Christians have rights too

Baroness Hale of Richmond

I am familiar with Brenda Hale, my DUP colleague who is an MLA in Lagan Valley, but did not realise that another Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, is the deputy president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and one of our most senior judges.

 

In a recent lecture at Yale Law Society in America she said that Christians have lost out in the courts, while other faiths like Islam, with their codes of behaviour, dress and diet, have won.

 

The judge called on the law to take a new, less hardline attitude to the rights of Christians to live by their beliefs.

 

Judge Hale said that the current discrimination laws that have ruled against the rights of Christians are 'not sustainable in the long run'.  She suggested that a new religious settlement might be based on the idea that the law should show 'reasonable accommodation' for religious belief.

 

I look forward to seeing a copy of her speech, which raises some very important issues.  Evangelical Christians hold to the authority of the Bible and seek to live by the Word of God.  As such do they not have rights or are their rights to be subordinated to the rights of others? 

 

Lady Hale is right in saying that the present situation is 'not sustainable in the long run'.