Women left unprotected by new charity powers -The National Secular Society has expressed concern that proposed new powers for the charity regulator will fail to adequately tackle misogyny and homophobia promoted by religious charities. NSS

[IwantToRetire]

The National Secular Society has expressed concern that proposed new powers for the charity regulator will fail to adequately tackle misogyny and homophobia promoted by religious charities.

... while the new powers may help to stop charities promoting hatred towards people based on race or religion or belief, they will not apply to hatred based on other characteristics – including sex and sexual orientation.

Full article https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2026/10/women-left-unprotected-by-new-charity-powers-nss-says

(edited to say sorry seem to have added the start of the post to the title!)

The problem the government have is that the Church of England is, at it's roots, homophobic and misogynistic. Insisting religious institutions don't promote hate means hobbling our established religion. We came up with the absurd GRA mainly because of the CoE's homophobia, this probably seems like small potatoes to the ruling classes.

I'm not sure why you pick out the C of E because it's a bit of a technicality that it's the "national" religion these days.

If there's a problem with the Church of England there's a darned sight bigger one with elements of Islam and Judaism, and far more people visit a mosque every week than visit a C of E church.

We came up with the absurd GRA mainly because of the CoE's homophobia

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat????

Talk about re-writing history.

More and more comments on FWR seem to come from some parallel universe.

Whilst it would be great to have all those queer die hard activists written out of history, believing that someone can change sex has nothing to do with homophobia.

Just for clarity being same sex attracted means that you believe in sex as a biological reality.

Believing you can change sex and that the state should legally endorse that "change" means you dont believe in sex and so cant be same sex attracted.

Lots of cultures and conservative individuals seem to see sex change as a good response to the problem of the gender and sex non conforming child. Problematic Little boys that might grow up gay are resolved by transition. I believe in Iraq, homosexuality is forbidden, sex change is the answer.

I did state CofE because it's the established church. While not particularly well attended, they are still deeply entrenched in the political set up of parliament, the monarchy and the country.

If our political setup was entwined with the Catholic church or Islam then I'd have picked those, I think they're generally worse than the CofE on misogyny and homophobia, but they aren't constitutionally entrenched in our political system in the same way.

The GRA was necessary to meet the requirements of Goodwin because same sex marriage was illegal. Part of the ruling found that Goodwin being unable to marry another man was against his article 8 rights. Without making same sex marriage legal or changing sex in law, there was no way for the government to meet the requirements of the ruling. If same sex marriage had been legal, the government could have simply allowed administrative changes to allow people to change their documents without creating the legal fiction that a man can become a woman as the GRA does.

The CofE's homophobia was a key pressure in making same sex marriage politically untenable at the time.

Where do bisexuals fit into that?

theres perhaps an element of truth to that claim though. One of the reasons for the implementation of the GRA was in relation to the right to marry, because marriage then had to be between people of opposite sex. And that was in quite large part due religions in general and in the context of the uk the CofE in particular lagging behind secular tolerance of homosexuality, blocking same sex marriage.

It also has a number of unelected members of the House of Lords - a direct attack on democracy frankly.

Well yes, but that was a side show. And a convenient excuse to not attempt same sex marriage.**

Given the ample evidence of those who used to contribute to FWR, the main pressure came from those, whether they thought of it as queer politics, but was part of the same movement that got women's studies closed in universities and gender studies opened instread.

It was the start of the now, sadly entrenched culture, that says sex and gender are the same thing, and you are not tied to a biological reality, but can have a reality based on what you identify as.

Although it is true, that the GRA or rather the GRC was in reality a very minority interest. To date somewhere in the region of 10,000 GRCs issued in the UK.

** And as know once same sex marriage became legal Stonewall was then floundering around for something for them to champion so as to go on having well paid jobs. And only then did them try and make same sex attraction somehow the same wanting to change your "gender" identity.

My point wasn't to get into the back and forth of the shit show that is the GRA, it's to point out that the Church of England has misogyny and homophobia at it's core (as do most religions) and because it is the established church that puts the government in a difficult position.

I don't think it's the only reason for the lack of inclusion of these characteristics in the law, just pointing out it's one.

I think it's our thousand plus years of history with religious bigotry that allows us to see the dangers inherent in the all religions, and we should take steps to ensure that history doesn't repeat itself.
Sadly I'm coming to the conclusion that humans are not capable of learning from past mistakes and the lessons of the past are wasted on us.

Wrong headed nonsense. Secularism has killed far more people than Christianity (I'm not including Islam as that is currently killing alot of people) - Stalin, Hitler Mao killed millions of not hundreds of millions. We do refuse to learn from history but not in the way you think.

Comments like this is why I'm coming to the conclusion I'm coming to.
All your examples are from the last hundred years, what about the thousands and thousands of years before.

It is quite hard to tally people killed by Christians in the name of Christianity v secularism but you have provided no proof of "the dangers inherent in all religions" as stated in your post. I believe that Christianity inspires people to do good in emulation of Jesus, and the reason we see so much evil in our society is lack of Christianity but it is hard to prove that just like you haven't proved your belief.

History is the proof, thousands of years of it, and not just Christianity.

The House of Lords itself is an archaic quirk but one when used properly (not by privilege) actually supports democracy with wiser debate and better decision making. I’m glad the CofE has a voice there. The CofE is generally moderate and uniquely reflects a British cultural heritage.

Your definition of "deeply entrenched" is different from mine.

They may have a position, but like the monarchy they have no real power any more. They have 26 seats in the House of Lords but they're likely to lose those in the the not too distant future.

Your use of the words "wiser debate and better decisions" shows just how undemocratic it is to have a bunch of unelected people able to overrule the will of the elected people.

They can delay bills by up to a year and if they time this coming up to an election or the time limit on a Private Members bill, they can prevent laws that the House of Commons have voted for from becoming law.

They deliberately caused the Assisted Dying Bill to "time out" this April.

That is wholly undemocratic.

Part of the problem of using the T as a proxy for the whole alphabet soup is that ‘inclusivity’ often means excluding LGB (and obviously women). Glad the NSS has picked up prejudice against specifically these groups - there’s a lot of it around

So going back to the big question here posed by the first post.

Should any church leader have the right to stand up on their pulpit and say "homosexuality is wrong in the eyes of God" and/or "the place of women is as mothers in the home".

Or should that be able to be prosecuted as homophobia and mysogyny?

I can see both sides but I come down in favour of free speech because of the wider implications of banning it.

Probably because there will be lots of sermons on not being gay and what marriage should look like that most us would find frankly ridiculous on the mild end and downright abusive or dangerous on the more severe end.

When you have mosques encouraging wife beating and obliging women to have sex with their husbands this is deeply deeply concerning. The fun run at that mosque that banned womens participation was on the mild end, what if you had some idiot handing out guides on how to beat your wife appropriately.

We need more clarity on this.

I think the line has to be about inciting violence or rape. So if you say homosexuality is a sin in xy religion thats one thing, if you start promoting what the punishment should be thats another. If you say you are permitted to beat your wife for disobedience that crosses a line too. As long as they don’t cross the line over whats actually legal in the UK I think thats the best you can do whilst protecting free speech.

Good points, that helped me understand where I am on this.

I think we have clarity wherever violence comes in, that illegal full stop.

I'm deeply unhappy about sex segregated events in public places but it would be a complicated law. Girl Guide members fun run OK, Moslem fun run not OK.