A New Lillian Ladele

Lillian Ladele may be defeated, but she was never alone. In fact it turns out she wasn’t even alone at Islington Council:

Theresa Davies, a registrar for Islington Council, has claimed she was forced out of her post as registrar because of her religious beliefs against civil partnerships.

Davies, who had worked for Islington Council for 18 years, said she had asked to opt out of performing civil partnerships in 2006.

While her request was being considered, Davies took four months off work due to stress. On her return she was told that she would either be demoted or dismissed.

Instead of leaving the council, Davies chose to take on the offered position of receptionist, which she described as “humiliating”.

Last July, she was put back on the general rota. However, in January this year she failed to turn up to a ceremony she was supposed to be overseeing. Consequently, she was told that unless she presided over civil partnerships she would be demoted from her position.

“I know of other councils that have allowed Christian registrars to carry on by ensuring that colleagues are given civil partnerships,” said Davies. “But I was told this was not Islington’s policy.”

No, we know that Islington Council’s policy was, in the case of Lillian Ladele, to offer different work for the same pay, when she decided that she wanted to breach their policy of providing an equal service for all members of the community, rather than ones that she wanted to pick and choose. Davies may not have liked the ‘humiliating’ new work, but this has already been established not to be discrimination on the grounds of religion. The devoutly religious do not have the right under the law to behave as though they are a special case in who they provide services for. I look forward to her grievance failing equally badly.

C’Mon You Homosexual Demon

(via Towleroad)

It would be very easy to dismiss the content of this video as the actions of a few crackpots whose ideas about the world haven’t moved on past the Middle Ages. I personally think it’s horrific, and find it hard to understand why the Christianist culprits haven’t been investigated by police. “We don’t hate them, we just do not believe in their lifestyle,” – such an innocuous justification on the surface of things, yet if carried to its logical extent able to bring about terrible violence. I personally would rather like to cast out their homophobic spirits and see what they were left with. You do not have to be homophobic in order to be spiritual.

Christianist Teacher Claims Gay People ‘Risk God’s Wrath’

The Christianists are at it again:

A Christian teacher was suspended from his post after complaining that a training day was being used to “promote” gay rights.

History teacher Kwabena Peat, 54, was one of several staff who walked out of the seminar at Park View Academy in North London.

The presentation was given by Sue Sanders of Schools Out, which campaigns against homophobia in education.

Mr Peat claimed that Ms Sanders had said questioned whether heterosexuality was normal.

In a letter to the staff members who organised the talk, he said that Ms Sanders’ presentation had been “aggressive” and, citing the Bible, claimed that gay people “risked God’s wrath”.

The staff addressed in the letter then complained to the school’s principal saying they felt “harassed and intimidated”.

He really wasn’t paying any attention to the Lillian Ladele case, was he? He’s perfectly entitled to have homophobic ideas, indeed to live with the delusion that somehow his God and religion hate gay people, but he’s not entitled under the law to use that belief as a weapon. I’m sure his school has an equal opportunities policy requiring him not to act in a discriminatory way against gay people, so what gives him the impression that his religious rights are paramount over all?

Some of you might say hold on, isn’t Sue Sanders’ statement somewhat ridiculous, somewhat militant and politically correct? Did that not give him the justification to object? Well to give it a context:

“She started promoting homosexual lifestyles and suggesting those who had objections should sort out their prejudices. She said, ‘What makes you all think that to be heterosexual is natural?’ It was at that point that I walked out.”
Speaking to PinkNews.co.uk, Ms Sanders said of her comment: “Taken out of context, it looks very stark.

She said she explains to her audience the heteronormative model of gender theory.

“It’s quite complex but enables people to question what is normal.

He’ll do as he’s told when it comes to working in the public sector, he’ll not behave in a bigoted or a discriminatory way, otherwise he’ll lose his job. It’s a very simple equation – we live under the rule of law, not the rule of ‘God’. Gender theory training will inevitably question trainees’ ideas about ‘normality’, it won’t suggest that being heterosexual wasn’t normal. And when the rights to be religious and the right to be gay are in conflict, the outcome is now clear – being religious does not give you the right to discriminate. End of.

Christianists Don’t Get It

The Christian Institute are up to their old homophobic tricks again. Because this is hardly news I’ll keep my commentary brief:

The General Teaching Council is conducting a consultation on a proposed Code of Conduct and Practice.

The evangelicals have taken exception to one section of the Code which reads:

“Registered teachers should proactively challenge discrimination, stereotyping and bullying, no matter who is the victim or perpetrator; promote equality and value diversity in all their professional relationships and interactions.”

Colin Hart, Director of The Christian Institute, said:

“Christians would support most of the code, but many are alarmed by the new diversity rules.

“Under the code, Christian teachers will be required to ‘proactively combat discrimination’ and ‘value diversity’ based on religious belief and sexual orientation.

“The code rightly requires that teachers should respect their colleagues and those they teach.

“But respect for people as people is not the same as respecting or valuing every religious belief or sexual lifestyle.

Yes it bloody is you bigoted idiot.

The Christian Bus Driver

Many of you will by now have heard of the atheist bus. Now though we have a driver unprepared to drive one:

A Christian bus driver has refused to drive a bus with an atheist slogan proclaiming “There’s probably no God”.

Ron Heather, from Southampton, Hampshire, responded with “shock” and “horror” at the message and walked out of his shift on Saturday in protest.

First Bus said it would do everything in its power to ensure Mr Heather does not have to drive the buses.

Buses across Britain started displaying atheist messages in an advertising campaign launched earlier this month.

Mr Heather told BBC Radio Solent: “I was just about to board and there it was staring me in the face, my first reaction was shock horror.

“I felt that I could not drive that bus, I told my managers and they said they haven’t got another one and I thought I better go home, so I did.

“I think it was the starkness of this advert which implied there was no God.”

I must confess amusement at ‘shock horror’. Whilst it’s no doubt right that First Bus did their best to accommodate the poor dear’s seemingly fragile religious beliefs, I wonder where this new front in the war by theists will go next – drivers boycotting buses advertising Heinz  products? McDonalds’? Tube drivers refusing to drive trains with ads for artificial insemination?

Anti-Gay Counsellor Also Loses

Gary McFarlane, a former counsellor for Relate and a devout Christian, took his former employers to a tribunal for religious discrimination, after he was sacked for refusing to deal with lesbian and gay clients. The tribunal however has ruled against him:

Mr McFarlane, of Bristol, claimed unfair dismissal against the Avon branch of Relate on the grounds of religious discrimination, but an employment tribunal panel unanimously rejected his claim, though the panel decided Mr McFarlane had been wrongfully dismissed as Relate had not followed the correct dismissal procedures.

The panel said Mr McFarlane’s claim had failed because: “The claimant was not treated as he was because of his Christian faith, but because (Relate) believed that he would not comply with its policies and that it would have treated anyone else of whom that was believed, regardless of religion, in the same way.”

Mr McFarlane’s boss at Relate had said during an earlier hearing that he had been sacked because he made it clear that he would not abide by its equal opportunities policy, which states that all clients must be treated in the same way, regardless of sexuality.

After the ruling, Mr McFarlane said: “If I were a Muslim, this would not have happened. But Christians seem to have fewer and fewer rights.”

Absolute nonsense. We live in a country where Christians have more rights than any other religious group, but being Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or Jewish doesn’t give anyone the right to discriminate. The ruling that his sacking was unfair because the correct dismissal procedure I’m sure was just, but it’s a relief that yet another tribunal has ruled that arch theists are not allowed to pick and choose who they’re prepared and not prepared to serve when employed in public service, based on their religion. This follows on from the appeal tribunal in December which ruled that Lillian Ladele was also not discriminated against on the grounds of her religion. Both Relate and Islington Council had equal opportunities policies which they required all their employees to abide by, regardless of their religion. Both organisations were equally bound by the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, and it’s a relief to see tribunals ruling every time now that religious equality legislation cannot be reinterpreted as a licence for bigotry. A spokesman for Relate said:

“This important decision validates Relate’s commitment to equality of access to our services.

“Our trusted service, both in Avon and across the country, relies on making respectful and professional counselling and sex therapy available equally to all members of our society, regardless of their gender, age, race, religion, sexual orientation or relationship status, and we take every effort to balance rights which may be competing.

“We recognise the importance of people’s religious beliefs to them and we are committed to supporting all religions working within Relate.

“However, our primary responsibility is to our clients who often need complex advice and assistance.

“We cannot allow anything to damage our clients or to undermine the principle of trust that underpins our work.”

Religious Homophobe – Fired!

We live in a society which is secular, where we are governed by the rule of law, and those working in the public sector are expected, regardless of their personal beliefs, to treat everyone equally, and not to discriminate. Yet Graham Cogman decided that being a Christian licensed him to abuse the responsibilities inherent in free speech, his job description as a police officer, and ultimately the ruling of a previous disciplinary tribunal. He had threatened his employer with a tribunal for religious discrimination for disciplining him for sending out homophobic religious emails to colleagues, saying:

“The blatant support for homosexual rights in Norfolk Police makes being a Christian officer extremely difficult.”

“I am not undertaking this action lightly but I have to make a stand when things become so blatantly biased against me just because I hold a faith.”

However a fresh disciplinary tribunal disagreed and sacked him:

He was sent to a disciplinary tribunal who fined him 13 days pay and barred him from using the internal messaging system.

Despite the ban, PC Cogman posted a link to an American Christian helpline.

When he was interviewed by bosses about it he said he had posted the link as he was trying to help people struggling with their sexuality.

The link was to Christian helpline that PC Cogman said had helped a friend who was struggling with their sexuality.

In response to this Norfolk Police felt it appropriate to take PC Cogman to a disciplinary hearing, which was held yesterday.

He was found guilty of of failing to comply with a lawful order over the use of police computers and failing to treat a colleague with politeness and tolerance.

They quite rightly sent out the message that his religion did not trump his responsibilities as an employee, that his religion did not justify homophobic behaviour, that he can’t have an opt out of the reponsibilites the rest of us have to one another, purely because he chooses to see his religion as legitimising discrimination (which it does not). Deputy Chief Constable Ian Learmonth of the Norfolk Police said:

“This officer’s behaviour fell well below what we expect of our people,”

“The outcome follows a thorough investigation with evidence presented to a misconduct panel of three, two of whom were independent of the constabulary.”

I find the outcome reassuring. These attempts to justify homophobia through religion are becoming widespread – attacks on theatre, art, television and books are now commonplace, as are attempts to ‘opt out’ of working with or serving gay people as one would straight people. If you can’t fathom that religious scripture is not universally applicable today as it may have been two thousand years ago, if you can’t critically evaluate ancient religious texts in relation to the world around you, you probably shouldn’t be working in the public sector, and accordingly now Cogman is not. This was a blatant case of someone justifying their own bigoted ideas on religious grounds, at a time when mainstream religion is tentatively accepting social change. Ian McKellen was right when he said:

“The particular problem they’ve all got and share is homophobia. And having it they root around in the Bible to discover the very few passages that seem to be relevant. But people like the Bishop (Gene Robinson), like the Quakers, like many people I marched with in Gay Pride last week, gay Christians, gay Jews, gay Muslims are at ease with their faith and their position in society.”

Anti-Gay Theist Marches Into Counselling!

It may seem hard to believe – it sure is for me, having spent some time in the 90s training as a counsellor, but a Christian counsellor for Relate is suing his employers for requiring him to counsel gay people:

Gary McFarlane says the publicly-funded national counselling service failed to accommodate his faith or allow him to try to overcome his reservations.

Mr McFarlane worked for Relate in Avon and is also a solicitor and a part-time tutor on relationships at Trinity Theological College in Bristol.

He said that he has “overcome” his prejudices against same-sex couples since he began working as a Relate counsellor in 2003, but now that he is training to be a psychosexual therapist, he feels he cannot deal with gay and lesbian people.

Fortunately though he was suspended and then sacked. And now he’s decided that his employers have discriminated against him by ‘failing to accommodate his faith’. Excuse me? Did he not have a job description since the start (which applied equally to everyone else) requiring him not to discriminate in the provision of the (public) service? Is Relate not bound by the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation Regulations) 2007 to provide a service free from anti-gay discrimination? Why should he get special dispensation? Oh yes, he’s a theist. Ben Summerskill, Chief Executive of Stonewall said:

“It does seem extraordinary that someone who is involved in providing a mediation service should say he cannot do it becase he has unmovable views.

“Given that Relate, since the time he joined it, has always worked with gay couples, he does not even have the Lillian Ladele defence that it crept up on him.

“Relate receive public money and it is perfectly right that they should provide a service equally to the members of the general public who pay their wages.”

I couldn’t put it better myself. But for those of you who aren’t sure though if McFarlane is just a well-meaning Christian, bullied by militant gay secularists (the subject of my next post), here’s a clue:

“If I was a Muslim this would not happen,” he said. “They would find a way to make the system work. But Christians seem to have fewer and fewer rights. Relate needs to be forced to work through stuff like this.”

Christians don’t have ‘fewer and fewer rights’, unless of course you mean their right to discriminate freely against people they don’t like has been removed from them. If so that’s a good thing, and a service like Relate shouldn’t be used as a plaything for selfish theists who think the world should still revolve around them.

It’s an interesting new case, given Lilian Ladele’s counter-intuitive win (which will soon be appealed) against Islington Council in a similar scenario. Ladele’s win set a disturbing precedent, sending out the message that anti-religious discrimination legislation could be used to discriminate against gay people. For the sake of us all, this tribunal must prove that her case was an aberration.

Welsh Assembly Defeats Christian Zealot

Following Waterstone’s capitulation to fundamentalist Christian Stephen Green, who had vowed to protest a poetry reading at their store in Cardiff, two Welsh Assembly members (AM) and the Hay Festival founder have said they will host readings:

Lib-Dem AM Peter Black and Cardiff South Labour AM Lorraine Barrett now plan to host Mr Jones’ reading of book of poems, Darkness Is Where The Stars Are, in an Assembly Government committee room on December 11.

Hay Festival founder Peter Florence has also invited Mr Jones – brother of Manic Street Preachers bassist Nicky Wire – to read his work at next year’s festival.

But Christian Voice leader Stephen Green from Pen-y-Bont, near Carmarthen, said the organisation would protest wherever the reading was hosted.

His right to protest was never the issue here, and I would hope that as long as he uses peaceful means, rather than those he advocated in the defeat of the action against the Baltic Centre in Gateshead, he’s allowed to do so. I suspect his condemnation of the Lib Dems (of which one of the AMs is a member) isn’t something the party will lose much sleep over.

It’s an eerily similar campaign to those opposed to gay marriage in California – to ban what you don’t like even though it doesn’t affect you. Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t have one. Don’t like this poetry – don’t buy the book. Multiple Gods have withstood scrutiny, lampooning and insults for millennia – doesn’t seem to have affected them (ahem they don’t exist) or their religions much.

He (Stephen Green) added there would “no doubt” be a protest at the Assembly that day over the poetry he described as “packed with hatred for Christianity”.

No doubt the same way that ‘Jerry Springer: The Opera’ was hateful of Christianity (I’ve seen it – it wasn’t). People like Green are dangerous – by crying wolf, and claiming hate wherever there’s a representation of their religion they simply don’t approve of, they make it much more difficult for genuinely anti-religious hate speech to get flagged up.

Homophobic Church Leaders vs. Their Flock

It’s interesting, that at a time when Stonewall has released a report which suggests that Church leaders are significantly more homophobic than their flock, it’s curious to see that the Rt Rev Daniel Deng – Archbishop of Sudan – has demanded at the Lambeth Conference that Bishop Gene Robinson resign for the sake of the Anglican Church:

“The people who consecrated him should confess to the conference because they created an outcry in the whole Anglican world. God is not making a mistake creating Adam and Eve – he would have created two Adams if he wanted. If he was a real Christian he would resign.”

If you’re reading this and gay, this argument will likely be one you’ve had thrown at you at least once before. A variation on Adam and Steve, eh? Such a tedious stereotype, which you’d expect of a child, or a young person, without any experience of self-reflection, not a so-called man of God. He’s actually demanding that Robinson collude in the bigotry of others – the arrogance is breathtaking. However:

Ben Summerskill, the Stonewall chief executive, said: “Witnessing the tragic divisions in the Church of England demonstrated at this week’s Lambeth Conference, it’s telling that so many people of faith say they actually live, work and socialise with lesbian and gay people, and that significantly reduces negative ideas about difference.”

Proof, albeit not necessarily definitive, that people are not as stupid as their representatives, either political or those of faith. In this country at least, it suggests that equality legislation has proven Gene Robinson’s approach right, in demonstrating to his ‘moveable middle’ of the religious community, that with full civil rights for us the world doesn’t come to an end – plagues don’t come down, social order doesn’t break down. Nutters like Deng can’t speak for them, because Stonewall’s side of social change is having an effect, in increasing our visibility through normalising everyone’s treatment before the law. The same approach is needed within the established Church, and Gene Robinson must stay put at all conceivable costs. In a society governed by the rule of law, to exclude religion from the need for equality really must be out of the question, partly on humane grounds, partly on those of diversity – just look how much better society operates when we all are free to take part equally within it!

I can’t help but be reminded by this of the fight in 2004 over same-sex marriage in the US (which of course persists). The persistent argument was that same-sex marriage on equal terms to heterosexuals would undermine heterosexual marriage – somehow if we were granted equal rights, it would be at the expense of those who already had them. It was homophobic nonsense when articulated by George W Bush, it is homophobic nonsense uttered now by Archbishop Deng.

Perhaps most alarmingly from the Archbishop:

Deng said there are no gay or lesbian people in Sudan.

Like Iran eh? Uganda? Nigeria? This claim, if not countered, is the most dangerous of all because it doesn’t allow for a difference of opinion, for shades of grey, or any scrutiny at all. He could say Robinson should resign because it’s politically necessary at this time in the Church’s history. My opinion in response would be to disagree – the opposite is politically necessary – but instead he’s playing up to homophobic superstitions, no doubt shoring up a cheap power base, which only encourages those who would dehumanise us. In Iran Ahmadinejad’s identical claim legitimises the torture and execution of gay people; for a man of God to offer the same argument is beyond shameful.