At last, equality police decide Christians DO have right to follow their beliefs
In a major U-turn, the Equality and Human Rights Commission declared that judges should not have backed employers who pursued Christians for wearing crosses or for refusing to give sex therapy to gay couples.
. . . Just seven months ago it had championed the cause of civil partners Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy in their successful bid to sue Christian hoteliers who had refused them a double room.
Nick Donnelly comments:
It’s under a month since Trevor Philips, head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), claimed that so-called ‘Christian activists’ were exaggerating claims of persecution in the UK. So how to make sense of this unexpected U-turn?
I suspect a number of developments have forced the EHRC’s hand – the decision of the EU Human Rights Court that there was merit in Christian’s claims of religious discrimination; the recent revelations of meetings between government ministers and Church of England bishops to discuss new laws to protect religious freedoms and the government’s general suspicion of the EHRC.
In other words, it’s a U-turn due to outside pressures and criticisms by powerful bodies such as the British government and the European Union. It’s NOT a U-turn brought about by conviction that they’ve made mistakes. So it could just as easily change back again tomorrow. Such is the way of secularism — it goes whichever way the wind blows, according to whoever holds the most powerful fans.
