Judge says religions aren't above the law as he throws out case of Christian sex therapist who refused to work with gay couples

Daily Mail, by DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 2:56 PM on 29th April 2010

Ruling: Lord Justice Laws said that the protection of views on religious grounds could not be justified

A judge today threw out a Christian counsellor's claim he had been wrongly sacked for refusing to give sex therapy to homosexual couples.

In a ruling which will further inflame fraught relations between the Church and the judiciary, Lord Justice Laws said that the protection of views purely on religious grounds cannot be justified.

He said it was not only an irrational idea, 'but it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.'

The case was brought by father-of-two Gary McFarlane, a former Relate counsellor, and backed by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey.

Mr McFarlane, 48, from Bristol, had worked at the Avon branch of Relate where he had offered advice on sexual intimacy to straight couples.

But during his three years at the centre, he refused to work with same sex partners because he believed it went against his religious beliefs.

This eventually led to him being sacked in 2008. Mr McFarlane later alleged unfair dismissal on the grounds of religious discrimination.

But a tribunal dismissed his claims in January last year. He had gone to the High Court to seek leave to appeal the decision.

In a ruling issued today, Lord Justice Laws, threw out his case.

He said 'We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs.

'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.

'If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens, and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic.

'The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments.'The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the State, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.'

Lord Carey had sent a statement to the judge calling for a specially-constituted panel of judges with a 'proven sensitivity and understanding of religious issues' to hear the case.

The former Archbishop of Canerbury said recent decisions involving Christians by the courts had used 'dangerous' reasoning and this could lead to civil unrest.

'The description of religious faith in relation to sexual ethics as "discriminatory" is crude and illuminates a lack of sensitivity to religious belief,' he said.

'The comparison of a Christian, in effect, with a 'bigot'(i.e. a person with an irrational dislike to homosexuals) begs further questions. It is further evidence of a disparaging attitude to the Christian faith and its values.'

Angry: Gary McFarlane had hoped to appeal after he was sacked from Relate for refusing to counsel same sex couples

Lord Justice Laws, however, said that his claims were 'misplaced' and judges had never likened Christians to bigots, or sought to equate condemnation by some Christians of homosexuality with homophobia.

He said it was possible that Lord Carey's 'mistaken suggestions' arose from a misunderstanding of the law on discrimination.

'In a free constitution such as ours there is an important distinction to be drawn between the law's protection of the right to hold and express a belief and the law's protection of that belief's substance or content.'

He said the Judaeo-Christian tradition had exerted a 'profound influence' on the judgment of lawmakers.

'But the conferment of any legal protection of preference upon a particular substantive moral position on the ground only that it is espoused by the adherents of a particular faith, however long its tradition, however long its culture, is deeply unprincipled,' he said.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: 'This is the right outcome for this case. The law must be clear that anti-discrimination laws exist to protect people, not beliefs.

'The right to follow a religious belief is a qualified right and it must not be used to legitimise discrimination against gay people who are legally entitled to protection against bigotry and persecution.

'Fundamentalists are mounting one challenge after another in courts and employment tribunals.

'They are trying hard to undermine the laws that protect gay people from discrimination. They are seeking to create a hierarchy of rights that places Christian dogma over the rights of people to fair treatment.

'They must not be allowed to succeed.'

Lord Carey's comments that there will be civil unrest over such discrimination cases was 'dangerous nonsense', said Mr Sanderson.