Religious Education and LGBT lessons: Why the Supreme Court is falling for a dangerous double standard

On 19 November, the Supreme Court issued its judgment concerning the RE syllabus in Northern Ireland.

A claim had been brought by humanist parents and their daughter against their child’s primary school, with the parents alleging that the school’s RE teaching and collective worship had acted to indoctrinate their child to the Christian religion. 

Lord Stephen, writing on behalf of a unanimous court, found in favour of the claimants. 

In his article for Premier Christianity, Peter Lynas of the Evangelical Alliance tried to find the silver lining in the decision, believing that we should be optimistic and take this opportunity to reimagine how Christian education is delivered in Northern Ireland. 

He is correct that the Supreme Court’s ruling does not interfere with the principle that religious education in Northern Ireland is Christian and must be based on the Holy Scriptures. 

I do not share Peter’s optimism, but I hope the Department of Education (Northern Ireland) does, and that they work towards crafting a syllabus which continues to reflect the Christian heritage of Northern Ireland and the truth and the hope of the gospels. 

Human Rights for who? 

The basis on which the Supreme Court struck down the core RE syllabus was human rights law, specifically A2-P1 of the European Convention on Human Rights which reads: “No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.” 

The second sentence guarantees that schools (and the state) must respect how parents wish to raise their children in accordance with the family’s religious (or non-religious) beliefs. The European Court has clarified that this provision applies to all subject matters, not just religious education. And yet, in the entire history of European Court and UK caselaw, A2-P1 has only ever been applied to cases where parents wished their children to be excused from religious education classes. On the other side of the equation, in each and every challenge by Chrisitan parents against indoctrinating LGBT or sex education, the Court has ruled that no violation has occurred. 

So, the real question is, who exactly does human rights law serve? It appears to only protect freedom from religion, but never religious freedom; at least where education law is involved. And this is precisely the disillusionment I hold with the Supreme Court’s case. 

The Double Standard 

There is now a very clear and obvious double standard between the teaching of Christianity and LGBT education and sex education.

On a true reading of the latest Northern Ireland judgment, Christian families should be successful in challenging statutory RSHE in England. Yet attempts to challenge aggressive and partisan LGBT education in the recent past, as with the case of Izzy Montague, have been unsuccessful. Izzy’s son, a 4-year-old at the time, was required to participate in an LGBT school Pride march, create rainbow themed art, and participate in a slew of other activities promoting pride month. Teachers openly wore (and were encouraged to wear) rainbow themed clothing and shirts with LGBT campaigning slogans clearly visible. Far from seeing such education as indoctrinating for a 4-year-old child, English courts held that such education was necessary to promote tolerance and diversity. 

The courts in England and Wales have gone out of their way to portray LGBT education as being about equality and diversity, and therefore somehow exempting them from critical and objective inspection (presumably because from a secular perspective these qualities are unequivocally good and therefore free from critical treatment). The result is that our courts have essentially held that LGBT education, even where it overtly takes the form of campaigning, does not violate parental rights whereas soft evangelism in the classroom does. The uncritical promotion of Christianity is viewed as problematic, whereas the uncritical promotion of LGBT education is valued and viewed as necessary. 

Indoctrination? 

A colleague of mine wrote me after reading the judgment and commented on just how shockingly awful the judgment was. In many ways he is correct. The judgment does provide some profoundly disturbing examples of what it believes to be “indoctrination”. For example, teaching pupils that “praying is a way of talking to God so that we can thank him, praise him, say sorry and ask for help.” This was cited by Justice Stephen as evidence of a violation of A2-P1. Further evidence was that pupils are taught that God loves them and is forgiving towards them. Even this, Justice Stephen argued tends toward indoctrination. Later it is noted that pupils are also taught to “consider the respect due to creation, which is the gift of God;” a further indication, the court suggests, that the school was “indoctrinating” its pupils.   

Equally distressing is the criticism of collective worship in the judgment, which is deemed to fail in its duty to be critical, objective and pluralistic. The finding that Northern Ireland’s collective worship violates A2-P1 guts the meaning of collective worship entirely. By definition, how could any form of collective worship be conveyed in a manner which is “critical, objective and pluralistic”?  

By way of comparison to the Izzy Montague case, Izzy’s child (and his classmates) were presented with both male and female clothing and toys, and told that it was ok for him to wear or play with anything he felt comfortable with. Rather than indoctrination, the County Court lauded this activity for breaking gender stereotypes. 

Comparing the disparate treatment of Christian RE with LGBT education highlights just how far astray our courts have gone. While some are cautiously optimistic about re-shaping the existing syllabus, others, and rightly so, are far more concerned about the trajectory of these types of cases. More than just striking down an RE core syllabus, this judgment stands out by it being the first ever case of its kind, where a court has held that a full exemption from RE could not cure a violation of A2-P1.  

If Christian education is not safe in Northern Ireland, where 80% of the population is Christian, it begs the question of which part of our religious freedom will be taken from us next by the stroke of a judge’s pen.