So Lillian Ladele has lost her fight to take her employment case to the Supreme Court. You can’t say she didn’t put up a spirited fight, but it’s only right that she should have been challenged when she decided she didn’t want to splice gay couples in her role as a registrar because it went against her Christian “ethos”.
The Supreme Court, the highest court in the UK, has said her case does not raise legal points of “general public importance”. Her lawyers have argued that she was the subject of a witch hunt. She may go to the European Court of Human Rights, she says.
We’ve dealt with her case in several posts before. The obvious moral of the story is that it’s OK to have a religious belief, but it shouldn’t get in the way of others’ freedoms. And, if your job is such that your belief does get in the way of others’ freedoms, you shouldn’t be in the job.
And, when I say “others’ freedoms”, all I’m talking about is the freedoms that are enjoyed as a matter of course by most people, but denied to a few because, in this case, of their sexuality.
So, hard luck, Lillian. But God saw it our way in the end. Perhaps you should revise your own opinions now if the Big Man has decided you can’t take your case to the legal bigwigs.
__________
Relevant links:
Christian bigot wins employment case
The religious control of marriage
Glass houses, stones and Lillian Ladele
Christian homophobe loses appeal
Lillian’s pantomime ping-pong of prejudice
Lillian’s lost cause
gay and lesbian matters, rationalism, atheism, freethought, secularism — this is the weblog of the Pink Triangle Trust, the only gay humanist charity
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010
1 comment:
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I'm sure this has been posted before, but I think it's worth repeating.
ReplyDeleteRegistrars have been officiating at the marriages of divorced heterosexuals since long before Ms Ladele joined their ranks. The bible isn't too keen on divorce or remarrying though - Matthew 19:6, for example, includes that bit about "those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder".
Did Ms Ladele refuse to marry divorcees? What happened to her religious conscience?