Friday - April 24, 2009

Charity worker suspended for Christian beliefs on homosexuality.

Story is a week old by now but it sort of dovetails on a subject Drew brought up yesterday.
Seems like there’s only ONE opinion sought or paid heed to, and that’s the left and the homosexuals.  I am aware that not all of them are left. Apparently there are a number who regard themselves as conservative republicans. ???  I don’t quite understand that connection.
Anyway ... people either lose beauty pageants or jobs without the required one way opinion.

Charity worker suspended for Christian beliefs on homosexuality

by:
Ruth Gledhill

A charity worker has been suspended after telling a colleague about his Christian beliefs against homosexuality, even though he says he is not homophobic and was merely responding to questions from a colleague about his beliefs.

David Booker, 44, who works at a Christian hostel in Southampton, a charity, was asked about his faith by a colleague, Fiona Vardy during a late shift last month.

He told her he was opposed to same-sex marriages and to homosexual clergy but denied being homophobic and said that he had homosexual friends.

The next evening, Mr Booker was suspended from his £19,000-a-year post as a hostel support worker with Society of St James, where he has been employed for the last four years. The hostel told him the action was taken for “events that happened last night”.

A few days later he was told he had “seriously breached” the charity’s code of conduct “by promoting your religious views which contained discriminatory comments regarding a person’s sexual orientation”. The action had been taken “to safeguard both residents and staff”, he was advised.

Mr Booker, an evangelical from Southampton, who is being advised by the Christian Legal Centre, now faces an enquiry and a disciplinary hearing.

It comes just weeks after a Christian nurse suspended for offering to pray for the recovery of a patient was reinstated. North Somerset NHS Trust suspended nurse Caroline Petrie for failing to show a commitment to equality and diversity after she offered to pray for the recovery of an elderly patient. The patient did not complain.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and director of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “This case shows that in today’s politically correct, increasingly secularised society, even consenting reasonable discussion on religion between two employees is being twisted by employers to discriminate and silence the Christian voice and freedom of expression.”

THE TIMES

Do any of you reading this get the feeling as I did, that the guy was set up?  I’m thinking that the person who engaged him in this conversation and already knew his views, knew what answer she’d get and so then shopped him. Just a theory.

Posted by peiper     on 04/24/2009 at 01:03 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous • Religion • Stoopid-People • UK • work and the workplace •  
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