Let us take our text this morning from the Most Reverend John Sentamu, the charismatic Archbishop of York. Speaking in the Lords debate on the latest Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, he said this: "Now the law is regarded purely as an instrument of regulating our personal affairs completely separate from morality and religion."

The Anglican Archbishop, in common with leading Roman Catholics and more-fundamentally-inclined Presbyterians such as former Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay, has been leading the charge against this Bill principally because it acknowledges the right of same-sex couples to have and raise test-tube babies. Note his phrase "completely separate from morality and religion".

In the first instance you might find it strange that within a constitutional tradition where church and state are rightly separate, he should expect that religious belief should determine legislation. But I would take further issue with John Sentamu, who in many other regards has been a welcome breath of unstuffy air blowing through the church establishment. Because his statement also implies that morality and religion are one and indivisible; that there cannot, in essence, be any meaningful secular morality, only that rooted in faith and belief and subject to the supposed will of his God.

I say supposed, because there are few religions which do not contrive to interpret that will in a way which conveniently reflects their personal prejudices. His own Anglican church has been involved in a long and bitter battle between the homophobic instincts of the West African and Middle Eastern members of the communion, and those, particularly in America, who have ordained a gay bishop in an active relationship.

That debate is a matter for the Anglicans involved. And, so long as the House of Lords maintains its archaic structure, bishops are as entitled as any other members to offer an opinion from the red benches. What is not acceptable is that the UK Parliament should be subjected to sustained emotional blackmail from representatives of the one-fifth of the population who said in a poll this month that they attended church "once a year or more". Constantly, the cry goes up from ecclesiastical quarters that we live in a Godless society whose handcart is accelerating to hell.

In fact, we live in a society where many church leaders constantly attempt to subvert the democratic will of the majority.

Within the past few weeks alone, a Roman Catholic cardinal urged adherents of that faith to cease supporting the human rights campaigning charity Amnesty International. His appeal led to a number of high-profile resignations from that organisation, including Scotland's most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien. Amnesty's sin? It altered its formerly neutral stance on abortion to support the right of termination for women raped, victims of incest or likely to die if the pregnancy continued. In a world where rape is now a routine weapon of war I fail to detect any whiff of Christian charity in berating Amnesty's common humanity. Or in the sustained, dishonest campaign against condom use in Africa which frustrated the battle against HIV/Aids.

This week the group Christian Voice is again attempting to sue the BBC and the producer of Jerry Springer the Opera on the grounds of blasphemous libel. The last time I looked, no British citizen was frogmarched into the theatre to watch it, or compelled to sit in front of a screening.

During Tony Blair's term of office, church schools in England squealed so loudly at a proposed law suggesting they admitted a reasonable quota of pupils from other faiths and none, that the demand was swiftly dropped from the Bill concerned. The very fact of expanding the numbers of those single-faith schools seems to me a poor recipe for an integrated, tolerant, multicultural society. But what would a muddle-headed agnostic of no fixed theological abode know about it?

Let's go back to that poll for a moment. Because it also told us that one in three adults still believes a God watches over them, and two in five pray. Most people want some kind of spiritual anchor; something or someone who helps them make sense of life's obstacle course. Yet surely how we resolve or fill that need ought to be a matter of private and personal choice.

The philosopher AC Grayling, one of our most accessible purveyors of joined-up thinking, has just written a book about the life well lived in a complex modern world. In it he teases out the age-old tensions between the call of duty and the lure of pleasure.

More importantly, he argues that morality is not the sole prerogative of those who have a belief in a higher power. That a worthwhile life can be build on many different foundations.

Amen to that.