So they don’t decide on the ins and outs of what must in all cases constitute it. Think about it–they can’t. If you don’t think that a civil union is a marriage, as a religious person shouldn’t, then it’s a matter of refusing to uphold the law; you lose.

If you think that people who make you do a civil union are running against the tenets of your faith, you have to show how a gay civil union in a country where its legal does so to a reasonable person. You lose.

If Ms ladele is just saying ‘oh, this whole situation offended against my interpretations of my faith’, I think that a tribunal could fall back on one of the arguments above.

Which is why, I presume, that she isn’t.

Normally, things like whether working on a Sunday was a problem for a strict Protestant are the issue. Tribunals, like Magistrates courts, can be strange places in which all sorts of evidence is sucked in needlessly. Global warming was being pronounced on in one last month, I noticed.

The layers to this case are laid on as in the comment above. If anyone looking for enlightenment on the case and in agreement with Mary (and me) that the mainstream press do a terrible job, my suggestion would be to start with the case and then look to a law site on the 2003 religious disrimination regulations.

You could also have a look for Andrew McClintock’s case, as he was a JP who didn’t believe in same-sex adoption; there’s a nice summary on lawcf.org. The regulations are very confusing, as between freedom of conscience and refusal to apply social experiments. Mr McClintock asked to be screened from gay cases after he was employed, which is different from Ms Ladele, and argued on both grounds–I think she doesn’t.

You might also want to have a look at the Eweida v British Airways case on http://www.experthr.co.uk

That way, this blog (despite my best, bleary-eyed efforts to confuse the issue) would have done some good. Hope that the long comment is acceptable Mary!

Ms Ladele refused to uphold the new imposed term and she was dismissed by an employer more powerful than her, as often happens in this sort of contractual ‘negotiation’ we’re all supposed to perform.

However, Ms ladele’s objection–that she could not accept a homosexual marriage on religious grounds–seems to me to fail because religious discrimination isn’t something tribunals have to decide, and anyway, civil unions are not marriages.

Like your correspondent in the bank employment case, Ms Ladele’s case seems to have hinged around the allegation that bullying went on to get her to change her mind or to force her out, though the circumstances are radically different.

Indeed, if one was religious, nothing that goes on in a council building is religious as such. What Ms Ladele is therefore claiming–in part– is that her personal offence led her to a position where she could not do a job which she had accepted and which she was paid to do, and that she could not accept the law of the land.

Her one hope, I would have thought, is the suggestion that this is not the job she was originally performing.

I’m not sure that this is just a case of religious discrimination versus a piece of social engineering, or that it deserves the prominence that you are giving it. I am unsure whether town halls should control registrars, but I think that if people want to style themselves professionals and have the freedom to withdraw from work they should be paid by fee and not accept wages.

On the reporting in the mainstream media (MSM) I will agree with you. The way the MSM reports on health is no more than a cut and paste of the Department of Health’s policies. So I can sympathise.

Secondhand smoke and drinking is appalling reported in a biased fashion and the fatties will be joning them soon.