Conscience’s “Using Religion to Discriminate” issue (Vol. XXXV, No. 2) resonates with similar debates in Europe where, much like the US, conservative religious groups have been seeking a license to discriminate by redefining religious freedom and human rights for their own purposes. Where the US Supreme Court ruled against individual religious freedom in the Hobby Lobby decision, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has sided with churches and against individual rights in two significant cases.

In the Sindicatul “Păstorul cel Bun” v. Romania case, decided in 2013, priests were denied the right to form a trade union by the Romanian Orthodox church, although they satisfied the formal legal requirements. The court ruled in favor of the autonomy of religious communities, over and above the rights of clergy.

The 2014 case of Fernández Martínez v. Spain dealt with a married Catholic priest who was dismissed from his position as a religion teacher in a Spanish state-run school. The Vatican granted him a dispensation from celibacy but subsequently declined to renew his teaching contract when the priest’s liberal views on contraception and abortion were made public. In Spain, the Vatican has direct involvement with employment decisions at Catholic schools, as stipulated in the concordat signed with the Holy See. In a tight 9-8 vote, the ECHR ruled in favor of the church’s freedom to protect its image and, therefore, the right to require an instructor’s loyalty to the church’s moral standards. The institutional church’s victory was won at the expense of the priest’s right to respect for his private and family life.

These two decisions are regrettable, but the ECHR has also upheld secular legislation over false “freedom of religion” claims. The court has decided over the years that there is no general right to conscientious objection except in the field of military service. Then in 2013, Eweida and Others v. the UK involved a London registrar who claimed that she had been discriminated against on the basis of her religious beliefs when she was dismissed after refusing to carry out civil partnerships for same-sex couples. The court validated the employee’s dismissal.

PIERRE-ARNAUD PERROUTY
Executive Director
European Humanist Federation
Brussels, Belgium