Religious future

Professor Tom Devine and two members of Durham Law School (Letters, 12 September) argue for the protection of religious freedoms.

We go far beyond that in the UK with a minister for faith as part of the government and a monarch as the Supreme Governor and Defender of the Faith: the Church of England.

Our UK theocracy includes the House of Lords, the highest legislature of the land, with its Lords Spiritual: 26 unelected bishops from the Church of England.

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They have the powers to tamper, stymie and throw out legislation. These bishops do not include members of the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian and has no bishops, or 
bishops from the Catholic Church, whose members are also denied access to the throne, or clerics from Wales or Northern Ireland, as their churches are not established.

Garry Otton

Scottish Secular Society

Broughton Street

Edinburgh