Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
Debate between Edward Leigh and George Howarth
Mr Leigh
Absolutely. The courts made that quite clear recently.
Before somebody leaps to their feet and tries to make out that we are defending people being beastly to gay people in the workplace, let me deal with this important point and make a statement of the obvious: protecting freedom of conscience does not mean protecting the freedom to be beastly to anybody. Equality law protects sexual orientation, gender, race and belief, but no one would say it provides for the right to be horrid to people who disagree with on any of these things, so there is no danger of that happening with new clause 6.
Mr George Howarth
On the logic of his argument, does the hon. Gentleman think that a science teacher, for example, should be free to teach creationism?
Mr Leigh
No, no; the right hon. Gentleman is making a silly point. He is just trying to play games with something that is very important.
The hatred that is sometimes poured on those of us who simply believe that marriage is between a man and a woman is rather sad in many ways. We are elected politicians. We are tough enough to put up with it, and we get reinforcements from our own constituents who, by the way, overwhelmingly—certainly in my constituency —support my point of view. We are tough politicians, but what about ordinary members of the public who are picked on at work in this way for believing in traditional marriage? Some refuse to believe that this happens, but we have evidence to prove it does.
In January, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill, which was backed by a good 86 votes to 31 on a Division. I called it the “Adrian Smith Protection Bill”—I said I would come to the evidence of what is now happening in the workplace and this is it. I named the Bill in honour of a gentleman who was demoted for “gross misconduct”. This was a man with a perfect work record who lost 40% of his salary. What did he say? Was he guilty of homophobic behaviour? No; all he said was that same-sex marriage in a church was an “equality too far”, and he put that on a Facebook page. He said it on his private Facebook page, but a colleague at work took umbrage. He raised it with his superiors at Trafford Housing Trust and they pounced on it. They were up, I have to say, for some new gay rights award—nothing wrong with that—and clearly they wanted to burnish their PC credentials. They threw the book at poor Adrian Smith—just a chap with a perfect work record who had not said anything nasty, beastly or homophobic in any sense. He had simply expressed his profound beliefs.
Adrian Smith was told by his bosses that he deserved to lose his job, but that they would commute his sentence to demotion, in view of the high quality of his work. He did not have the money to take the case to an employment tribunal and—this is the important point—on the basis of existing case law, lawyers said that he would not have won anyway, because of the current state of employment and equality law. When there is a clash between gay rights and religious freedom, I am afraid that gay rights come first in our case law. Then an organisation came along that offered to cover his legal bills and, with some expert creative legal advice, he was able to take a High Court action. He won a ruling that his employers had breached his contract. The Government say, “Well there you go—he won. What’s the problem?”
The problem is that employment and equality laws were not in Adrian Smith’s favour. He won only a contract action. The court did not have the power to give him his job back—he never got it back. It could not even give him proper compensation—he never got that either. In fact, the judge lamented the fact that he got the enormous sum of £100 for all the upset he had been caused, simply for expressing a very moderate point of view. The whole exercise cost £30,000 in legal fees, which would have been well beyond his means if he had not had the backing of campaign organisations, and he was one of the lucky ones.
The Government are refusing to recognise that they are not legislating to redefine marriage through this Bill in a vacuum. They are legislating in a culture that has been so coloured with political correctness that people such as Adrian Smith—mild-mannered people expressing reasonable beliefs in moderate tones—are treated like villains. The outlandish views of the loony left of the 1980s—the views of the Lambeth councils—have now become embedded in high places. In typical leftish fashion, all those who disagree with those views are treated with hatred and contempt in order to marginalise their point of view.
My wife says that as I get a bit older, sometimes, very late at night, I get a bit cross-eyed, but if you accuse me of being swivel-eyed, Mr Speaker, I could take you to court on disability grounds. Unfortunately, many people with traditional points of view—whether on gay marriage or immigration—somehow feel that they are being marginalised in political debate. This leads to alienation and more people voting for protest parties. This is going on and we should recognise it. These people are dismissed as bigots because they object to having their marriages redefined over their heads by rewriting the Marriage Act, under which they got married, which is the most important thing in their lives.
Mr George Howarth
The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. May I give him some reassurance? I do not think for one minute that he is swivel-eyed—just myopic.
Mr Leigh
I take that as a serious intervention, but I do not think I am myopic. There is a real sense of alienation in this country among people with traditional views. They are decent people and I believe that they have a right to feel comfortable in society, and particularly in their workplace, expressing those views and speaking out for what they believe in. I do not think that that makes me myopic at all.