A unique coalition of faith-based and non-religious organisations is calling on the House of Lords to reject wide exemptions for religious organisations at its second reading of the Equality Bill on 15 December 2010.

An Anglican bishop will be expected to take equal opportunities training and faces costs of some £50,000 after a tribunal awarded a gay youth worker £47,000 compensation after ruling that he had been discriminated against.

Religious groups opposed to homosexuality have failed in their attempt to encourage British peers to scrap new rules providing lesbian and gay people with the same protection against discrimination as have been enjoyed by faith groups since 1998.