Posted: 04/30/2010 at 10:33pm | IP Logged

Gary McFarlane's right of conscience is overruled.

Lord Justice John Laws says the protection of views on religious grounds cannot be justified.

Judge: Christian Beliefs Have No Right to Protection

by Steve Doughty, The London Mail

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.

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 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 said that Britain would become a religious dictatorship if the views of a single faith were given a priority over others in legal matters.

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