a matter of choice

The competing concerns of various kinds of rights seem to be seldom out of the news at the moment.  This is not least because of the government's consultation on marriage equality, and the fear of certain churchpeople that this is somehow (despite being explicitly not related to religious weddings) an attack on faith (if not civilization itself).  I've blogged on that topic before, and will try to do so again soon.

British law on equality protects against discrimination on the grounds of a number of protected characteristics.  These include age, sex, orientation, religion or belief.  I've seen quite a few comments suggesting that this is uneven, because many of these are innate, whereas religion is a matter of choice - and so religious discrimination is more forgiveable (or its protection a lower class of right) than, say, discrimination on the grounds of age or sex (or, at the most politically charged point, sexual orientation).  If religion is a choice - on a par with choosing MacDonald's over Burger King, or Mazda over Honda, or real ale over lager - then it is plainly not as worthy of respect as some other protected characteristics.

But is faith a matter of choice?

I can't speak for everyone, nor every kind of faith.  In our society which celebrates consumer choice, shopping for a religion, eventually choosing the Marks and Spencer version, seems to make sense.   But is it really like that?

It strikes me that if you believe in God - for whatever reason - it is very hard simply to choose to stop. You could announce that you no longer believe - but that could easily be a lie.  Belief strikes me as a deep-down - possibly irrational - confidence in something, which is hard to shake.  Perhaps the gulf between people of faith and those with none is that either struggles to comprehend the state of mind of the other.

Lots of people believe things on the basis of flimsy evidence, or indeed, believe in a counter-factual kind of way.  Decades (centuries?) of science teaching have failed to persuade large numbers of people that heavy and light objects fall at the same speed [ok; they fall with the same acceleration, to be more precise].  Belief is hard to shake - whether based on truth or falsehood, or something else.

I assume that this isn't a new thought: presumably the framers of statements of human rights gave status to belief alongside race and sex and the rest for higher reasons than being afraid of the religionists.  And yet it seems to be being missed by a lot of well-meaning but rather shrill people.  

I'm not for a moment arguing that people of faith should be able to ride roughshod over the sensibilities of gay people - but the converse is also problematic.  The way of Christ seems altogether a better account of how to bear with each other:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
(Philippians 2:3,4, NIV)