Human rights court - no to church discrimination

The European court of human rights has come out against churches being able to discriminate against people using religion as an excuse.

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ruled religious beliefs cannot justify discrimination against same-sex couples. 

The tribunal in Strasbourg, France, ruled against two British Christians who claimed their employers unfairly discriminated against them because of their opposition to relationship recognition for gays and lesbians and homosexuality.

..................

LGBT rights advocates in the U.K. and across Europe quickly applauded the decision. 

“With this ruling, the court has established that freedom of religion is an individual right,” Sophie in ‘t Veld, vice-president of the European Parliament’s LGBT Intergroup, said in a statement. “It is emphatically not a collective right to discriminate against LGBT people, women, or people of another faith or life stance. Religious freedom is no ground for exemption from the law. The court showed conclusively that the principle of equality and equal treatment cannot be circumvented with a simple reference to religion.” 

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the British LGBT advocacy group Stonewall, agreed. 

“Today’s judgment rightly confirms that it’s completely unacceptable in 2013 for public servants to pick and choose who they want to serve on the basis of sexual orientation,” he said. “Gay people contribute over £40 billion annually to the cost of public services in this country. They’re entitled to nothing less than equal treatment from those services, even from public servants who don’t happen to like gay people.” more

I sincerely hope that this doesn't go un-noticed by the gov here in putting together the final draft of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012. These court decisions come at a particularly good time with the debate currently in Australia about churches being able to discriminate against gays, using religion as a reason.