Should medical staff be allowed to opt out of involvement in providing abortions on grounds of religious conscience? Should couples be allowed to adopt children if their religious beliefs lead them to insist homosexuality is a sin? Should religious institutions be exempted from normal rules and social expectations when their beliefs put them at odds with prevailing values, even those expressed in law? Roger Trigg, emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick and academic director of the centre for the study of religion in public life at Kellogg College, Oxford, argues that while religious freedom is never absolute, there are at least two good reasons to give it special weight when considering such modern dilemmas.
