Christian wins case on anti-gay marriage Facebook post

[dlwickham]

Source: Google

A Christian who was demoted over Facebook comments opposing gay marriage in churches won a High Court case Friday against his employer for breach of contract.

London's High Court found in favour of Adrian Smith, a worker at Trafford Housing Trust in Manchester, and awarded him damages, saying he had not been guilty of any misconduct.

Smith lost his managerial status, had his salary cut by 40 percent and was handed a final written warning after posting on Facebook that gay weddings in churches were "an equality too far" and following up with other comments.

Although the remarks were not visible to the public and were posted outside work time, Trafford Housing Trust said Smith had broken its code of conduct by voicing religious or political views that could upset his colleagues.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hjRWAQ4zRXqTeyLVFJU6vTa1EIJw?docId=CNG.42f6ff374535c50b54192338903b926d.3b1

[crim son]

1. While I strongly disagree with his sentiment

what he posts on FB is not his employer's business.

[Posteritatis]

8. Definitely. Employers overregulate personal behaviour too much as is. (nt)

[geek tragedy]

2. Agree with this outcome, disagree strongly with his views. nt

[JDPriestly]

4. Me too. Agree with outcome and legal principle but disagree

very strongly with the man's views.

On the other hand, churches and religious institutions should have the right to decide who can be married and blessed by them. It is the civil marriage that is a right that should be recognized for all people.

[kestrel91316]

3. I'm not going to presume to tell the Brits how to run their legal system,

but this guy is an ass.

[alp227]

5. Not enough to lose his JOB over,

unless he was harassing co workers wth his homophobia.

I mean, if he lost his case he will only became a martyr to the professional Christian victim lobby who will warn that Christians who dare express their faith will lose their jobs, families, livelihoods, everything. While it is wrong to be a bigot is it really worth it to take away a person's livelihood just to teach them a lesson?

On the other hand, in egregious cases like the woman in California who made that twitter post hoping for the assassination of Obama, no respectable company would want association with such scum.

I also wonder if he set his facebook public? Thing is, anything you post online others aybe reflect on your associates unless you make a disclaimer!

[mwooldri]

6. Legally correct result. Mr. Smith's personal opinions... are his.

I do agree with Mr. Smith in that if a particular church community and pastoral staff don't want to conduct a same-sex marriage that this should not be forced upon them. However this should not stop a church community and pastoral staff who want to do this from doing this.

The problem stems from the fact that the Church of England is an Established Church, it is intertwined with the State, and any couple have the right to have a marriage in a Church of England church based on the residency of the couple in question. A lot of CofE churches are up in arms about this, because if the law is changed allowing same sex marriage to take place then the Church of England would be obliged to marry the same sex couples - and for a lot of Anglicans this is entirely against their religious beliefs.

Something close to this in a non-religious context would be if the main place that sells soda happens to be a place that sells alcoholic beverages and they have issues with dealing with teetotalers... and the only other place you can buy a soda isn't particularly commonplace and inconvenient. And under the law of the land you have the right to purchase sodas from anywhere that sells them. The place that has issues with teetotalers will allow you onto the premises but really don't want to sell you a soda but the law says they have to. What to do? I say more soda vendors please, and don't force people into selling sodas to people they don't want to sell them to.

Thus in the English state, with the Church of England, got to change. Church of England would no longer do marriages as such, ministers must get marriage licenses, other people can get licensed to conduct marriages. Problem mitigated for now. But not solved.

[marshall]

7. Can't voice an opinion outside of work that might upset colleagues?

That would seriously undermine most of my conversations. I'm sure somebody where I work could be offended by almost everything I say.