Top Judge - "I Was Wrong On Christian B&B Owners"

20th June 2014

A judge who condemned a Christian couple for turning away gay guests from their hotel yesterday said her decision may have been wrong.

Supreme Court deputy president Baroness Hale called for a rethink on religious and gay rights six months after she rejected the B&B owners’ arguments in a key test case.

Lady Hale said in a speech that the law has done too little to protect the beliefs of Christians. And she cast doubts over her own judgment in the landmark case in which a gay couple sued Christian hoteliers Peter and Hazelmary Bull.

Mr Bull, 74, and his 70-year-old wife refused a double room at their Cornish hotel to Steven Preddy and Martyn Hall in 2008 because they were not a married heterosexual couple.

The incident led to a string of court cases, which culminated in defeat for the Bulls at the Supreme Court – where Lady Hale, leading four other judges, ruled that the rights of the gay couple outweighed the conscience of the Christian couple. Lady Hale declared in her Supreme Court ruling that we should be ‘slow to accept’ the right of Christians to discriminate against gay people.

But in March she acknowledged that the laws which ignore Christian consciences might not be ‘sustainable’. Last week, in a highly unusual move, Lady Hale and her fellow judges ordered that the Bulls will not be liable for legal costs – a decision which spares them a huge bill which would pay for the lawyers who represented Mr Preddy and Mr Hall.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2663037/I-wrong-condemn-Christian-B-amp-B-owners-says-judge.html#ixzz35AEOM8jD