A senior [British] judge ruled yesterday that Christian beliefs have no place in the law and no right to protection by the courts . . . [he] said religion above the law was incompatible with a democracy.
-- From "Judge rules Christians have NO special rights as he throws out case of sex therapist who refused to work with gay couples" by Steve Doughty, Daily Mail (UK) 4/30/10
Lord Justice Laws said that Britain would become a religious dictatorship if the views of a single faith were given a priority over others in legal matters.
In a landmark case, the appeal judge told relationship guidance counsellor Gary McFarlane, a Christian, that he had no right to refuse to give sex therapy to gay couples.
The Appeal Court judgment is a resounding rebuff for Christian workers who had hoped to persuade employers that they should be allowed to exercise their religious rights by not recognising the legitimacy of homosexual partnerships or by wearing crosses with work uniforms.
And it means that gay equality legislation, however controversial, will in future take precedence over individual conscience.
Lord Justice Laws rejected the plea by Mr McFarlane, 48, from Bristol, against an employment tribunal ruling that Relate Avon had been right to sack him in 2008 after five years' service.
The father of two was asking for the right to appeal against the tribunal's decision that he had not suffered religious discrimination.
But the judge said legal protection for views held on religious grounds was 'deeply unprincipled'.
'This must be so, since in the eye of everyone save the believer, religious faith is necessarily subjective,' he said.
'Law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.'
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