Equalities chief accuses Christians of trying to impose their own form of 'sharia' law

Extreme view? Trevor Phillips said religious rules should end 'at the door of the temple'

Christians who argue they should be exempt from equalities legislation are no different from Muslims who want to impose sharia law in Britain, a human rights chief has declared.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, said religious rules should end 'at the door of the temple' and give way to the 'public law' laid down by Parliament.

He said Catholic adoption agencies should drop their opposition to accepting gay couples – even if it conflicts with their religious beliefs – because they were providing a public service.

Last year, following a High Court case, the Charity Commission ruled against an exemption for Catholic Care, a Leeds adoption agency.

And last week, a High Court judge ruled that it was unlawful for councils to include Christian prayers in their formal meetings after a legal challenge by atheist former Bideford councillor Clive Bone.

Mr Phillips said all faith groups providing public services must choose between their religion and obeying the law when their beliefs conflicted with the will of the state.

Last night his remarks were condemned as 'totalitarian' by religious leaders, but they were welcomed by secular groups.

Speaking at a debate in London on diverse societies, Mr Phillips backed the new laws, which led to the closure of all Catholic adoption agencies in England.

'You can’t say “because we decide we’re different then we need a different set of laws”,’ he said.

'There’s nothing different in principle with a Catholic adoption agency, or indeed Methodist adoption agency, saying the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn’t apply to us.

Atheist: A High Court judge ruled that it was unlawful for councils to include Christian prayers in their formal meetings after a legal challenge by former Bideford councillor Clive Bone

'Why not then say sharia can be applied to different parts of the country? It doesn’t work.'

He added that religious groups should be free to follow their own rules within their own settings but not outside them. ‘Once you start to provide public services that have to be run under public rules, for example child protection, then it has to go with public law,’ he said, in comments reported by The Tablet, the Catholic newspaper.

But Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, described the comparison with sharia as ‘ridiculous’ and called on MPs to find ways of 'accommodation’ when new laws clash with religious beliefs. The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said Mr Phillips appeared to be applying a ‘totalitarian view of society'.

'Trevor Phillips in the past has argued for respect for Christian conscience. I am very surprised that here he seems to be saying there should be a totalitarian kind of view in which a believer’s conscience should not be respected.'