More today on same sex couples and ‘Christian hotels’ and the judgement in Bristol County Court. In my last post I noted the social context in which the judge placed the case – a context that says that no longer can Christians expect the country’s laws to reflect their values and beliefs. It is because of this shift in society that we now have laws protecting the rights of people who were discriminated against in the past and it is under these laws that the case against the Christian couple who ran the hotel was brought. (Many, of course, of us would say that this protection is a good thing.)

The judge was asked to decide whether the same-sex couple had been discriminated against by the hotel owners when they refused to give them a double room to stay in. In today’s post I want to outline what the judge made of the defendants’ case.

One rule that the hotel owners have is that double rooms (i.e. rooms with a double bed) will be rented out to ‘heterosexual married couples only’. They base this policy ‘out of deep regard for marriage’ and this regard is based on their Christian faith. In their defence before the court the owners clarified this policy by saying that what they are opposed to is not sexual orientation but sexual relations outside of marriage. They would be against an unmarried heterosexual couple having a double room just as much and have, in the past, refused such couples a room in their hotel. As is clear, they define marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

It is worth noting that the judge accepted without question that these views were not only genuinely held by the hotel owners but that they reflected the ‘orthodox Christian belief in the sanctity of marriage and the sinfulness of homosexuality’ and that holding these views fall within Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (i.e. the right to freedom of religion and its limited manifestation).

Their defence got unstuck, however, when the judge noted that under the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 there is no ‘material difference’ between a civil partnership and a marriage. Both are equal and valid under this particular law dealing with discrimination and this one fact (though there were others) led the judge to decide in favour of the same-sex couple.

The implication of this ruling is actually quite significant. Let’s take it for a moment that the judge was correct in accepting that the hotel owners’ views on sexual morality are ‘orthodox’ (though this does need questioning as views within the church in general have shifted quite considerably) – Christian orthodoxy on sexuality, though genuinely and legally held, does not in law automatically trump other views and lifestyles. Christian orthodoxy has for a long time been one worldview among many in cultural terms. Now it is so in legal terms as well.

Big shifts happening. Any thoughts?