For me, "current affairs" usually means the last century, but for once I've managed to be only a few months behind the debate. I've got round to reading ++Rowan's lecture and it reminded me rather of the debate a couple of years ago on the Gospel of Judas - i.e. it would be far more interesting if it actually said what the media claimed it said. In actual fact, the bish didn't propose any particular legal model, the introduction of Sharia law, or anything else; it was purely a theoretical and academic discussion, raising questions more than giving answers.
It's a pity, though, that the media interest in Sharia law led them to overlook more subtle but equally controversial points. Take this one, for example:
"And when courts attempt to do this [judge motives] on the grounds of what is 'generally acceptable' behaviour in a society, they are open, Bradney claims (102-3) to the accusation of undermining the principle of liberal pluralism by denying someone the right to speak in their own voice."
Or this:
"One of the most frequently noted problems in the law in this area is the reluctance of a dominant rights-based philosophy to acknowledge the liberty of conscientious opting-out [...]: the assumption, in rather misleading shorthand, that if a right or liberty is granted there is a corresponding duty upon every individual to 'activate' this whenever called upon."
The Archbishop's argument is that the practical enjoyment of rights conferred by the state doesn't require their general, universal recognition as "human rights". He draws a parallel between the right to an abortion and the right of gay couples to adopt. In the first case, it is accepted that individual doctors can opt out of performing or recommending termination, so long as this doesn't prevent abortion from being readily available to every woman who is entitled to it. On the other hand, all adoption agencies are now required to recognise the right of gay couples to adopt, even though the desired effect (adoptive children being available for eligible gay couples) would still be achieved if the requirement were only placed on publicly funded adoption services. Abortion is seen as a medical issue, so the priority is access to free medical services; but adoption is seen as a gay-rights / equality issue, in which the recognition of the right is as important as the outcome.
You have to admit he has a point. Unfortunately, this is the point at which Dr Williams' nerve fails him. He accepts that religion is not a 'purely private matter', inhabiting a separate space from other types of opinions and identities such as political beliefs, race or social tribe. He could propose a radical model of purposive law in which only the outcome is important, leaving significant space for people to find their own individual way of living within that law. Instead, he chooses the standard 'opt-out' model, in which religious beliefs are treated as a special category and exempted from otherwise general rules.
The problem with the opt-out is that, if it is not to become a free-for-all, there has to be some kind of limit to what people can claim they are doing on religious or 'conscientious' grounds. ++Rowan settles for the standard fudge - religious opt-outs have to be backed up by authority, i.e. the clear requirement of an institutional church or the consensus of scholarly opinion. Paradoxically, individual conscience has to conform to the expectations of society.
It seems to me that the word "conscience" is losing its natural meaning. Naturally, it ought to imply a personal conviction based on compassionate instincts. The concept of "conscientious objection" has always been associated with the Quakers - who reject the idea of authority in religion but were often prepared to suffer ostracism and prison for their refusal to kill. It now appears that a "conscientious" scruple means precisely the opposite of that deeply personal, isolating situation. Instead, it can only have its conscientious status validated if it is based on obedience to authority and required as membership of a (respectable and recognised) group. That traumatic responsibility which used to be the mark of conscience has been abdicated or 'delegated-up' to another.
In so doing it has, arguably, also lost that element of compassion. It was truly sickening to hear representatives of Catholic adoption agencies - good people, undoubtedly, who had tried to help both childless couples and neglected or unwanted children - insisting that their consciences required them to close their agencies and give up their valuable work. In fact, the chances of a gay couple actually approaching a catholic adoption agency are slim. Even if such a couple did approach a Catholic agency, it is only their sexuality which could not be taken into account in deciding whether to place a child with them. Religion, cultural background and opinions can all be taken into account; in fact there may even be an obligation to place a child from a Catholic background with a practising Catholic couple. There was even the option of ignoring the law - not something I would generally recommend, but more principled than the attitude of "play by my rules or I'm taking my ball home".
The people I have sympathy with are the social workers - people on the front line, not in a palace in Rome - who are in the position to truly have personal convictions about what is best for a child, based not on dogma but on compassion and on experience. Social workers must find it difficult turning down perfectly acceptable parents because they don't have the same ethnic or religious background as a certain child, or they fail in some way to fulfil the middle-class ideal of the perfect parent. As far as Rowan Williams is concerned, theirs is a second-class conscience.