Christian Institute

rdf:langString Christian Institute

rdf:langString Christian Institute

rdf:langString CI

rdf:langString Gosforth Business Park,

rdf:langString NE12 8DG.

rdf:langString Wilberforce House,

rdf:langString Colin Hart

rdf:langString Director

rdf:langString Fundamentalist Christian charity

rdf:langString The Christian Institute (CI) is a pressure group operating in the United Kingdom, promoting a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint, founded on a belief in Biblical inerrancy. The CI is a registered charity. The group does not report numbers of staff, volunteers or members with only the Director, Colin Hart, listed as a representative. However, according to the accounts and trustees annual report for the financial year ending 2017, the average head count of employees during the year was 48 (2016:46). While the CI has campaigned on issues including gambling, abortion and euthanasia, it is most notable for its campaigns against homosexuality and gay rights. The CI sought to retain Section 28 and a higher age of consent for homosexuals, and opposed the Civil Partnership Act, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 and legislation allowing gay couples to adopt. It has opposed measures to prevent gay people being discriminated against in the provision of services and goods. The Civil Partnership Act 2004, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 and the Equality Act 2010 were ultimately enacted by Parliament. The Christian Institute's activities resulted in censure by The Charity Commission in 2001, for breaching rules limiting overt political campaigning by charities, by "publishing a 100-page report, Homosexuality and Young People (1998), which argued against reforming anti-homosexual law with reference to the clear Biblical Christian view of homosexuality as an unnatural perversion of biological design by our Creator." In 2004, the CI funded a full-page newspaper advertisement in The Times in support of a controversial amendment to the Civil Partnership Bill. The amendment attempted to include within the scope of the Bill siblings who had lived together for longer than 12 years. The amendment was ultimately rejected in both Houses of Parliament. In response to the advertisement, Members of Parliament questioned the CI's overt political campaigning in light of its charitable status.