the law must offer no protection whatever against discrimination based on the moral or ritual substance or content of religion or beliefs.

Therefore, there must be no right, for example, for a Christian registrar to refuse to conduct civil partnerships for gay couples, for a Christian employee to wear a crucifix in breach of health and safety regulations, or for a Muslim pharmacist to refuse to prescribe contraceptives.

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