In defense of secular law

Recently, Evangelical guidance counselor Gary McFarlane lost his job due to his unwillingness to receive and council gay couples. The UK's anti-discrimination laws meant that his employer, Relate Avon, was able to terminated his employment with them. This part of the case is relatively straight forward, Mr McFarlane refused to perform his therapy services in a non-discriminatory manner and thus his termination was justified. However, Mr McFarlane appealed the dismissal on the grounds that his Christian beliefs meant that he had to discriminate between homosexual and heterosexual couples and that firing him for his beliefs was, itself, discriminatory.

Lord Justice Laws dismissed this argument in no uncertain terms saying that "The precepts of any one religion - any belief system - cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens, and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic." The question facing Justice Laws was whether an exception should be made for a certain religious belief when secular law is supposed to be applied equally. In this case Justice Laws was correct that Relate Avon applied an identical standard to all its employees (be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist) and that making an exception for Christianity would have itself been discriminatory against the other religious positions. After all, if the exception can be made for Christianity it ought to be made for Jews, Muslims, and atheists and then there would be no point to having the law in the first place. No religious belief, said the judge, can be protected under the law "however long its tradition, however rich its culture."

Justice Laws also dismissed as "mistaken" former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey's warning that so-called discrimination against Christians may result in attacks in Britain. Carey described the High Court ruling as "deeply worrying," heralding "a 'secular state' rather than a 'neutral' one." What Mr Carey doesn't understand is that a secular state is neutral on the matter of religion, by definition. Secularism is the compromise between the religious and non-religious and under secular law everyone is treated equally regardless of their beliefs.

Rubbing a little salt in the wound, Justice Laws added "religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence." and that using the law to protect "a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified." Amen.