The Criminalisation of Christianity in Britain?
this decision does affect the human rights of the defendants to manifest their religion and forces them to act in a manner contrary to their deeply and genunily held belief
A judge has ruled that the Christian owners of a guesthouse have acted unlawfully for restricting their bookings policy for double rooms to married couples only.
Judge Andrew Rutherford has ruled that committed Christians Peter and Hazelmary Bull, who are being funded by The Christian Institute, acted unlawfully when they denied two homosexuals, Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy, a room at their hotel in Cornwall in September 2008.
The homosexual couple claimed that the refusal to allow them to share a bed was a “direct discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation”. Their legal fees were paid by the Government-funded Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The judge made his ruling in a written judgment at Bristol County Court and ordered the payment of £3,600 in damages to the homosexual couple. He stated that under the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, introduced under the Labour Government, it was unlawful for Mr and Mrs Bulls to restrict the use of double room accommodation to married couples only and deny a double room to two homosexual civil partners.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of the Christian Legal Centre, said:
Bed and breakfast owners have now become another category of people in the UK who will be penalised if they try to serve the public without compromising their religious conscience. Under the guise of equality, the restrictions on Christians in the public sphere keep getting tighter. We are heading towards a two-tier society where only those who subscribe to secular, humanistic values will be able to operate in many areas in the public sphere.
Mrs Bull, the Christian owner of the B&B commented:
‘Our double-bed policy was based on our sincere beliefs about marriage, not hostility to anybody. It was applied equally and consistently to unmarried heterosexual couples and homosexual couples, as the judge accepted.’
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Unfortunately, it’s a clear application of the civil partnership legislation. One assumes they’d still be able to refuse a double room to unmarried, un-civil partnershipped, couples of any gender or orientation. At least the judge ruled that they could appeal: while he couldn’t interpret the law differently, I think the court of appeal has more power, doesn’t it? But the lawyers would have a hard job.
You’re right to say that civil partnership legislation forces Christians to accept two gay men in a partnership as in every legal respect a married couple.
I also understand that they can continue to refuse to allow unmarried couples to share a bed.
The rights of Christians to act in accordance with their conscience – unless overturned by the Court of Appeal – have now gone.
For this couple at least it is a choice between honouring God and economic persecution.
Neil,
Thanks for this thoughtful reflection. I agree with you that this is a bad and stupid law that will be used to persecute Christians and others who hold minority views in our society.
But I think that Christians also need to say that, as much as we might think that this couple should not have felt the force of the law punishing their position, what they did was not Christianity – i.e. they were not behaving in a way their religion required them to.
In fact I would want to say that, rightly understood, the implication of the gospel of Christ in the situation the bulls were in was the opposite of what they did.
I don’t think that the Christian faith is commended to others by making them abide by your rules, even in your own home, if they don’t share your convictions. If Hall and Preddy had agreed to take two single rooms it would not have made any difference to the status of their relationship. It would not have brought them to believe anything different about questions of human sexuality. Christianity is a religion of the heart; expecting people who don’t share your heart convictions about God to live like you isn’t just unrealistic; it also doesn’t really change anything.
Here’s Jerram Barrs on something almost exactly parallel to what happened in this case: “Will I welcome an unmarried, cohabiting couple into my home? Of course I will – for the Lord welcomes them into this world, the world he made and the world he owns. He is not compromised by the presence in his world of those who disobey his voice; and neither am I compromised by the presence in my home of those who do not know the Lord, and who ignore his righteous directions for human life.”
Refusing the let an unmarried couple stay together in your home, or hotel, might make you feel you are doing right. It might make other people look at you and applaud your high moral standards. But there doesn’t seem to be any reason to suppose that it will bring people to encounter Jesus Christ “the friend of sinners.”
I think that, except in the case of someone posing a real threat to another person in your home, the calling of God to those who follow Jesus is to welcome people without discrimination. Otherwise we give the impression that what really matters is not whether you trust Jesus Christ but whether you conform in some way or another (in this case heterosexual marriage) to a moral standard.
I’ve written a bit more on this at http://www.andysstudy.org/2011/01/were-christian-hotel-owners-right-no.html
Hi Andrew. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow BTW.
Thanks for the thoughtful post.
To my mind it is a matter of conscience. The case you make is a good one but I don’t think that the law should force Christians to act against their conscience in this way.
Clearly some Christian B&B owners could not with a clear conscience allow even their own unbelieving unmarried child to share a bed with a boyfriend or girlfriend. If it would cause them to sin by acting against their conscience in such a way to allow unmarried people to share a bed then I would seek to protect their conscience even if I think a case can be made for allowing unbelieving couples to share.
1 Corinthians 8 suggests that the matter may not simply be were they right but rather were they seeking to be godly and to act in an entirely consistent way with their understanding of the Scriptures. I think they pass that test and I would want to preserve their right if possible to act in accord with conscience.