Following the announcement by the Orwellian-sounding “Equalities and Human Rights Commission that it regrets some of the harassment of Christians in the UK which it funded, on which I posted earlier, “eChurch blog has helpfully listed the resources and online responses.
They make interesting reading indeed. Four victims have brought test cases to the European court, and this is causing flutters of concern among the guilty men.
What I had not realised, however, is that the trigger for this is that the EHRC have applied to intervene in four test cases now before the European court. They profess:
‘Our intervention in these cases would encourage judges to interpret the law more broadly and more clearly to the benefit of people who are religious and those who are not’.
Long experience in corporate politics leads me to look below the surface. This is an organisation that has funded harassment of Christians. Why would they change tack, suddenly? The leopard does not change his spots, and there is no change of personnel. On the contrary, the man responsible is John Wadham, a lawyer who has spent his life in gaming the legal system to promote left-wing causes. This is, therefore, a considered tactic.
Once we sidestep the fluffy language, it becomes obvious that the EHRC hope to get something from this.
If the EHRC were not involved, then the case will come before the court as one of persecution, and, given the large numbers of Catholics in the EU, it is possible — even probable — that the Euro-court would limit their activities considerably.
But by being “part of the process”, they can play themselves back into the game. They might even be able to obtain a judicial position over the Christians. If they lie and spin hard enough, then they might be able to convince the Euro-judges to appoint the EHRC themselves as “protectors of religion”.
Fanciful? Well, if we go back to the sinister Trevor Phillips article of less than a month ago, we see that this is precisely what he was talking about.
The EHRC, therefore, should not be allowed to intervene.
The EHRC takes it upon themselves to define what is “religion”. Furthermore, as Phillips made plain, they propose to game this, so that those who refuse to conform will be stripped of their charitable status and forced to pay crushing and discriminatory taxes.
Sadly, therefore, this is not “good news”.
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