Harris disputes Cardinal's call for 'moral revolution'

1.40.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 29th May 2006

Responding to Archbishop Cormac Murphy O'Connor's call for more religious influence in public policy, Dr Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon said:

"The last thing this country needs is a Bush-style religious revolution. The so-called "moral majority" is neither. More religion in politics means more discrimination, more censorship and more obsessions with sex and Sundays.

"Given that the Archbishop makes reference to his recent meeting with the health secretary and that Bishops and Imams are in and out of Downing Street more than any other group, his suggestion that there is a 'Christophobia' among the establishment is either delusional paranoia or a devious push for yet more influence.

"Faith based institutions already have undue influence - in our state schools, in the House of Lords, in the constitution through the monarchy and in the media."

"Why should there be Bishops in the Lords automatically but not atheists? Why should the monarch be the Defender of either the Faith or - worse still - of faith itself? Why are state-funded schools allowed to impose worship on students and exclude others; and why should the religious have a protected quota of time on TV and reserved slots on the radio?

"The history of theocratic states and those influenced by religion like the Bush administration should be a warning to the rational and secular majority that religion should left as a private and church matter and not one for public policy."