It was decided in this landmark case that Gary McFarlane, a Relationship Guidance Counsellor did not have the right to refuse sex therapy to Gay couples on the grounds that he is a Christian.
From a Lawyers point of view, it’s clear that the McFarlane legal case judgement by Lord Laws was a stinging rebuke to Lord Carey.
Approximately one-third of the eloquent judgement by Lord Justice Laws in the recent appeal on the McFarlane case addressed the issues raised by Lord Carey of Clifton, who in recent times has become a spokesman for “persecuted Christians”. The judgement largely read as a direct response to the former archbishop of Canterbury.
Before handing down the judgement, Lord Carey submitted an extensive witness statement supporting McFarlane’s plea that his legal case should be presented before the lord chief justice and a specially constituted court of appeal of five lords justices “who have a proven sensibility to religious issues…” Another controversial request by Lord Carey was that specific judges “recuse themselves from further adjudication on such matters as they have made clear their lack of knowledge about the Christian faith”. This controversial request seemingly did not go unnoticed.
Laws quoted excerpts of Lord Carey’s witness statement while stating that he was compelled to specifically address Lord Carey’s particular views by his senior position within the clergy, and to the extent that people may find his views agreeable, but more critically because of “the misunderstanding of the law which his statement reveals”. At one stage, a polite reminder to Lord Carey reads that his “mistaken suggestions arise from a misunderstanding on his part as to the meaning attributed by the law to the idea of discrimination”. This was followed by a brief and concise lesson on what discrimination really means.
Laws then stated that Lord Carey’s arguments to be heard by a special court was “deeply unprincipled” and would “be deeply inimical to the public interest”, while emphasising that the Judaeo-Christian tradition has been deeply influential on the lawmakers’ judgement as to the objective merits of social policy.
Lord Carey had warned of social unrest before the initial hearing began. By declaring that Lord Carey’s was mistaken and that it meant that “our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic”, Laws’ statements could have inadvertently created a greater maelstrom. Affirming that the law must firmly safeguard the right to hold and express religious belief, Laws stated that “it must eschew any protection of such a belief’s content in the name only of its religious credentials”.
Emphasising that the judiciary’s role was to “administer the law in accordance with the judicial oath: without fear or favour, affection or ill-will”, Laws staunchly defended his court of appeal colleagues with a statement to the effect that: “The judges have never, so far as I know, sought to equate the condemnation by some Christians of homosexuality on religious grounds with homophobia, or to regard that position as ‘disreputable’. Nor have they likened Christians to bigots”.
In response to McFarlane’s argument that the Ladele case was decided per incuriam, justice Laws stated decisively that “it is in my judgment impossible to contend that Ladele was decided per incuriam”.
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