This is the perplexing moral dilemma facing Ruth Kelly, who was anointed secretary of state for communities and local government (with responsibility for Labour’s equality agenda) in that frantic and potentially calamitous cabinet reshuffle last week. Ruth is a member of the Roman Catholic church’s provisional wing, Opus Dei, whose members are obliged to view homosexuality as a “grave depravity”.

She is charged with the task of ensuring that homosexuals do not suffer discrimination at the hands of the rest of us. She is, in other words, an official conduit for the social acceptance of buggery and the consequent persecution of people who think much as she does. How does her conscience feel about that?

Ruth has been afforded, in the chamber, the opportunity to pledge her political support for the cause of gay rights, or indeed to oppose them, on no fewer than 12 occasions since being elected in 1997. She has voted against gay “civil partnerships” but otherwise she has conscientiously abstained.

Fellow Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody greeted her appointment with a snigger: “I am glad the prime minister has a sense of humour when it comes to appointing a minister for women and equality.” Perhaps the same sense of humour prevailed when it came to charging John Prescott with the responsibility for upholding standards in local government.

But many people have rallied around Kelly — not the gays, obviously, but the new Labour commentariat. It is perfectly possible, they argue, for a government minister to advance the case for equality for homosexuals while privately believing that they are an abhorrence before the Lord and will all be consumed by flames in the deepest pits of hell (I have attempted to summarise their arguments here). Ruth herself has asked plaintively: “Is it possible to be a Catholic and hold a portfolio in government?”

Well yes; but not necessarily this government. Balanced precariously on the horns of a dilemma, her belief system on one side, her career on the other, Ruth has finally taken the profoundly moral decision to jump down on the side of her career. “I firmly believe in equality and that everyone should be free of discrimination,” she announced last week. She does not really believe that, does she?

Homosexuals are sinners, are they not, and one should discriminate against sin wherever it rears its head? But never mind that. On this occasion her vengeful — and, you might argue, stupid — God has lost out to her wish for a successful political career.

But this is a problem of the government’s making. The relentless, oppressive insistence that we must all share the same view, on pain of a fine or imprisonment, has at last led us to the absurd position whereby a government minister might be investigated, possibly arrested, for speaking her mind on a matter in which she believes.

It is only a few months ago that the leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, was investigated by the police for having opined, on the BBC PM programme, that homosexuality was damaging to society. Here was a wonderful paradox, straight out of Lewis Carroll: the government passes a law to prevent us from being disrespectful about a belief system (Islam) and then sends round the rozzers when someone expounds a fundamental tenet of that belief system.

Ruth Kelly, I would guess, privately agrees with everything Sacranie said on the matter of homosexuality and, if the beliefs of Opus Dei are dutifully enshrined in her heart, would probably go even further. So do we persecute Sacranie because he gave vent to his medieval views and leave Ruth Kelly alone because she declines to divest herself of them in public? Should we, really, be persecuting either of them?

Then there’s the rest of us. Public attitudes to homosexuality have undoubtedly moved a mile in the last 15 years, thanks largely to groups such as Stonewall and Outrage. We are, as a nation, more tolerant than ever before.

But here’s a guess — and it is just a guess — a large minority, or perhaps even a majority of people in Great Britain dislike what homosexuals do to one another and may, either consciously or subconsciously, treat gay people differently to how they may treat someone who is sexually “straight”. Without great malice, in most cases.

What does Ruth Kelly have to say to the enormous numbers of these recalcitrant individuals, an awful lot of them drawn from that tranche of the population new Labour purports to represent, ie, the working classes? What happens when Ruth is forced to adjudicate in the case of a gay secretary who is denied a job at the local branch of Opus Dei because of his or her sexual preference? It is all very well for her to insist that her private views will not impinge upon her public role in government — but only if that government is respecting of private views and does not demand, via the law courts, that we are compelled to keep our views to ourselves.

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