Love, Sex, and Marriage, God's Way - Introduction

At the UK general election in 2010, thirteen years of New Labour government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown came to an end. However, the outcome was inconclusive. Although Labour had more seats than any other party, they did not have enough to form a government. Following weeks of negotiations, a new coalition government was formed between the Conservatives under David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats under Nick Clegg.

Not long after the new coalition government had taken office, they announced that a consultation was to be held on the subject of the redefinition of marriage, noting that it was not a consultation on WHETHER marriage should be redefined, but HOW marriage should be redefined. Neither of the coalition parties had included any mention of this in their election manifestoes, and there was no reference to it in the Queen’s Speech. However, they decided to do it, and so the snowball was set a-rolling.

Initially, the snowball was quite small, and no-one paid much attention to it, but as it gained momentum it eventually produced an avalanche which swept everything, and everyone, before it. Parliamentarians who had originally opposed it were won over and became supporters of it.

One of our politicians in Northern Ireland, Mike Nesbitt, who at the time was the leader of the Ulster Unionist party, was among their number. On a TV discussion program he argued that marriage had always been between one man and one woman, and he saw no reason why that should ever change. But after the snowball had gained momentum and become too big to ignore, he led his party into supporting the move, arguing that if they did not do so they might end up, in his words, “on the wrong side of history”.

We began to read reports of people in all walks of life who found themselves being discriminated against because they did not support same-sex marriage.

There was Adrian Smith, a housing officer in England who posted privately to his friends on Facebook that he considered permitting same-sex marriages in the church to be “an equality too far”. His line manager at work, having become aware of this, demoted him and reduced his salary. Even the L.G.B.T. rights activist, Peter Tatchell, considered this reaction to be an over-reaction too far (my words, not his).

The British Red Cross decided to dispense with the services of one of its longest serving volunteers, Bryan Barkley, on the grounds that he had taken part in a demonstration in opposition to same-sex marriage.

This type of thing was happening not only in Britain.

In America, the Mozilla corporation (best known for their Firefox web browser) had appointed as their new CEO a founding member of the organisation, Brendan Eich, who was the best candidate for the job. However, it came to light that he had previously made a financial donation to a lobby group that had opposed same-sex marriage being allowed in the state of California. Mozilla is an open-source IT company and depends for its success on volunteer developers throughout the country, many of whom are gay. These developers threatened to boycott Mozilla if this ‘anti-gay’ individual were to remain as CEO. Mozilla relented, publishing one of the most grovelling and obsequious apologies that I have ever read, and appointed someone else as their CEO.

Back home, probably the most high-profile manifestation of the destructive avalanche was what became know as ‘the Asher’s gay cake case’.

Asher’s is a Belfast bakery company run by a family called McArthur. They are a Christian family – Presbyterians. The business is named after one of the twelve tribes of Israel, Asher, who were renowned for their baking ability (Genesis 49:20 "Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties" – KJV.)

An L.G.B.T. activist called Gareth Lee came into Asher’s shop one Friday afternoon in 2014 and placed an order for a cake to be made bearing the slogan, in icing: “Support same-sex marriage”. The order was accepted by the person who was on duty at the time, but over the weekend the family thought the matter through and came to the conclusion that it would be inappropriate for them, as Bible-believing and God-fearing Christians, to appear to be endorsing a policy with which they did not agree, and which was contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs. Consequently, when Mr. Lee returned on Monday, the order was politely declined and his money refunded. And that seemed to be the end of the matter.

But it wasn’t.

Mr. Lee, after some consideration, decided that the matter needed to be addressed, and so he enlisted the help of the Equalities Commission for Northern Ireland who, it turned out, were keen to take the matter to the courts as an open and shut case of direct discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

As I drove to and from work in those days, I used to listen to the news on BBC Radio Ulster, and I remember the initiation of this case being discussed. At that time, the go-to legal commentator for BBC N.I. was a gentleman by the name of Joshua Rosenberg, so he was duly consulted for an opinion on how this matter might turn out. In short, his response at the time was that Asher’s would probably argue along the lines of “we make cakes, but not cakes of this type”, that the court would probably accept that, and the case would come to nothing.

That seemed perfectly reasonable to me, as it no doubt would have done to every sensible person who was listening, so I expected to hear nothing more on the matter.

How wrong I was, and how wrong was Mr. Rosenberg!

The Equalities Commission took the matter to the County Court, and the court agreed that this was an open and shut case of direct discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, despite the fact that it had nothing to do with Mr. Lee personally, but was a matter of conscience for the McArthur family.

Undaunted, the McArthurs took their case to the Appeals Court. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, this produced the same outcome.

As these judges were ruling that Asher’s was in breach of the law by refusing to provide the cake as ordered, many people, including L.G.B.T. activists, were beginning to feel uneasy about how this might end up. Were the courts ruling that a provider of goods or services was obliged, by law, to fulfil the demands of any customer, even when to do so would necessitate an unacceptable compromise of conscience on the part of the provider?

Eventually, the brief for the case landed in the in-tray of Britain’s Supreme Court. As regards the UK, the ruling that they would issue would be definitive, so everyone in the country was sitting on the edge of their seat in eager anticipation of their verdict.

It so happened that there were, if I remember correctly, three cases from Northern Ireland that were before the Supreme Court, so they sat in Belfast in order to consider these matters.

When the sentence was issued at last, there was an almost audible sigh of relief throughout the land. The Supreme Court judges ruled unanimously that this case had nothing whatsoever to do with discrimination on any grounds, and that the McArthurs were perfectly within their rights under the law to decline an order, the fulfilment of which would have required them to compromise their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Why on earth this case had to go all of the way up to the Supreme Court is beyond me, when the judgement issued by them was obvious to everyone who had any common sense, never mind anyone, such as Joshua Rosenberg, who was familiar with British law. Why were those other judges so determined to make this a case of discrimination when it so obviously was not?

The Supreme Court judges also reprimanded the Equalities Commission for being blatantly one-sided in their handling of the case, having shown no sympathy or understanding whatsoever for the McArthur family. One would have thought that the Equalities Commission, of all organisations, would have been even-handed and sought to bring about a reconciliation of the parties to the dispute instead of pitting one against the other.

Perhaps the reason for this was revealed when, in an interview with the BBC after the case was concluded, the representative of the Equalities Commission suggested that the McArthurs should leave their religious beliefs behind them when they left the house and not bring them into the market place.

I thought that this was an interesting observation, which showed that the gentleman who said this was rather ignorant of what Christians believe. Did he intend the McArthurs to leave in their living rooms such principles as: love your neighbour as yourself; do unto others as you would have them do unto you; use a just weight and a just measure; thou shalt not steal; the labourer is worthy of his hire?

If the McArthur family were to comply with this gentleman’s suggestion, they would be the worst rogues that ever darkened the streets of Belfast!

Now, of course he would say, “No, I don’t mean those principles. Those are good ones. I mean the other ones – the ones that are controversial, that impinge on other peoples’ rights.”

He wouldn’t say it, but what he would really mean is, “the ones that I don’t agree with!”

So, why is it that some principles are acceptable in the public square while others are not? And what kind of principles are acceptable, and what unacceptable?

The answer to this is to be found not in the comparison of opinions on same-sex marriage or any other moral question. To find that answer, we must take a step back and look from a broader perspective, where we are able to consider the root issue, which is the divergence of world-views.