It is an interesting battle which I have been following for some time. The Gay Police Association (GPA) interestingly point out that an Officer would not be allowed to use British National Party (BNP) membership to justify making what are, after all, ideological statements, etc about black police personnel, yet interestingly enough the BNP have for some time been claiming that their beliefs merely articulate scripture, which of course might mean discriminating against BNP Police Officers in future could be seen as a faith human rights issue! I jest not.
The Evangelical Alliance (EAUK) statement is also interesting, but it should be borne in mind that they are currently revising their guidelines
Faith, Hope and Homosexuality(first published in 1998) and some specific claims made by some Christians about gays have been strongly criticised as unworthy of a Christian. However I notice that the Christian Police Association (CPA) have stated that they are a member of the Evangelical Alliance. This somewhat undermines their position. The following document on the EAUK's website illustrates my point. They claim that they are opposed to discrimination, etc against anyone because of their sexual orientation, but their problem is with homosexual practice. They then undermine their claim to be opposed to discrimination by asserting that most Christians do not regard sexual orientation as being any different from
practice - a choice rather than an innate characteristic. Read the
preample for yourself, see what you think.
There does
appear to be a conflict of interest in membership of the CPA and serving and protecting the
whole community, which appears to conflict with one of the
CPA's own stated principles on ethical values. How can you hope to get gay victims of homophobic crime to report an offence when the officer receiving their call
may be a CPA member who
may feel obliged to 'demonstrate their adherence to biblical ethics', the same Biblical ethics which call for gays to be killed. It is very difficult to square this Biblical command with crime prevention or providing a
balanced and fair service to all members of the community. Also the EAUK point out that in the last census, 70% of the population claimed to be Christian. They assert that this means most of these people share
their agenda, which is questionable. The CPA contests the GPA's assertion that most homophobic crime reported in the Metropolitan Police area was faith-based hate crime. Perhaps they ought to study Scottish crime statistics for the last few years. I have been informed that there is a clear correlation between intense antigay religious discourse by the churches and an increase in reported homophobic crime, though of course there may be other reasons for this increase in reporting, to be fair. But it is rather interesting that antigay crime has a tendency to increase whenever there is antigay religious rhetoric, be it by Christian or other religious leaders. What other explanation might there be or is it a conspiracy by Christophobes?
