The Archbishop...[said]: "There are, I know, those who struggle with the concept of allowing any exemptions provision for religious organisations in relation to discrimination in the field of employment. But the argument is a very simple one: religious organisations, like all organisations, need to be able to impose genuine occupational requirements in relation to those who serve them.

"Successive legislation over the past 35 years has always recognised the principle that religious organisations need the freedom to impose requirements in relation to belief and conduct which go beyond what a secular employer should be able to require.

"Noble Lords may believe that the Roman Catholic Church should allow priests to be married, they may think that the Church of England should hurry up with allowing women to become bishops. They may feel that many Churches and other religious organisations are wrong on matters of sexual ethics. But, if religious freedom means anything it must mean that those are matters for the churches and other religious organisations to determine for themselves in accordance with their own convictions. They are not matters for the law to impose. Start down that road and you will put law and conscience into inevitable collision. That way lies ruin.

"As Edmund Burke said: 'Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.' The onus is on Her Majesty's Government to demonstrate why any narrowing of the provisions in existing legislation under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Sexual Orientation Regulations 2003 needs to be made. There is absolutely no doubt that paragraph 2 of Schedule 9 to the Bill as introduced would constitute a significant narrowing of the present law for the reasons that I set out at the Second Reading. The Government's Amendment 99A goes some way but does not go far enough to meeting these objections.

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