Amendments to UK’s proposed Equality Bill that were passed by Britain’s House of Commons have been overturned by the House of Lords. The amendments were meant, according to government ministers, to clarify anti-discrimination rules.
In a decision that the conservative London newspaper, The Telegraph, calls a “humiliating defeat” for Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour government, the Lords voted 216 to 178 to overturn one of three key amendments to Britain’s Equality Bill. The other amendments were rejected by margins of 21 and seven.
The Equality Bill is an attempt by ministers to consolidate existing anti-discrimination legislation into a single Act of Parliament, according to the Telegraph.
The government denied it was changing the special exemption status granted to churches for anti-discrimination rules. Ministers insisted that the amendments were intended only to clarify the existing law, Reuters reports.
The proposed changes would have clarified that that staff such as youth workers, janitors, or administrative workers could not be refused employment due to their sexual orientation or other protected factors, PinkNews reports.
Labour ministers had insisted that the amendments merely clarified the original intentions the bill by stating explicitly that religious groups would be allowed to discriminate only for jobs “wholly or mainly” involved taking part in services or rituals, or explaining the doctrines of religion, BBC reports.
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