When Gary McFarlane was fired from his job as a Relate sex therapist because he refused to advise homosexual couples on the grounds that it was against his Christian beliefs, he took his case to an industrial tribunal. He has lost his case.

The Telegraph reports:
"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." "

IMO this is an excellent judgment, as to permit any antisocial actions, be they homophobic, racist, anti-feminist or whatever, on the grounds of religious belief would be the thin end of the wedge that would allow any bigot to defend the most loathsome of opinions by claiming that they were his/her religious views.

Let's not forget that the bastion of South African apartheid for many years was the Dutch Reformed Church.

Good judgment or bad - what do you think?