B&B case discrimination ruling – it’s just about being “offended” says Telegraph
Judge Andrew Rutherford ruled yesterday that a Christian couple running a B&B who refused a double bed for gay guests has drawn a limited response, mainly from the more morally ‘conservative’ end of the spectrum, viewing the case as a loss of religious rights… though the law seems abundantly clear that it’s only when you start discriminating against others that legislation may rightly come into play.
The Telegraph, short-sightedly, represents all the personal angst felt by the couple who were discriminated against as merely being “offended”. In the eyes of their editorial view, it’s as if the judge has censured someone over a passing comment, rather than what it actually as: a keenly felt, holiday-ruining denial of service by a business, based on the intrinsic characteristics of their would-be guests.
The right to hold religious beliefs, and to act in keeping with one’s faith, is being set against the right not to be offended – and is losing. This is a dispiriting trend in a free society. The views of the Bulls will seem to many to be old-fashioned, even distasteful – but they have every right to hold them.
Again, missing another point: the B&B owners weren’t just “holding a view”, they were running a public business and treating some people differently in a way which made them feel small and rejected for no good reason.
Andrew Brown is more analytical, though he emphasises what appears to be his own view, that the case represents a “clash of genuine rights” in his Guardian blog:
Judge Andrew Rutherford’s ruling against the Cornish Christian couple who refused to offer a double bed to a gay couple treads a narrow line in deciding what counts as discrimination. It will no doubt delight the evangelical Christians who can use it to strengthen their own sense of being a persecuted minority, but the real point is a more subtle one, about the equivalence of civil partnerships with marriage. That may well increase the rage of conservative evangelicals, but it is unlikely to win them many converts.
… The important point about Peter and Hazelmary Bull, the couple who owned the Cornish hotel in question, was that they really believed that their policy did not discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation. Their line was that no unmarried couples, whether straight or gay, could share a double-bedded room, and evidence was presented to show that they had previously been in trouble with heterosexual couples who had been turned away for this reason, as far back as 1996. … So it really does appear that the Bulls were attempting to run a policy that did not discriminate against gay unmarried couples any more than it did against straight ones. The judge is quite clear that this is a clash of genuine rights and sincere principles on both sides. His job is to balance them, or rather to discover how the law balances the two rights – to the free exercise of religious belief; and to freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
The crucial factor turned out to be the fact that the gay couple, Martin Hall and Steven Preddy, had entered into a civil partnership. The law says that civil partners are to be treated as married ones and in that sense the Bulls’ policy was direct discrimination, since there was no possibility of marriage, still less Christian marriage for any gay couple. That is why they won their case.
And the Daily Mail embarrass themselves.
The British Humanist Association campaigns for full equality in marriage law for same-sex partners.
I think Andrew Brown has a point. Civil partnerships were touted as giving gay couples the same rights as married couples — though same-sex couples are not allowed to enter into civil partnerships. How is this “equality”? Clearly the B&B owners did not consider civil partnerships to be equal to marriages.
Am I the only one who has noticed something distinctly ‘fishy’ about this story, or has anyone else noticed the same stench of ‘people being set-up?’
Firstly, the Bulls made it clear on their website where they stood concerning their views and religious beliefs, yet this didn’t stop Mr Hall and Mr Preddy from making a booking. I also noticed that Mr Hall and Mr Preddy were members of ‘Stonewall’. Now, in that region of the country there must have been countless other, alternative and available accommodation that wasn’t Christian run nor had the firm beliefs as the Bulls have. So why did they still make a booking at THIS particular hotel??? It really does stink – and boy, it’s sour.
Personally, I don’t like Stonewall. I openly admit, I have little time for an organisation that is more geared to pushing usually accepting people into an annoying confrontation, where they are sometimes having to put up with Rainbow this and that, and Pride posters all over the damned workplace. Personally, I couldn’t give a stuff about anyone’s choice of sexuality. Its a private and personal choice, but I don’t want it thrust at me as part of some Political Correctness overkill.
Stonewall seem to take great delight in doing such acts to get a response – hopefully a negative one, so they can all rush to court and scream discrimination at the drop of a hat. Now, if I arrived at an hotel and I didn’t like the way things are, then I simply leave. I go elsewhere. But oh no, not Hall and Preddy. The dramatic centre stage has to be set and a quiet, law abiding pair whose beliefs now, sadly, have to take second place in favor of an increasingly annoying organisation, where they have now been demonized enough to get nasty telephone calls and bogus bookings and get asked awkward queries by anonymous callers. Do they honestly deserve that? Do the Bulls deserve this public humiliation and poor press that will evidently affect their business? I don’t feel that they do deserve it. I will agree, they were very poorly organised for this ‘set-up’ and I am sure that they did NOT mean any offence. But it was more out of ill-training and their own, non-street-wise and enclosed upbringings that was more at fault then gay prejudice.
I would hardly consider myself a Christian, and I live a quiet, ordinary life. But I simply hate seeing blatant injustice and I feel that what has happened here has been appalling and I think the truer villains of the piece have been Stonewall.
The news recently broke that – although the judge awarded in the Gay Couple’s favor and that they were to be paid their compensation, it wasn’t enough and a further action was launched to get even MORE compensation for this couple. Obviously, when this was discovered, the action was dropped. But again, what does that tell people? People will ask ‘is this a setup to gain publicity for Stonewall and money for Mr hall and Mr Preddy’? And I’m sure they will.
I am all for true ‘Equality’ and true ‘Opportunities’ for all; irrespective of race, religion, colour, gender and sexuality. It is a right for any human being to feel accepted and to feel comfortable and safe within their surroundings. But I am adamant that organisations like Stonewall don’t want equality, they want to dominate and bully people into compliance as opposed to gentle acceptance. And this is where I don’t hold with them.
The Gay Community have advanced and have gained a wonderful sense of acceptance and if they don’t realise it now, they never will do. Stonewall need to acknowledge that with actions like this, they gain to alienate themselves from public favor and destroy the work that has been undertaken by many to ensure fairness and acceptance for everybody.