In a situation where the Church would have to actively go against their beliefs - if they were asked to take on employees who did not adhere to their beliefs or to promote beliefs they do not hold - they would either run the risk of being seen as hypocrites or of having their identity warped. It would also create an awkward or hostile environment for the employee or for the people who listen to the Church promote beliefs that they obviously do not hold and are being forced to promote.

I'd like to point out the absurdity of the opposite poster's appeal to utility ("the greatest happiness for the greatest number"). While the greatest happiness maxim is key to utilitarian justice, we must never forget that this was not meant to justify the tyranny of the majority, ie. self-appointed umpires who calculate the aggregate opinions of the masses and then enforce those views on the entire populace. Indeed, JS Mill makes this point. He says that while governments should be concerned with maximising happiness, it is only the individual who can define happiness when it relates to themselves. The individual 'discovers' what happiness means to them through a process of life experiences. The end result is known as eudaimonism.

Given that happiness is subjective and subject to individuality, the proper role of the state is to create the conditions in which the individual can discover their own sense of morality, not (and this is the key bit), to instruct people in how to act and behave. How then do we create the conditions in which individual happiness can thrive? Through non-intervention when an act is self-regarding (there are no positive - positive in a pro-active sense rather than a moral one - impacts on an unconsenting other). Mill called this the harm principle.

In other words, look not to the state for moral arbitration. It is wholly ill-equipped to do so. In this context, it seems that the state is forbidding Catholics from practicing their own sense of morality, even though it has no positive impact on another. Yes, the potential adopter is prevented from adopting (and forced to seek an alternative adoption agency). But this is an indirect impact.

The key issue is whether or not we want the state to define morality, or whether we want to discover and practice it ourselves (wherever this has no impact on anyone else). I opt for the latter.

In response to the person who claimed "equality is a compromise", I would like to point out that the state-sanctioned equality agenda is not so much a compromise and more of a 'you must agree with us'. 'Equality' is a state of being whereby we are all equally free from external control. By 'external control', I mean government, society and the market.

By compelling Catholic adoption agencies to allow non-heterosexual people to adopt, the government is creating a situation whereby one group of people is permitted to think freely, while the other group is not. Such unequal treatment can hardly be described as equality.

This cannot be the thinking of a liberal of today; that the majority should win over individual autonomy and respect? Just because religion is declining it does not mean that we should afford it less protection than what we would have done when Britain was more religious. What should not count is the number of people who benefit from a right, but the way in which people benefit. If we look at the scenario of Roman Catholic Adoption Agencies not allowing homosexual couples to adopt, this was outlawed by sexual orientation legislation. But there are public adoption agencies where homosexuals can adopt. So where is the equality here? We are placing one belief against another and stating that the homosexual belief is to be given more protection because more people are liberal to homosexuality than to religion. But this is a mere role reversal to what was the case 50 years ago.

With Britain become increasingly secular and sceptical of God, how ca the freedom to religion possibly come before the right to equal treatment. Equal treatment is something that everyone will take the benefit from, religious freedom benefits a small number of people and this small number of people is ever decreasing. The laws are correct. We should work on the utilitarian principle of whatever produces the most benefit for the greatest number. Here the case is plainly that more people benefit from the equality laws, therefore, it should be this right that trumps.

The Roman Catholic Church should not be seen as a public institution. They have no obligation to provide jobs or adopt children. They do so through their own endeavours. No one has a right to adopt and no one has a right to have a job. So no rights are being infringed. But that does not mean they should claim equality. Surely a homosexual would know better than to apply for a job in a Roman Catholic job when there are so many job operators around. It seems more like the Church is being antagonised than the Church not respecting individuality.

If the Catholic Church requests the right to speak and live by their own beliefs, then they should accept the right of homosexuals to be freely employed, to marry and adopt children etc. - they believe this is their right, therefore by their own standards, they should have this right. The Church cannot have rights but be free to deny rights to others. Equality is a compromise with others who are one's equals, not complete freedom to do as one wishes.