What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • It’s Time to End Tax Breaks for Anti-Gay Charities – including churches

    There is no underestimating the difference that a change in the law can make to people who happen to be gay or lesbian. Civil Partnerships gave a level of legal protection that changed people’s lives forever. Equal marriage extended that protection by giving people the chance of being able to be regarded as equally fit to enter the institution of marriage. It was about more than rights – it was about dignity too.

    However, notwithstanding the great gains that have been made in recent years, the journey is not over. We have established that people of goodwill are prepared to champion gay rights whether or not they happen to be gay themselves. The time has come to begin working on the next step on the journey.

    We must be eager to ensure that children receive age appropriate sex education that is inclusive of LGBT identities. We must be sure that governments pursue foreign policy that is works towards extending the rights that LGBT people in the UK possess to those in other countries. But we must not rest there. There are still real things that need to be done in the UK where a change in the law can make a material difference to gay lives.

    Today I propose a new change that is worth campaigning for – it’s time to campaign for the government to remove the charitable status of any organisation that campaigns against gay people. It is a simple change to the law but an important one.

    There are still many organisations that take an anti-gay position in public. Very many of them get tax-breaks through the Gift Aid system by becoming charities. It’s time to end tax-breaks for those who work to limit gay rights.

    Will this ever come about?

    When I first started campaigning on reforming marriage law to include lesbian and gay people, most of the people I spoke to, including many who ultimately became core activists simply didn’t believe that it was worth the time of day as it would never happen. The change I’m proposing today is much easier to enact.

    Why should there be effective government sponsorship of homophobic organisations?

    Why should any UK tax-payers have to live with so-called charitable organisations campaigning against them?

    Charities which tried to campaign against people because of their race would soon have their charitable status removed. Why not those who campaign against gay people?

    The time has come. Time for change. It’s time to remove the charitable status if any organisation campaigning against LGBT people.

    Q and A
    Would this mean curtailing freedom of speech?
    No – organisations and individuals would be free to say whatever they liked within the law. A charity simply could not receive Gift Aid support in any given year if it were to campaign against LGBT people during that year.

    Isn’t this persecution of Christians?
    No – this change is proposed by a Christian priest and would apply to all charities.

    Would church congregations lose their charitable status?
    There’s no reason for church congregations to lose their charitable status so long as they don’t campaign against the rights of LGBT people. As there is strong and increasing support for LGBT people in the pews (if not amongst Christian leaders) this is something that many Christians will campaign for. Some denominations might prefer to be free to forego their charitable status in order to continue anti-gay campaigns. Others will not.

    What about the Muslims/Catholics/Evangelicals?
    This policy would apply across the board to all charities.

    How can this be brought about?
    Engagement with activist organisations, within charities and with those seeking election.

    Isn’t charity law devolved – why would it be appropriate for people in Scotland to bring this up during a Westminster election?
    Some charities registered in England campaign against gay rights in Scotland (eg the Mothers’ Union). This is an issue facing both the UK as a whole as well as Scotland.

    Would this cost tax-payers money?
    No – just the opposite. Money that formerly had been given to anti-gay organisations would hitherto be available to the government to spend on the common good.

    Further questions and comments welcome.

    , , , ,

8 responses to “Assisted Dying – Why I’ve changed my mind”

  1. BobS Avatar
    BobS

    You lucidly illustrated an example of a family seeking to pressurise someone to influence the process of death. But what was possibly missing was the voice of the person nearing death. Where was their perspective, their reasoning? Assisted Dying starts and driven by the person dying. They are the ones who, with mental capacity, take those steps, if necessary, to expedite death at that final stage. They, together with medical experts, make those decisions.
    The examples cited refer to a family desperate for a skiing holiday and your concern of funeral directors making money through direct cremations.
    I fully agree with your desire for a better palliative care system. Having witnessed their work it is amazing. But that is another argument. To conflate the two dismisses the voice of those seeking assisted dying.
    Your concern over assisted dying seems to be interwoven by a call for improved palliative care and a demise in direct cremations.

    Reply
    1. Rev Owain Jones Avatar
      Rev Owain Jones

      Respectfully, Bob S, I think you’re overlooking the one thing that struck me very forcefully from this incident. I’ve always felt profoundly uneasy at the likelihood – I’d say ‘moral certainty’ – that the voice of the dying will in some cases be influenced, even swayed, by the dying person’s assumptions, inferences or intuitions (correct or not) about the needs of those closest to them, and even their desires. These desires might not be articulated, or even correctly guessed – but they might, and as soon as the dying person is subject to them, they are, by definition, influenced in their decision. At that point, Assisted Dying can no longer be said “to start and driven by the person dying.” I’ve been there for a long time – but what I suddenly realized reading Kelvin Holdsworth’s post, was that there’s a much darker issue here, and it relates to a fundamental principle to which I’ve always adhered. Please bear with me, and entertain for a moment an analogy which you might consider to be extreme, and which I’d be appalled to hear deployed by the religiously fanatical opponents of Assisted Dying. It’s this. I have always been opposed to the death penalty for a number of reasons, but very prominent among them is that it takes to an extreme the testing of a fundamental principle of justice (which I know I’m modifyng here to make the analogy a better fit, and of course, you’re free to take issue with that): “It is better that a hundred guilty men go free than that one innocent person be punished unjustly.” I’m aware that there’s a very significant separation between that and this, but I don’t believe it amounts to ‘clear blue water’. Let me try and articulate my conviction in a reasonable way, for you to consider, even if you reject it. I think that there’s a huge danger inscribed in legislation which will, of a moral certainty, permit circumstances in which unwilling dying individuals give assent under pressure to the active premature termination of their lives. This holds true even if a hundred times as many individuals assent freely, and even actively seek, such termination. One of the things that always made me uneasy about the Vulcans was the assertion that “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. There seems to me to be no way in any legislation to protect the needs and rights of the few in this issue. At the very least, I think that needs to be acknowledged openly by proponents of Assisted Dying. If we’re about to be taken across a Rubicon, I believe that everyone, on both sides of the decision, need to acknowledge that. (Incidentally, I completely agree with Kevin Holdsworth’s horror (I hope I’m expressing that fairly) at ‘Direct Cremations’ and the way they’re advertised. They seem to me to be open profiteering from the death-phobic culture in which we’re immersed. I fear that the impulses behind Assisted Dying as currently advocated may be a good-faith manifestation of the inability of society to look at the full actuality of human mortality and the relationship between life and death. I may be deluding myself, but I think I’d say that even if I were an atheist.

      Reply
      1. BobS Avatar
        BobS

        Rev Owain, thank you for your response. I fear your analogy was stretched to fit your argument, and, apologies if my education lacked in this quarter, where the reference to Vulcans was applicable.
        If we are concerned that a very small percentage will be wronged, then many practices today should be stopped. The statistical error you describe will always be possible, albeit minimised as much as possible.
        The proposed law tries to cater for such concerns. What appears to be the argument against assisted dying is that it is not error proof.
        If a person who is deemed to have mental capacity with less than six months to live, with suitable medical provision, seeks to alleviate their suffering, and is capable of themselves administering the medication to ultimately ease that pain, then their voice has been heard.
        I also would hope that palliative care continues to improve but that is a separate argument, as are direct cremations, and now the cost of the funeral to families. These arguments are all used to conflate the underlying issue of assisted dying.

        Reply
    2. Val Dobson Avatar
      Val Dobson

      You are wrong to connect funeral companies’ promotion of Direct Cremation with the push for assisted dying. Nowadays, many families simply cannot afford a “proper” funeral / cremation, and funeral grants come nowhere to covering the the costs. The funeral companies are simply responding to customer needs.

      Reply
      1. Kelvin Avatar
        Kelvin

        I’m happy to speak out about funerals being too expensive. However, it is manifestly not the case taht funeral companies are simply responding to customer needs. If they did they would promote these as being about price. They don’t – they promote them as being about not causing a fuss, which is the point I’m making here.

        Reply
  2. Nigel Kenny Avatar
    Nigel Kenny

    Thank you for your wise and persuasive words – may they influence MSPs to vote against the Bill.

    Reply
  3. Chriatine McIntosh Avatar
    Chriatine McIntosh

    Thanks for this, Kelvin – I’ve been thinking more about this as contemporaries begin to vanish from this life.

    Reply
  4. Helen Leslie Avatar
    Helen Leslie

    Thank you Kelvin. I am someone who has spent the majority of my working life caring for people at the end of their lives. You said exactly what I would want to.

    Reply

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