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The proliferation of religious charities openly expressing anti-LGBT views should prompt us to rethink religion’s privileged position in charity law. In 2019, British charity regulators inspected 18 religious charities regarding often violent anti-LGBT+ content on their website.
Islam (...)
Religious fanaticism is hindering the fight against coronavirus across much of the world. But in Britain claims to religious exceptionalism are relatively isolated. Thankfully.
On Sunday 29 March, as the eye of the coronavirus pandemic came looming into view, a pastor in Louisiana claimed an attendance of 1,265 at his church. He’s since continued to hold packed services, and claims “the constitutional right to congregate” defends (...)
As the UK’s political parties consider their manifestos for the upcoming election, here are a few secularist pledges they should include to advance freedom, fairness and equal citizenship.
The UK today has more religious diversity than ever before, and, for the first time, a non-religious majority. Yet the formal relationship between religion and the state has remained more or less unchanged in the past century.
Reform is (...)
The appalling attacks in Sri Lanka again highlight the growing global persecution of Christians. But there should be no hierarchy of importance when it comes to protecting people from persecution.
The sickening Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka are a grisly reminder that the military defeat of Islamic State’s ’caliphate’ does not represent the end of the terrorist threat from violent jihadists.
According to initial reports, the cowardly attacks in Sri Lanka were in (...)
The number of people who say they are non-religious in Great Britain has risen by 46% in seven years, according to data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS found that the number of people who said they were non-religious in the Annual Population Survey rose from 17.1m in (...)
The National Secular Society has urged the government to reconsider a requirement on schools to take pupils’ “religious background” into account when teaching about relationships amid an escalating campaign against LGBT-inclusive education.
The NSS has written to the education secretary as (...)
At Christian Concern’s birthday party in London, lobbyists talked about their expansion plans and work to recruit young people.
Religious fruitcake: Christian Concern celebrated their tenth anniversary over the weekend. Image: Adam Bychawski
The scene at the tenth-anniversary celebration of (...)
The revelation that Amazon funds extremist religious charities is the tip of the iceberg. Our charity system has deep problems, in part stemming from the presumption that religion is a public good.
On paper, it’s hard to find fault with Amazon Smile, Amazon’s new charity initiative. Whenever customers who opt into the scheme buy something on Amazon, the company donates a portion of the purchase price to charity, at no additional cost to the customer. What’s particularly (...)
The good deeds of faith-based organisations shouldn’t lead us to turn a blind eye to their more ethically dubious practices, argues Stephen Evans.
Personal debt in the UK has reached epic proportions. Millions of households are living beyond their means with low income households worst (...)
Campaigners’ elation at the arrival of opposite-sex civil partnerships is understandable, says Chris Sloggett. But beware politicians using it to excuse their failure to loosen the Church of England’s grip on marriage.
It’s hard to begrudge Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, the couple who (...)
The National Secular Society has backed calls for the government to withdraw divorce guidance which encourages women from minority religious backgrounds to turn to religious ’courts’.
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans has joined campaigners in signing an open letter to the Ministry of Justice (...)
New publication presents the key movements and struggles for a secular society.
Like any organisation that has campaigned to make radical changes to the constitutional structure of our country, the National Secular Society has encountered much resistance, and this has been true throughout its (...)
The National Secular Society has accused the government of showing “callous disregard for victims” after it announced it would not explicitly recognise caste-based discrimination under equality legislation.
In its response to a public consultation, the Government Equalities Office said it would (...)
The introduction of compulsory relationships and sex education (RSE) in all English schools has been delayed from 2019 until 2020.
The Children and Social Work Act 2017 required the Government to bring forward statutory guidance to make relationships and sex education compulsory in English (...)
Most British adults, including most Christians, support secularism: separation of church and state and no special privileges for any particular belief system. The recent Pew Institute survey also suggests that Christians are more likely to hold racist views than non Christians.
According to (...)
A new study demonstrates the disasterous consequences of letting religious schools (almost all of which are state-financed) teach about sex and relationships according to their leaders reactionary interpretations of the faith.
1. Introduction In December 2017, the government launched a (...)
We want an open and inclusive education system, free of religious discrimination. A secular approach would see faith-based education phased out and ensure that publicly funded schools are equally welcoming to all children, regardless of their backgrounds. We oppose publicly funded faith schools (...)
For more than a century the National Secular Society has actively campaigned for the disestablishment of the Church of England. This report outlines the central arguments for a separation of church and state and considers the challenges involved in making this a reality. It argues that (...)
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