A government adviser who suggested Catholic schools should accept gay marriage has defended her remarks in a letter to the Catholic Herald.
Dame Louise Casey, the Government’s “integration tsar”, told MPs last month that it was “not OK” for Catholic schools to be “homophobic and anti-gay marriage”.
She was explaining that head teachers had a difficult task in deciding how far to respond to the concerns of religious groups.
She also said she had a “problem with the expression of ‘religious conservatism’ because I think often it can be anti-equalities”. Her remarks were criticised by Edward Leigh MP in an article for the Herald. Sir Edward argued that "linking opposition to same-sex civil marriage to homophobia is profoundly philosophically ignorant", adding: "She seems to imply that a matter of legitimate civil and political dispute – deepening the legal constructs regarding same-sex relationships – is no longer an item for debate."
