The idea of a Freedom of Conscience Clause is brilliant politics from the DUP. It’s also utter nonsense.

It is brilliant politics because it suggests to their own voters (and likely potential voters) that they are being discriminated against; that there is some secular bogey man out there who is stopping them leading their religious lives; and that somehow there is a distinction between living a religious life on one hand and treating people equally in public on the other. It’s great stuff, appealing right to the heart strings.

It’s all rubbish, of course, and they know it. In fact, Christians in Northern Ireland (and I am one, by the way) retain a specifically advantaged place in society – both as opposed to non-Christians, and as opposed to Christians anywhere else in the UK. Religious Education remains a compulsory GCSE, 94% of which covers Christianity. Christian Churches are represented on…