The European Union recently ruled that the British Government can’t continue to allow discrimination against homosexuals when it comes to church employment. The original complaint against British churches was initiated by the National Secular Society who claimed that the churches demonstrated “illegal discrimination against homosexuals.”
Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel responded to the ruling:
“Every time new-fangled gay ‘rights’ come into conflict with our enumerated freedoms — in this country, our constitutional right to freedom of religious expression — we are seeing that gay rights are trumping freedom of religion and freedom of speech.”
“They’ve taken this a step further and have even said, ‘Churches, you have to affirmatively embrace the homosexual lifestyle.”
Response: You can bet that the Euro judges will not be requiring the Muslims to hire gays also. After all there are Mullahs all over Europe calling for sharia law and the killing of all homosexuals and the Euro authorities haven’t done a thing.
I challenge the National Secular Society to bring a suit against the Mosques in the UK if they dare. It would be interesting to see how the adherents of the ‘Religion of Peace’ would respond.
This has been the fear all along in the US also. As the newest ‘gay rights’ bill was recently passed by Congress there has been a concern among church leaders and Christian non-profits on how the implementation of the bill might affect church organizations. Even a concern that preaching and teaching the Bible in a traditional way may come under legal challenge.
The concerns are not completely unfounded. The recent decision to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington DC has Churches and religious non-profits trying to determine how they can continue their social work in that jurisdiction under the provisions of the new law.
Fortunately the enumerated religious rights in this country are stronger than in Europe and directly supported by the Constitution. As long as the Supreme court is somewhat conservative than those rights are probably secure. However, if Pres. Obama gets the opportunity to choose several liberal replacements during his term as President than all bets are off.