The unique problem of Christianity for the judges
CEN Editorial
‘Christians who oppose gays lose foster fight’, said the Times’ headline over the story of the Pentecostalists being banned from adopting children for their orthodox Christian ethical beliefs, a headline subtly smearing them as ‘opposing gays’ rather than holding beliefs. Likewise The Guardian’s headline on the story ran ‘Anti-gay Christian couple lose foster case.’ The Telegraph ran: “Foster parent ban: ‘No place’ in the law for Christianity, High Court rules”. The Daily Mail’s story was headed ‘Christian beliefs do lose out to gay rights: Judges’ ruling against devout foster couple.’ BBC correspondent Robert Pigott called this, quite rightly, a ‘landmark’ case. A reasoned plea for the rights of Christians not to shoved into the closet and excluded from public life as Christians can be seen on The Christian Concern website, ‘High Court suggests Christian beliefs harmful to children.’
The three most potent decisions of the High Court of Justice, delivered by Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson, were that they were ‘secular’ judges, that they accepted that caring foster parents were not acceptable for holding sexual morality corresponding to the historic Christian ethical stance on homosexual sexual intercourse, and for denying a scintilla of place for Christianity in British law. They also implicitly accepted the dogma of the EHRC, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, that Christian beliefs taught to young children would ‘infect’ them. We have come a very, very long way from ‘Clause 4’ and the ban on promoting homosexuality in schools, now that is compulsory and Christian belief is positively harmful. In the eyes of the law homophobia is not religious, anyone of any belief can be guilty, but this raises serious questions for traditionalist Christians and the Churches in general. Doctrine must now be viewed in subordination to the country’s anti-discrimination laws.
Is the problem that, as our Marxist historians would say, Britain failed to have the equivalent of the 1789 French Revolution when the Church was ejected from national public life and the new goddess of secularist optimism replaced the God of Jesus Christ as the core source of values for society? That is to say the British way of gradual legal and constitutional change, as and when society changes and democracy has its say, is not working.
There really is clash of values on view in this court case, and the judges are simply saying ‘we are secularists, Christianity has no place in our deliberations.’ The trouble is that senior judges, such as Lord Chief Justice Phillips, say that Muslims in Britain should be able to live under Sharia Law in certain sectors of life, so there is a legal place for religious values, albeit in cases where there is no conflict with the secular law. Their problem is that Christianity is unique in the UK: all our laws, our monarchy, our Parliament, our NHS, our schools and universities, were based on Christian praxis and values. They argue that while there is this Christian heritage, modern law is not based on religious rules. The judges need to pull a very large rug out from under themselves in order to claim that the law is wholly ‘secular’ – itself of course a very debated concept and commitment.
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