GAY TRUTH

Two cases have been highlight overseas recently where a Christian employee has been fired for declining to use the “preferred pronoun” of a person who identifies as a different gender to their biological sex. The cases illustrate that religious freedom, and free speech generally, in the workplace can be under challenge in circumstances involving “gender identity” issues. It is not clear how such cases would be resolved in Australia. UK-   Dr David Mackereth  In the first case,  Mackereth v Department for Work and Pensions  (ET: Case Number: 1304602/2018; 26 Sept, 2019), in the UK, Dr David Mackereth, an experienced health care professional, had taken on a contract position as a Health and Disabilities Assessor (“HDA”) on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (“DWP”), undertaking assessments of clients and potential clients of the Department. His position commenced in May 2018, and at an early stage he was required to attend an induction session for new physicians.

In the UK a court ruled that comments which expressed opposition to same-sex marriage did not fall into the category of punishable “hate speech”. In Smith v Trafford Housing Trust [2012] EWHC 3221 (Ch) (16 November 2012) Mr Smith, a council officer, had expressed some concern on Facebook about same-sex marriage being conducted in churches. A colleague, who had asked him to explain his views further, took offence at what he said. The result was, as the court said at para [5]: For making those two comments Mr Smith was suspended from work, on full pay, on 17 February, made the subject of a disciplinary investigation and then disciplinary proceedings leading to a hearing on 8 March, at the end of which he was told that he had been guilty of gross misconduct for which he deserved to be dismissed. Due to his long record of loyal service he was told that he was with immediate effect only to be demoted to a non-managerial position with the Trust, with a consequential 40 per cent reduction

Since marriage was redefined to include same-sex couples in the UK in 2014, religious freedom has been dramatically eroded, particularly for Christians . At the CLC they deal with 200 case inquiries every year , involving scenarios you’d expect to hear from a Communist dictatorship, rather than 21st century Great Britain. The Centre has provided legal representation to Christian teachers who lost their jobs for refusing to teach students about “ same-sex marriage ”, magistrates removed from the bench for expressing their belief that children do best with a mother and a father, social workers forced to resign because they refused to place children with same-sex couples, counsellors who lost their jobs for trying to help people with unwanted same-sex attraction, registrars who’d lost their jobs because they refused to preside over same-sex “marriages”, doctors threatened with the removal of their medical licences if they questioned gender-transition – the list goes on and on. Re