The place of personal belief and conscience in equal society
Belief in Equality
The BBC is reporting that a couple operating a bed and breakfast guest house in Cornwall have lost their final appeal in the Supreme Court, against damages awarded to civil partners for turning them away rather than allowing them to sleep together in a double room five years ago.
The guest house operators - Hazelmary and Peter Bull - made the refusal, they say, as a matter of religious conscience because they regard sex outside marriage as a sin and "are just ordinary Christians who believe in the importance of marriage as the union of one man and one woman." They are entitled to their beliefs, albeit misguided in my view. They are not entitled to allow those beliefs to over-shadow their responsibilities of equal service to the public. The fact they are operating a guest house supercedes the fact that it is also their own home. If they do not agree with the responsibility that confers on them, they should abstain from operating a B&B. Freedom to exercise religious conscience is NOT freedom to exercise bigotry.
In pursuing their case, the Bulls have been supported by a The Christian Institute (registered charity No. 100 4774), whose representative Mike Judge displayed more open hostility claiming of the case that "the powers of political correctness have reached all the way to the top of the judicial tree, so much so that even the Supreme Court dare not say anything against gay rights." Firstly, they are not "gay rights", they are simply rights of equality applying to all people. Secondly, they are enshrined in statute and Political Correctness has nothing to do with it, any more than does their nominally Christian bigotry. Adopting a position of religious self-righteousness does not endow one with the privilege to pick and choose from the law.
I am glad to see equality upheld.
