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Equality Bill

The question would be whether it was a conscientious objection, for example a genuinely held homophobic belief. Let me give an actual example rather than a hypothetical one. Take the Ladele case. In Ladele, a public officer, a registrar of births and marriages, had a conscientious objection to carrying out a civil partnership ceremony. There is no doubt that it was a deeply held aversion to the idea of homosexuality, not just because of homosexuality as practised as the noble Lord would suggest, but because of the very idea that gay people should be entitled to be treated, for this purpose, in a similar way to married people. This person, who had a conscientious objection, refused to perform a state-funded, important function on conscientious grounds. The court, in a carefully reasoned judgment, explained why that was wholly unacceptable, contrary both to European and our domestic law. It is a good example because there is no doubt that the objection was conscientious but there is also no doubt that it would be completely intolerable if you allowed public officials in providing a service to decide on the basis of their own deeply held convictions that they were not prepared to carry out the service. I shall not continue but I have no doubt that if this exception were there, we would immediately find ourselves in direct conflict with EU and ECHR law. They accommodate freedom of conscience, religion and belief rightly, but they do not do so in this way. I entirely respect where the noble and learned Lord is coming from. I respect his religious beliefs entirely. I understand the argument, but I do not agree with it.