Updated Monday morning
Here are two articles from religious sources that express criticism of the judgment previously reported here.
The Tablet has an editorial headlined Not equal before the law.
…Compelling people to act against their conscience, or forcing them out of business unless they are prepared to do so, can never be regarded as an unqualified victory for human rights. When rights clash, the appropriate way to resolve the issue is before an objective tribunal, which will weigh up the pros and cons on either side. That means there ought to be occasions where the right to religious freedom prevails, and the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of sexual orientation has to give way. But the latest case confirms, and as County Court Judge Andrew Rutherford said in his judgment, the balancing of one right against another is not what the law requires. In effect, gay rights trump religious convictions every time. There is something wrong with such a law. Judges should have discretion to probe further. Did the gay couple in this case, for instance, have a convenient alternative? Were the religious convictions merely a mask for homophobic prejudice? Above all, the court should be obliged to give due weight to the undesirability of overriding deeply held religious convictions, which is at least as wrong as offending the feelings of gay people. Religious believers have human rights too.
The Guardian has published a column by Jonathan Chaplin director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics titled Law can be influenced by religion.
…But quite apart from the merits of the case, judges should be warned off any future reliance on the ill-considered opinions about law and religion ventured last year by Lord Justice Laws. Laws rightly asserted that no law can justify itself purely on the basis of the authority of any religion or belief system: “The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other.”
A sound basis for this view is Locke’s terse principle, in his Letter on Toleration, that “neither the right nor the art of ruling does necessarily carry with it the certain knowledge of other things; and least of all the true religion”.
But Laws seemed to ground the principle instead on two problematic and potentially discriminatory claims…
This is a continuation of Chaplin’s earlier argument against what Lord Justice Laws said in the McFarlane case.
Update Monday morning
Here are two further articles, from a legal perspective, about the case:
In yesterday’s Observer Afua Hirsch the Legal Affairs Correspondent of the Guardian wrote Gay couple’s hotel battle is latest case of religion clashing with human rights
She mentions the trend of “Religitigation” and she concludes with this:
the Bulls’ case confirms that, in the meantime, Christians will have to accept that civil partnerships are intended to be its equivalent as far as the law is concerned. But the interesting issue in this case lurks in the judge’s commentary. “It is no longer the case that our laws must, or should, automatically reflect the Judaeo-Christian position,” said Rutherford, that is in regarding marriage as the only form of legally recognised binding relationship.
It is this issue that concerns religious groups – the ability of the law to move on from its religious roots to a more equitable formula of guaranteeing fundamental rights, including the right against discrimination. Of course where those rights come into conflict, a more nuanced exercise of balancing takes place – one that the judiciary has so far approached with the utmost seriousness. Rutherford confessed he found the Bulls’ case “very difficult”, and Lord Phillips – president of the supreme court and the UK’s most senior judge – said earlier this year that the Jewish school decision had been the hardest of his judicial life.
That has been of little consolation to religitigants, however. What they seem to want is a trump card that puts them above the subtle considerations of fairness. And that, the courts have repeatedly said, is not going to happen.
At the UK Human Rights Blog Catriona Murdoch wrote A Cornish hotel and the conflict between discrimination law and religious freedom.
The judgment itself is now available as a web page here.
And, as Catriona reminds us, the Northern Ireland version of these regulations was the subject of a high court challenge, see An Application for Judicial Review by the Christian Institute and others [2007] NIQB 66). We reported the outcome at the time: Northern Ireland: judicial review of SoRs. Among other things the judge said at that time:
“The applicants contend that the regulations treat evangelical Christians less favourably than other persons to the extent that they are subject to civil liability for manifesting the orthodox religious belief in relation to homosexuality. I am satisfied that the Regulations do not treat evangelical Christians less favourably than others.”
Not the best of pieces from the Tablet, religion has many “values” that give way to better wisdom as time teaches us and there are competing values within religions and between them – I am not sure the State can place itself at the whim of these. I believe there are genuine issues of concern but this case and this editorial touches on none of them.
However the Chaplin piece does to some extent and this view and those of Aidan O’Neill and Laws are all worth looking at again.
Read about the couple in the Bible. the husband is terribly ill.. I feel this is a very hollow victory for the gay men.
Far from being a Rosa parkes moment this will only be bad publicity for the gay lobby.
The views of Aidan O’Neill can be found at
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/004390.html
meant the newspaper not the bible.. freudian slip!
The Tablet piece seems simply to misunderstand the law – a law which is based on English law going back to the 1960s, although only more recently applied to sexual orientation and religion – and which is now enshrined in European law, following the English model. The law is that no-one should be subject to discrimination on the grounds of religion, sexual orientation etc. That’s it. It’s not much to ask. Since the only people being discriminatory in the B&B case were the owners, they lost. If the boot was on the other foot, and B&B owners were held to… Read more »
Robert Ian Williams, like many others, makes reference to ‘The Gay Lobby’. Perhaps he would like to elaborate on who or what this is. And secondly, why shouldn’t there be a ‘Gay Lobby’. There are plenty of ‘Christian’ ones, starting with the Christian Legal Centre, the Christian Institute, Christian Voice, and so on, all with the word ‘Christian’ in their titles, and all presuming that this gives them some sort of automatic right to have their opinions overrule any others or indeed the law of the land.
[“Gay lobby”, RIW? I sincerely thought you were better than that. 🙁 ] What does The Tablet NOT understand about the terms “Public Business”? Licensed by the government, to meet certain standards for a “hotel”? (Or “Bed & Breakfast”—at any rate, not a religious retreat-house!) Human rights are neutral vis-a-vis “rights regardless of sexual orientation (inc. relationships)” versus (potentially) “rights of religious believers”. However, that’s merely the right to BE of a (distinct) religious faith (affiliation). The government must never put its official stamp of approval on any SET of religious beliefs (I’m ignoring “the Church by Law Established” conundrum,… Read more »
Definition of lobby..those committed to a particular cause.
“The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other.”
– Lord Justice Laws –
A very good argument, consonant, in my reckoning with the words of Jesus “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”
I appreciate that many of the above comments focus on sexual orientation aspect of equality legislation. Slightly off-topic, but I’m still in quandary over how the law will tackle religious discrimination. For many Christians, participation is tantamount to connivance. To highlight this, let’s say you run a printing firm. You’re also a committed Christian and an animal rights campaigner. A couple of customers accept your quick quotes based on intended output format and quantity. When the artwork arrives, one is entitled ‘The Real Fur Quarterly’ and the other is religious publication that radically opposes Christianity. Does the current legislation allow… Read more »
I feel sorry for the hotel owners — they do not want to see what they consider immorality going on in the same house as they sleep in. Indeed, what is to prevent a hotel from becoming what used to be called a maison de passe (a love hotel) if hoteliers are obliged to forgo any moral discrimination?
RIW:
Then why–as previously asked–do we never hear you talk about a Christian lobby? I assure you, in both your country and mine, those with a determination to have the government rule by “Christian” standards (as THEY understand them) are far more organized and far more active in lobbying our respective legislatures than gays are.
David:
I don’t know what the law might be in the UK, but in the US, printers are not considered “public accommodations” and thus are not subject to anti-discrimination laws. Public accommodations are retail stores, hotels, restaurants, and the like.
Definition of lobby..those committed to a particular cause. – Robert Ian Williams
Quite. The ‘Christian’ lobby is well organised and well funded. It includeds various bishops and ex-archbishops along with much of the Church of England, the whole of the Roman church and assorted fundamentalists of many and varied stripes. Presumably Mr Williams approves of these views as expressed by the ‘Christian’ lobby because they accord with his own?
Mr Willimas and others do not use the phrase ‘gay lobby’ in a neutral way. Its use is designed to undermine, marginalise, discredit and dismiss those who hold to differing views.
“bad publicity for the gay lobby”
Do be civil, Robert. We prefer the term “cabal.”
Where’s your compassion and sensitivity for this old couple. Catholic triumphalism indeed..this is gay triumphalism!
I am not sure that Civil actions like this ever leave a pleasant taste in the mouth, Robert. But it did all remind me of a story I was told at a symposium in mid 1970’s New York NY by an Episcopal priest whose father had been an hotelier from the 1930’s onward. He spoke after we had watched an old movie about a journalist exposing anti Jewish discrimination in the US and told us how his father had worked for a year at a hotel owned by a Roman Catholic family who were virulently anti-Jewish and would not allow… Read more »
Thanks for your reply, Pat. I haven’t found anything similar to Public Accommodations in the UK.
Even though the Bulls have got it wrong, the broader moral/legal dilemma remains: on what grounds can business owners opt out of participation in work that contradicts their religious beliefs? Aggrieved religious minorities may indeed start taking Christian business owners to court.
The Equality Act is not just about sexual orientation.
David, which of these provisions were you thinking of? Equality Act provisions which came into force on 1 October 2010 •The basic framework of protection against direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation in services and public functions; premises; work; education; associations, and transport. •Changing the definition of gender reassignment, by removing the requirement for medical supervision. •Levelling up protection for people discriminated against because they are perceived to have, or are associated with someone who has, a protected characteristic, so providing new protection for people like carers. •Clearer protection for breastfeeding mothers; •Applying the European definition of indirect discrimination… Read more »
‘Where’s your compassion and sensitivity for this old couple’.
Oh, so now it’s ok to discriminate if you are old and infirm?
It is a failure to understand the limits of Christian responsibility. Christians are not the moral policemen of the world, appointed to ensure that whatever their standards happen to be (and mine are not the Bulls) they make others follow them. I’ve blogged on this. http://rosemaryhannah.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/dont-worry/
The trouble is that the Bulls could be anyone’s mum and dad; the wrong target is being pounced on; Britons do not share the American hunger for the last legal pound of flesh.
But don’t ‘religious minorities ‘tend to love ‘to be aggrieved’ ? I rather thought that was the(ir) point (very often). Being old and ill excites ‘sympathy’ does it ? Does that go for old, ailing homos too, I wonder ? The Christian (sic) Legal Center;and the Christian (sic) Institute too often it appears to me, egg such people on for the institution’s reasons and needs and not the pastoral care of those concerned. Btw we religious believers, are free under the law to worship, study, fellowship, and to organise our meetings and common-life; and also to engage in certain forms… Read more »
Erika,
Thanks for the link. I guess ‘harassment and victimisation in services’ fits the bill for the printer’s alleged religious discrimination.
Our fictional fur traders might feel equally aggrieved at the refusal to publish their periodical. However, they would most likely have to pursue a civil action against the animal rights campaigner. It’s only politics.
Just realised that harassment and victimisation would only apply if the complaint had given rise to a discriminatory reaction.
Direct discrimination in services would be applicable to the printer’s refusal.
David,
As far as I’m aware, equal treatment for gay people is enshrined in the equality legislation.
Equal treatment for the fur trade isn’t.
As a translator I am allowed to refuse to work for the porn industry, for fur traders, for manufacturers of vitamin supplements that claim they treat cancer better than conventional chemotherapy. I am not allowed to refuse to work for gay people, for black people, for disabled people and for women or to translate material simply because it supports the rights of those groups.
It’s actually quite simple.
“The trouble is that the Bulls could be anyone’s mum and dad”
Mummy, Daddy: maybe it’s time to retire? We’ll take over running the business “up to code” and all that. You two enjoy go yourselves! (Doesn’t seem so hard a convo?)
***
Interesting TV coverage of this story, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e20tHZSUKys “The Big Questions”
Erika,
Thanks for your lucid answer. I only questioned the implications for specifically religious differences.
I kind of get the rest.
David Shepherd may be asking a question about the Equality Act 2006, and more exactly Part 2 thereof, which contains the corresponding regulations concerning Religion or Belief. See
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/3/part/2
David,
I’m sorry, I must be particularly dense this morning. What religious differences are you thinking of? The only bones of contention are gay civil rights. All others are accepted everywhere, although people do struggle with the practical implementation of some other rights, like maternity provisions and equal disability access etc. But there is no religious difficulty about accepting mothers or people in wheelchairs.
Yes, there are people who would rather not offer a B&B bed to a disabled person but they are very well aware that they cannot cite religion as their smokescreen for their prejudice.
Simon is right. My question related to the corresponding religious regulations from the Equality Act 2006.
Erika,
Would you, as a translator, (or for that matter our printer) be able to refuse service, e.g. translation or printing of a religious periodical on the ground of incompatibility with your Christian beliefs?
David, that is an interesting question, especially since there is a lot of fundamentalist Christian material out there that I would not want to work on. And I did once work on a Catholic book that contained a description of the crucifixion of torture that was positively sado-masochistic and very sexual and I ended up refusing to translate those paragraphs. I do a lot of translations for someone very active in Christian-Muslim interfaith dialogue and I certainly don’t have problems translating Islamic material as such. Although I would refuse to translate anything that incited violence or hatred. In reality, though,… Read more »
I wonder what the breakfasts were like.
Just asking.