It may have saved Gordon Brown the crisis of three members of the Cabinet resigning over a point of religious principle, but I for one would question whether people who cannot reconcile party and government policy with their faith should be in the Cabinet at all.
After days of hysterical and mostly totally inaccurate attacks from leading Roman Catholic church leaders, the PM has caved and announced that three parts of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill currently before Parliament will be a free vote for Labour MPs.
While this may spare Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy from resigning from the government, it raises the role of the Roman Catholic church in British society.
If, like me, you grew up in Ireland in the 1980s and 90s, the sight of the government caving into the brute force of the Roman church demanding that MPs put faith above their role as elected representatives is worrying.
Ireland did not have divorce or abortion because priests stood up in their pulpits and instructed their parishoners how to vote in referendums. The church effectively decided social policy.
Now they have won a significant victory in the UK, and they are unlikely to rest there.
The PM should have stood firm, as Tony Blair did over gay adoption. The church on that occasion threatened to close its adoption agencies rather than consider gay couples. After much internal wrangling Blair, ironically a convert to Catholicism, called their bluff.
What is most troubling about this recent church spat is that they have told blatant lies about the scope and the impact of the bill. There will be no Frankenstein monsters, half-human half-beast creations.
More than 200 charities have spoken up for research. Yet the PM, somehow fearful of the small minority of his own MPs and Cabinet colleagues who feel they must side with their church, has allowed the bill to be challenged by Catholic politicians.
The Roman church has been trying this tactic in every country where they have influence. Gay rights in Italy are frustrated by their malign influence. They blatantly tried to stop the re-election of the Spanish government earlier this month, preaching that people who had allowed gay marriage were "anti-family."
Now they have managed to get their way in the UK. Fortunately, the bill will still pass and those Catholic MPs will have to explain to their constituents why they did not keep their best interests at heart over this matter.
Oh, and yes David Cameron and Nick Clegg have given their MPs a free vote, but then this is not their bill is it!
Read this excellent article on the topic of church vs constituents!
