The amendment has been spearheaded by Labour frontbenchers, and has cross Party support.

Unfortunately the Government has stated that it will oppose moves to legalise humanist marriage, which is why it is even more important for Labour MPs to attend the debate and vote in favour of it to try to ensure that it passes.

To make absolutely clear – the amendment only applies to humanist marriage. It would not make the law any wider to accommodate any other belief system.

In Scotland humanist marriages have had legal status since 2005 and are now more popular than Roman Catholic marriages. The legal recognition of humanist marriage achieved through the amendment would be a progressive change in line with Labour values of equal treatment and non-discrimination. It would also be popular and remove unreasonable disparities between different parts of the United Kingdom.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has set up a facility to help you to email your MP about this important matter. Please do so today.

Thank you for your support.

Read an article by our Chair on equal humanist marriage.

Read the article here http://labourlist.org/2013/03/its-time-for-truly-equal-marriage/

Follow us on Twitter @LabourHumanists

Together with the British Humanist Association (BHA), we had a stand at the Fabian Society annual conference in London. With 1000 Labour Party members, activists, and influencers attending, this was an excellent opportunity for us to speak to people and recruit new members to Labour Humanists.

Naomi Phillips, chair of Labour Humanists, commented, ‘The refusal to comply with basic gender equality law and maintaining its sexist approach to women in employment shows the Church of England as completely unsuitable to be part of the state. It should certainly prevent it from having those automatic seats in Parliament from which it bars women, and it illustrates how out of touch it is with a modern, liberal and inclusive society.

‘Yet even if they did allow women to be bishops that would be no reason for the Church to retain its reserved seats in the Lords, or to remain as the established Church of England with all the unearned privileges and power that come with it.

‘Parliament should not waste time trying to reform the Church and instead use this as a good opportunity to focus on passing legislation to disestablish it, and to abolish automatic seats for its bishops in the Lords. As the Party which should have equality at its heart, we would like Labour to take the lead in that endeavour.’

Action on bishops in the Lords

Read Labour Humanists’ letter to Ed Miliband on the place of bishops in the Lords, and why Labour should take the lead on secular law reform http://www.labourhumanists.org.uk/letter-to-ed-miliband/

Support the British Humanist Association’s (BHA) @HolyRedundant campaign to get the bishops out the Lords http://holyredundant.org.uk/

A big concern for Labour Humanists is the near-silence from the Labour Party on the issue of permitting state-funded faith schools to discriminate in their admissions policies. Labour Humanists’ chair Naomi Phillips blogged about this on LabourList.org (http://labourlist.org/2012/11/selective-faith-schools-why-labour-should-say-no/), and argued that support for selective religious schools went against One Nation Labour principles.

It is incoherent that on the one hand a Party which has equality at its heart, which has openly fought against academic and class selection by schools can on the other support, endorse, and enshrine in law the ‘right’ for faith schools to discriminate in their admissions.

We want the issue of discriminatory faith schools to be properly considered by Labour right across the board. If those who support inclusive education in all state-funded schools want to see change and Labour taking the lead against selective school admissions, then we need to get our voices heard in the Party now.

Judicial review of discriminatory faith schools

A legal challenge against approval of new schools because of religious discrimination, heard in the High Court last week, highlighted the growing problem of the proliferation of discriminatory faith schools. Regrettably, that judicial review taken by the British Humanist Association (BHA) and the Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign (RISC) which challenged the decision by the Tory-run Richmond-upon-Thames Council to open two state-funded Catholic schools with highly discriminatory admissions policies was lost. For more details about the case and the judgement see http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/1143 andhttp://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/1141.

Many oppose selection by state-funded faith schools

The negative impact on social cohesion, caused by dividing up more and more children along religious, class, and often ethnic lines through many faith schools operating highly selective admissions criteria, is far from being solely a humanist concern. A new survey last week had a clear majority of respondents agreeing that ‘state funded schools should not be allowed to select or discriminate against prospective pupils on religious grounds in their admissions policy’ (http://accordcoalition.org.uk/2012/11/12/nearly-three-quarters-of-the-british-public-disagrees-with-religious-selection-in-admissions-at-state-funded-schools/). The survey was commissioned by the Accord Coalition, which itself brings together religious groups, humanists, teachers, trade unionists, educationalists and civil rights activists, to campaign for truly inclusive education in the state school sector.

Join us

Join Labour Humanists to help us influence Party policy on key humanist and secularist issueswww.labourhumanists.org.uk

And the issues and the policies to change are many.

Topping the list at conference were faith schools discriminating against pupils and teachers, and concerns about what children and young people are actually being taught (or not) by many faith schools – not least in the new government-supported, and highly deregulated, religious Academies and Free Schools. Unfortunately previous Labour governments actively gave faith schools of all different types wide permission to discriminate and to teach a curriculum highly skewed towards the religion of the school.

Selection, discrimination, narrow religious curricula. That should not be what a Labour policy towards state-funded schools looks like.

The handing over of public services to religious groups which are allowed to discriminate against staff on religious grounds and proselytise in the provision of services, despite working under contract with the state, was another hot issue at conference.

Our ‘Secular Public Services’ pin badges were extremely popular with delegates and it’s a simple message – public services should be shared, work on the basis of equality and human rights, and never be used as a vehicle for evangelical religious groups to proselytise to often vulnerable people. Labour’s policy in the past has not been to protect the secular nature of public services but we think it absolutely should be.

There are many areas where we believe the Labour Party can and should look ahead and support the secularist position, whether that’s on constitutional reform, equal marriage, public services, education, women’s and LGBT rights, and more. Equality, non-discrimination, human rights, freedom of thought and speech, a rational and evidenced-based approach to policy making. These surely are Labour values as well as humanist and secularist values, and we think they should be enshrined in Labour policies. 

But what should Labour Humanists’ priorities be, as we grow our supporter base working within the Party to affect real policy change for real equality?

Let us know what you would like to see us focus on. Tweet us @LabourHumanists or drop us an email info {at} labourhumanists.org(.)uk Don’t forget you can also show your support by joining us, for the equivalent of just £1 a month. Follow the PayPal link on our home page www.labourhumanists.org.uk.

See photos on the BHA’s Facebook page here http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151231861075923.513773.26806660922&type=1

‘Militant secularism’ was the theme of the No Prayer Breakfast and all speakers set out their perspectives. The discussion session from the floor covered a wide range of burning issues for humanists in the Labour Party – the government’s programme to expand discriminatory state-funded faith schools, Christian-only food banks, public services handed over to religious organisations, the growing numbers of non-religious people throughout the UK, equal marriage, and much, much more.

It was also a great opportunity to sign up new members to Labour Humanists for the equivalent of just £1 per month – people can now join online via the PayPal link on our homepage www.labourhumanists.org.uk. Delegates were also encouraged to follow @LabourHumanists on Twitter. We live-tweeted the event with photos (check out our Twitter timeline!) and the BHA also Storify-ed the event http://storify.com/BHAhumanists/no-prayer-breakfast

We have a great line-up of speakers:

Polly Toynbee (Guardian columnist and president of the BHA)
Andrew Copson (Chief executive, BHA)
Angela Eagle MP (tbc)
Kelvin Hopkins MP
Sunny Hundal (Editor, Liberal Conspiracy)
Owen Jones (Author)

Chair: Naomi Phillips (Chair of Labour Humanists)

Time: 08:00 to 09:00 Date: 02 October 2012
Venue: Hilton Hotel Room: Meeting Room 2,3,4