A senior judge has launched a dramatic assault on religious faith, dismissing it as “subjective” with no basis in fact.
Gary McFarlane: judge's assault on 'irrational' religious freedom claims in sex therapist case
A senior judge has launched a dramatic assault on religious faith, dismissing it as “subjective” with no basis in fact.
Gary McFarlane, the Christian counsellor who refused sex therapy to homosexuals Photo: PA
Lord Justice Laws condemned any attempt to protect believers who take a stand on matters of conscience under the law as “irrational” and “capricious”.
In comments likely to set the church on a collision course with the courts, he claimed that doing so could set Britain on the road to a “theocracy”, or religious rule.
His comments came as he dismissed a legal challenge by a Christian relationship counsellor who was sacked after refusing to offer sex therapy sessions to homosexual couples because it was against his beliefs.
Gary McFarlane, 48, challenged his dismissal at the Court of Appeal, arguing that forcing him to go against what he sees as the Bible’s teaching represented religious discrimination.
He was supported in his case by a highly unusual direct intervention Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who wrote to the judge warning of a tide of discrimination against Christians that threatened “civil unrest”.
Lord Carey called for the Lord Chief Justice to set up a separate panel of five judges with “proven sensitivity” to religious feelings to hear the appeal and other similar cases in the future.
It follows a string of case, including that of a registrar who refused to carry out civil partnership ceremonies, which pointed to a growing “religious bar” to Christians in many professions, he said.
But Lord Justice Laws said Lord Carey’s views were “misplaced” was “mistaken”.
Last night there were warnings that the judgment could enshrine the “persecution” of Christians in modern Britain and sideline religion in public life.
Lord Justice Laws ruled that while everyone had the right to hold religious beliefs, those beliefs themselves had no standing under the law.
“In the eye of everyone save the believer, religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence,” he told the court.
While acknowledging the profound influence of Judeo-Christian traditions over many centuries, he insisted that no religious belief itself could be protected under the law “however long its tradition, however rich its culture”.
“The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified,” he said.
“It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.”
He added: “If they did … our constitution would be on the road to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic.”
Mr McFarlane said that his treatment was “without a doubt” an example of Christians being persecuted in modern Britain.
“This is a sad day for our society which I believe is on a slippery slope in terms of balancing competing interests,” he said.
“I represent the Christian faith but I suggest that all other faiths will be concerned about this judgment.”
Last night Lord Carey described the ruling as “deeply worrying”, continuing a move by the courts to “downgrade” the right of religious people to express their faith.
“The judgement heralds a ‘secular’ state rather than a ‘neutral’ one,” he said.
“And while with one hand the ruling seeks to protect the right of religious believers to hold and express their faith, with the other it takes away those same rights.”
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said that the ruling had “driven a coach and horses” through the ancient ties between Christianity and British law.
Andrea Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre, which supported Mr McFarlane, described the depiction of traditional religious views on marriage as subjective as an “alarming” development.
“In effect it seeks to rule out Christian principles of morality from the public square,” she said.
“It seems that a religious bar to office has been created, whereby a Christian who wishes to act on their Christian beliefs on marriage will no longer be able to work in a great number of environments.”
But Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, hailed the judgment as a defeat for “fundamentalism”.
“The law must be clear that anti-discrimination laws exist to protect people, not beliefs,” he said.
“The right to follow a religious belief is a qualified right and it must not be used to legitimise discrimination against gay people who are legally entitled to protection against bigotry and persecution.”
But Darren Sherborne, a partner at the law form Rickerbys, said that Lord Justice Laws’s judgment “wrong” open to challenge at the Supreme Court because it placed sexual practices over religious beliefs.
“For him to say a subjective idea isn’t capable of protection completely undermines the 2006 Equality Act which was intended to protect people from discrimination on the grounds of their beliefs,” he said.
“The law has developed to the point where even a belief in the environment is held to be protected.
“There is scope for a challenge to the Supreme Court and I would expect it to be.
“If he doesn’t (challenge it), in my opinion this is one more straw in the camel’s back which is heading for the encouragement … of more extreme religious beliefs.
“The law isn’t encouraging moderate belief at the moment.”
Stephen Cave, executive director of the Evangelical Alliance said: “There has to be a better way of dealing with cases such as this outside the courts, which allows space for people of faith and no faith to live and work tog
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