Authoritarian Sodomy tightened its choke hold on Christian conscience in the formerly free United Kingdom this past week, when a British employment tribunal ruled that a national counseling service rightly fired counselor Gary McFarlane for declining, on grounds of Christian conscience, to offer sex therapy to homosexuals.
Can we dispense with the euphemisms here? What the Relate counseling service was demanding of this Christian counselor was that he generate revenue for the company by offering sodomy lessons to tragically confused clients. And you can be certain that the victorious corporation is tightening its vise on any Christians who remain behind after McFarlane's dismissal.
Gordon Rayner filed this U.K. Telegraph report at www.Telegraph.co.uk
Christian sex therapist 'refused to counsel gay couples'
A Christian relationship counsellor who was sacked after he refused to give sex therapy to homosexual couples has lost his case for unlawful discrimination.
By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter
An employment tribunal ruled that the national counseling service Relate was entitled to dismiss Gary McFarlane after he said that encouraging gay sex went against his devout religious beliefs.
The decision prompted Christian groups to demand a rethink of religious discrimination laws, following a string of other high-profile cases in which courts have found against Christians who claim they have suffered as a result of standing up for their beliefs.
Andrea Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre, which supported Mr McFarlane in his claim, said the religious discrimination law was "in danger of becoming a dead letter", while the Christian Institute said there was a growing feeling among churchgoers that religious discrimination laws only applied to Muslims and other minority faiths.
Legal experts suggested the ruling had left discrimination laws in "a confused state" by giving the impression that "gay rights trump Christian rights" when they directly oppose each other.
Mr McFarlane, 47, brought his claim for unfair dismissal after he was sacked in March 2008.
The father of two had joined Relate in 2003 and had given relationship advice to homosexual couples in the past. But in 2006, after he qualified as a psychosexual therapist, he made it clear to his employers that his strong Christian beliefs meant he did not feel able to give sex therapy advice to homosexuals.
Fellow counsellors objected to his stance and claimed his views were homophobic, and in March 2008 he was sacked.
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."
Mrs Williams said: "The law preventing religious discrimination is in danger of becoming a dead letter. It is deeply disturbing that the mere expression of religious beliefs with an inability to give unqualified support to sexual orientation issues means that a Christian can be dismissed with no attempt to provide suitable accommodation for his beliefs."
Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said: "A lot of public bodies seem to confuse ethnicity with religion and they feel they are able to challenge the views of Christians, but not those of minority faiths. It means Christians feel they are playing second fiddle to other faiths and the laws are not being applied equally."
Mr McFarlane was represented in the case by Paul Diamond, the barrister who also represented Nadia Eweida, the British Airways check-in worker who lost a grievance procedure in 2006 after claiming religious discrimination because she was banned from wearing a cross necklace over her uniform.
A spokesman for Relate said it had not yet received a copy of the judgement and could not comment.
Mr McFarlane's is the latest in a string of cases which have tested the law on religious discrimination. Last year Lillian Ladele, a registrar in Islington, north London, won a claim for unfair dismissal after she was sacked for refusing to perform civil partnerships on religious grounds, but Islington council later successfully appealed against the decision.
In 2007 Andrew McClintock, a Christian magistrate, lost his religious discrimination claim after his employers refused to excuse him from ruling on cases in which vulnerable children might be placed with same-sex foster parents.
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