Arguing in court for the right to turn people away from the inn isn’t a very Christian thing to do at Christmas
Ben Summerskill of Stonewall responds to the Christian “B&B” case ruling.
If the Bulls [the hoteliers] had a sense of humour, something they don’t seem God-blessed with, they might have spotted the irony of spending the Christmas season fighting for the entitlement to turn guests away from their inn.
During passage of the 2006 Equality Act, Stonewall fought hard to secure pioneering “goods and services” protections for lesbian and gay people, protecting them for the first time against discrimination in the delivery of public and commercial services. The preceding legal entitlement to deny gay people a service was every bit as offensive as the notorious signs outside guesthouses that once said: “No blacks. No Irish.” And people certainly took advantage of it, as lesbians denied smear tests and gay men refused holiday bookings were well aware.
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If you allow businesses or public services to turn away gay people at will on trumped-up grounds of principle, as the Bulls would wish, then our public services will soon have to deal with the Jewish registrar with an ethical objection to marrying out, or a Muslim nurse who doesn’t wish to care for an unmarried mother. So the really important message from Bristol county court is simply that the appropriate “balance of rights” for modern Britain is one that keeps private prejudice out of the public space.
The Bulls’ shadowy supporter, the Christian Legal Centre, suggests it may turn to the law again. If so, it might reflect that, for the estimated £30,000 this court case has cost it, Oxfam or Save the Children could have vaccinated 100,000 people against meningitis in sub-Saharan Africa. Now that would have been a genuinely Christian way to spend its money.
Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/jan/18/christian-hoteliers-gay-couple-equality
How would anyone from Stonewall know what is Christian and what is not? They are living contrary to the gospel and so have no idea what is Christian and what is not.
In any event Mr P and Mr H were not turned away from the Bull’s hotel; they were refused a double room as it was clear from the internet that they had a policy of prefaring to use a double room for a married couple only. In the eyes of Mr and Mrs Bull, Mr P and Mr H are not married as this is a sacramental union between a man and a woman, not two people of the same sex. According to their arguments they would also have reserved the room for a married couple had a none married hetrosexual couple turned up.
Mr P and Mr H were well aware of the policy of the bed and breakfast when they booked and booked in any case. In other words they targeted this B and B on purpose for the end result of political and financial gain. It was nothing to do with equal rights.
Mr and Mrs B offered them a twin or two singles and they stormed off to the police station. In any event there is nothing about saying no to people in the Bible. Jesus said no more often than he said yes. It is about allowing sin to go on under their roof and this would have been more un-Christian.
And what is shadowy about the Christian Institute? This is an insult and should be retracted.
Mr P and Mr H lied about who they were when they booked and did not say they were a gay couple or they would have been told that they could only have a single room prior to them leaving home. That was the hotel’s policy.
As Christians they have a right to freedom of religion and freedom to say no to someone that they are not sure off coming into their home. It was not personal and the judge was wrong. No discrimination took place and no law was broken. This law is about access to goods and services and it is not about persecuting people for exercising their legal rights to freedom of belief.
And as to the money spent on the case: Mr P and Mr H brought the case in the first place. The Bulls have a right to defend themselves and as Jesus said to Simon the Pharasie when he said that Mary Madelaine’s oil could have been sold and the money given to the poor: The poor are always with us: I will not be here forever. The Bulls are in need now: they needed to defend themselves against a frivilous and malicious court case. The claimants and others will be making political menace through Stonewall for a long time to come.
Bandit, the people running the hotel were operating a business. Open to the public. As a society we’ve set certain boundaries when it comes to what is acceptable when it comes to who you decide to service. A pub can stop serving alcohol to a drunk because it’s dangerous or if he’s annoying other customers. But you can’t just not let people in based on their sexuality, colour of skin, and so on. Nor their religion either.
Imagine if an atheist ran a hotel and said you couldn’t come in because you were carrying a Bible or wearing a cross (your own free choice, in public, as part of a liberal and open society). You’d be annoyed I imagine. You’d feel discriminated against. That’s what’s happened to this couple.
But notice how ludicrous my example sounds. The example of an atheist hotelier refusing entry sounds ludicrous because atheists arne’t demanding special privileges to exempt them from equality laws that are designed so we can all get along and enjoy our lives without wondering whether we’re about to be discriminated against. It’s Christians who are doing that. You seem to want a world where people have to worry about whether businesses are going to refuse services to them because the people running it have passed a judgment on them. You mention a Bible story where Jesus says he should be serviced by Mary because he won’t always be there whereas the poor will. If anything that story seems to make Jesus a bit of a hippocrit and it’s definitely not relevant to this case. More relevant would be “Judge not lest ye be judged”! Far closer to the more interesting Christian message and a world apart from the bigoted judgementalism of people who just want to hate.
Bandit Quenn says “As Christians they have a right to freedom of religion and freedom to say no to someone that they are not sure off coming into their home.”
Of course they have a right to freedom of religion, I don’t think anyone is saying to them that they cannot be christians
Of course everyone also has the right to say what happens in their home. This was not their home however, it is a hotel, a business. No business is allowed to discriminate on grounds of race, sex, sexuality, disability or age. I didn’t read anywhere about these people having a gun put to their head. I don’t recall hearing anywhere that they were forced to open a hotel!
Christians these days seem to be very quick to yell “persecution” whenever they are prevented from breaking the law of the land and are stopped from practising discrimination against others. Laws that they already have undue influence over with so many bishops sitting in the House of Lords!
I like the irony of “no room in the inn”! Even if it’s skewing the facts, it’s a nice observation. Perhaps some Christians don’t have a sense of humour (especially when they’re being sued and undergoing heart surgery at the same time) but plenty of us do have one.
Ben Summerskill seems to have missed the irony that one couple’s protection from discrimination, under the Equality Act 2006, has simply become discrimination against another couple. If we are so keen to have a fair and tolerant society, why do some people end up being so scathing and intolerant against others like Mr & Mrs Bull? Ben Summerskill wants “a more equal Britain” (in his full article) but I fail to see how this court decision is progress towards such a goal—unless we simply take sides against the ‘losers’ who, with increasing regularity, are often consciencious Christians. And that’s equality?
He also says, “The Bulls suggest that it’s their freedom, and not that of a gay couple, that is compromised by the existing law.” They ‘suggest’? Perhaps Summerskill has not heard that the Judge himself accepts that his ruling “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 genuinely held beliefs.” It may be uncomfortable for him to do so, but Summerskill should have portrayed the genuine ethical dilemma that this case involves, rather than presenting it as a no-brainer. Then he would at least have greater intellectual integrity.
By the way, I’ve quoted the judge’s words from the Christian Institute website. They are such a shady organisation, you even have to use the internet to find out what they’re up to!!
When a Church of England minister conducts a wedding, he or she declares: “Marriage is a sign of unity and loyalty which all should uphold and honour. It enriches society and strengthens community.” Not everyone agrees, but Christians, including the Bulls, do not expect everyone to agree with us. We simply wish to be able to uphold marriage without being fined or harassed.
Re: AmberTrill’s comment: “atheists arne’t demanding special privileges”… other than the removal of religious conscience from the public sphere! Not much really!
Re: Mike Reynolds’ comment: the “gun to the head” argument works equally against Mr Preddy and Mr Hall booking the double room.
Ben Summerskill and Stonewall are always so swift to act against, what they see as ‘injustice’, that they often fail to see their own bigotry. Some gays and lesbians (not all, but some) that I have encountered have constantly abused their rights of acceptance to annoy and intimidate ordinary everyday people into often confrontational situations.
I am not saying that the Bulls were right in how they handled the situation, but I do believe that this was done more out of being ‘ill-trained’ and ill-equipped’ to deal with the situation before them. How many small B & B owners are actually trained up to the customer care standards that so befit the larger hotel chains? How many can privately afford to pay the huge amounts that a training service would ask of them? I am an ex-Corporate Trainer and I therefore know, the true costs of training. Had this Customer Care training been available to the Bulls, maybe this pathetic charade of what i can only describe as ‘Money Grabbing’ over seeking a more amicable solution, could have been averted.
If Ben Summerskill and the ‘wonderful’ Stonewall feel they are prejudiced against, then maybe they’d like the spend some time in my world. I am a post op trans woman. I have been post op since 2008 and have totally integrated myself into society and pass very convincingly amongst the public. Yet I cannot erase my past and the bigotry that I have encountered from all side of the social coin, has indeed, been hard. My career was in fact originally destroyed by a non accepting lesbian boss, although she was cleared of this. But even so, I still find it hard to procure permanent full-time work in my chosen Gender Role. So if Mr Summerskill wants to feel what real bigotry is like, then maybe he should try and live my life sometime.
Stonewall are themselves bigoted. They do not accept nor acknowledge the Transsexual. They speak of Gay Rights and social ignorance, yet fail to support or accept the problems that ‘we’ as gender transitioners continually go through. And as for the Bulls lacking (sic) ‘ lacking a sense of humour’ then I feel he should be looking more closer to home as the wronged ‘gay couple’ certainly didn’t have any at all. But I feel that seeing what they could get out of the legal situation would have been more predominant on their minds as opposed to solving this amicably, which is what I would have attempted to do.
A few years ago, a lesbian journalist called Julie Bindal made some pretty nasty remarks about transsexual people and even amidst the outcry, was still selected for an award by Stonewall for her work. Her own pathetic nasty brand of bigotry was not seen as an issue by Stonewall. It was evident in how they all rose to her defense over the matter; although after much pressure, I think they dropped the award. But even so, did they ever consider the hurt and upset that was caused through the ignorance of ‘their’ own people.
The Gay and lesbian Community enjoy a great deal of privileges and freedoms that people like me are still (hopelessly) fighting for and if they don’t acknowledge just how advanced and accepted they are now, then they never will do.
The Bulls have a right and should have the right to give a room to whoever they wish. If I was an hotelier and a drunken group of people came staggering in, would they be acceptable? Should they scream ‘drunken person’s rights’? The political correctness system has indeed made a positive impact on society and I am grateful for that. But when it is abused and taken to the extremes through fear and pressure from organisations like Stonewall, who themselves obviously have their own ideas about was is bigoted and what isn’t, then it becomes a laughable parody upon the basis of what it was all formed for. And that was to ensure fairness and ‘Decency’.