Heather Bellamy spoke with Ciaran Kelly, the Head of Communications at the Christian Institute about the Equality Oath, Extremism Disruption Orders and Ofsted's intention to inspect churches.

Heather: You said they're pushing ahead with Ofsted going into churches, is there a timescale for that?

Ciaran: Not that I'm aware of. Not at the present time.

Heather: Going back to this Equality Oath, do you know what would happen to people if they didn't take the oath?

Ciaran: That's not clear, but certainly you can see that they will be marginalised to some degree or other, otherwise why have the oath?

Sajid Javid can talk about belief in equality and democracy and in the democratic process, but whatever the set of values are that are encapsulated in this oath, you are saying to people 'you have to sign up to this or there are going to be some consequences'. If there are no consequences, there would be no need for the oath. So you have to assume that something is going to happen off the back of it. Whether that is that you can't carry out your role any more, I'm not saying that, that's not been stated as bluntly as that, but the question would be, why have the oath at all if there aren't going to be some negative consequences associated with it? That's why it is very dangerous and that's why we've spoken out about it. This is not the kind of thing that we need.

Heather: What are your concerns about all of these Government strands that are their solutions to social cohesion and extremism/terrorism issues?

Ciaran: It boils down to the fact that all of these things are incredibly vague and far from dealing with the people who the Government should be going after, rather than targeting their resources in a fashion that deals with those who are violent extremists, it is a catch-all that can affect not just Christians, but atheists, environmentalists and people who have strong views on things like fracking. All of these people can be swept up in these catch-all proposals where people do not line up with whatever the Government's view on equality, or the Government's view on British values is.

A particular concern for many Christians is the fact that time and time again, the go-to example by people like Dame Louise Casey, who put forward the whole notion of the Equality Oath in the first place, is the idea of same-sex marriage. To disagree with same-sex marriage puts you beyond the pale. She rode back from those remarks when she first made them, but this was the benchmark. If you disagree with same-sex marriage then you are somehow un-British and you are somehow a homophobe. To take that view is to basically cover up the fact that you don't like gay people very much and this is the thing that is woven throughout all of these things.

The idea of Ofsted coming into churches and church youth groups and assessing those groups and those settings on their theology - they're not qualified to do that. They're not qualified to come into any of those kinds of settings and understand Biblical teaching on marriage, or the divinity of Christ and His exclusive claims.

The concern is this broad brushstroke approach is going to affect Christians and many other people and try to marginalise them and marginalise their traditional views on a whole host of things.

Heather: Do you think that the Government lumps together violent terrorists who harm and kill people, with people who go about their lives caring for people, but simply have a traditional view about marriage?

Ciaran: I'm saying that when the Government introduced this and David Cameron and Theresa May launched the idea of non-violent extremism, they said that, "For too long", I'm paraphrasing, "We've put up with these people who keep the law and who can get away with keeping the law and we've got to turn the page on that. It's not enough to go after violent extremists, we have to go after non-violent extremists." Those are their words.

The example that gets used constantly about what constitutes non-violent extremism has been those who hold a traditional view on marriage. So they have drawn the line themselves. They have said, "We've got to deal with extremists and the way that we're going to deal with extremists, is to take these various strands and clamp down on those who have views that we find disagreeable."

The logic that they have applied, is there might be some infamous terrorists who have traditional views on marriage and therefore if other people who have traditional views on marriage are at one end of the escalator towards that direction and that's the language that has been used, that's not me generating those kind of words, that you're somehow on an escalator from holding traditional views around marriage towards violent extremism.