Frank Dobson MP argues British Muslims should not have to wait as long as Roman Catholics for equal rights

I have been asked why, although not a Roman Catholic, I am supporting a Private Member’s Bill to permit any member of the Royal Family to marry a Roman Catholic. The answer is that I do not think we should tolerate a law which discriminates against Roman Catholics. It is as simple as that.
Under our existing laws, a member of the Royal Family can marry someone of any religious faith, or none, without losing their right of succession to the throne, except if they are a Roman Catholic.
They could marry unbelievers like me, or Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Animists or Christians of any denomination except Roman Catholicism.
That cannot be right. But it is the law.
This anti-Catholic bias dates back to the Act of Settlement 1701. At that time, Catholics suffered all sorts of restrictions, not just on their right to their religious practices, but also their civic and economic rights.
They were disbarred from voting or being MPs or magistrates, or going to university. This had all come about in response to concerns that some Roman Catholics were not loyal to this country but owed their loyalty to the Pope or to Continental monarchs who were Roman Catholics or both. It cannot be denied that a small minority of Catholics were disloyal. But the majority were not. Yet all sorts of pains and penalties were levied on all Roman Catholics, no matter how loyal and law abiding they were.
All sorts of people kept stirring up hatred against Catholics because of their religious beliefs. They were portrayed as potential torturers and murderers.
They were vilified as fundamentalists. They were not to be trusted. Sometimes the ruling establishment promoted this religious hatred. Sometimes anti-Catholic witch hunts were stirred up by zealots like Titus Oates with his ‘Popish Plot’. Almost a century later, the Gordon Riots (organised partly from the Boot Pub which still stands in Cromer Street) caused death, injury and wholesale destruction right across London.
That was how the anti-Catholic laws were kept in place – legitimate suspicion of a small minority of Catholics was used to promote hysteria against all the rest.
The Catholic Relief acts of 1778 and 1791 allowed Catholics to join the armed forces, run schools, buy and sell land and ended prosecutions for taking part in Roman Catholic religious services and bring a priest. The 1793 Relief Act allowed some Catholics the vote and opened the universities, the judiciary and some government appointments to them. In 1929, the Catholic Emancipation Act enabled Catholics to become MPs and hold any public office except monarch, regent and lord chancellor. Almost all remaining legal discrimination against Catholics was removed by the second Roman Catholic Relief Act 1926 and since 1974 Catholics are no longer disbarred from being lord chancellor.
Despite these changes in the law, there is still some discrimination against Roman Catholics but they are no longer the principal target of bigotry, assault, abuse, rumour-mongering and discrimination. Their place has been taken by Muslims.
Today’s Muslims are portrayed as dangerous and disloyal when, just like Roman Catholics 200 to 300 years ago, the vast majority want nothing more than to get on with their lives, earn a living and practise their religion in peace. Like the 17th and 18th century Catholics, they have been assaulted, abused and discriminated against. Once again, legitimate suspicion of a tiny minority is being used to promote hysteria against the loyal and law-abiding majority.
That is why I welcome the government’s action to outlaw religious discrimination in employment and the proposal to make incitement to hatred on the grounds of religious belief a criminal offence. Catholics shouldn’t have had to wait several hundred years to be treated equally. It would be intolerable to expect our Muslim fellow citizens to wait that long.
• Frank Dobson is MP for Holborn and St Pancras.