JULIAN RIVERS
Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Bristol

 

This article traces the recent development of gender equality law, understood broadly to embrace
sex, transsexual and sexual orientation discrimination. Against this background it considers
the ‘problem’ of religion from two perspectives. First, religion is seen as representing a
problematic obstacle to the pursuit of a modern gender equality programme, and this results
in judicial tendencies to criticise religion and constrain its significance. Second, religions
and religious bodies themselves have difficulties with the new ethic underlying recent legal
changes. The tension between religious ethics and the new law has resulted in a series of
exceptions for religious bodies. However, these are rather narrow, and can be viewed as
the minimum necessary to satisfy international and European human rights standards. The
article then considers the enigma of equality and the question-begging nature of much of the
law made in its name. It concludes that modern problems are better seen not as a clash
between religious liberty and gender equality, but as a shift in conceptions of equality. At the
same time, this shift has been accompanied by a significant juridification of what for a long
time have been social spaces virtually immune from secular legal regulation. Ironically, a
new establishment is being created which barely tolerates dissenters.

 

More   @  ....  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=648908&jid=ELJ&volumeId=9&issueId=01&aid=648904

This post was edited by Cristine Jennifer Shye. BL at May 14, 2012 1:42 PM BST