The Question of Discrimination.

There was a celebrated case in Britain of two Christian guest house owners who refused admission to a gay couple. It was taken to court and the couple were found guilty of unlawful discrimination. Nick Griffin, the leader of the far right BNP, has now made headlines by tweeting that the decision was wrong because people have the right to discriminate.

For once I’m offering no opinion on this one, partly because there are too many angles for a blog post, and partly because I admit to being not quite decided. Let me instead throw two questions into the air:

1) Most intelligent people are agreed that the state should be secular, but that individuals should be allowed total freedom of religious belief. So how far should we allow them to give expression to those beliefs? It’s clear that all adherents of Judaic religions must be opposed to homosexuality, since their holy book says that God forbids it and God must be the ultimate arbiter. Should we take the view that freedom of religious belief is only allowed as long as it doesn’t affect anybody else in any way? Bear in mind that the gay couple were not assaulted, abused or thrown out on the street. They were simply asked to seek lodgings elsewhere. It was a passive form of discrimination; nobody got hurt. So if we take that view, are we really allowing total freedom of religious belief? Further, would it even amount to a form of religious discrimination?

2) Nick Griffin is a nasty piece of work. He swaggers around with thugs for bodyguards like a latter day Mussolini. He and his beliefs are anathema to decent people, and most decent people rightly choose to ignore him. Nevertheless, if one were to say ‘Nick Griffin says this, so it must be wrong,’ wouldn’t that be just as weak and bigoted as saying ‘Nick Griffin says this, so it must be right?’