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Can registrar expect to be paid for
not doing her job?
• I and my wife had the pleasure of being married by Lillian Ladele in 2004. Her competence and the pleasant yet authoritative manner in which she conducted the ceremony were commented on by many of our guests.
We were therefore greatly dismayed to read the article last week (Gay weddings are against God’s law, registrar insists, May 23).
We had chosen to be married in our Town Hall precisely because we wished for a secular ceremony.
Had we wished for a Christian service we would, of course, have gone elsewhere. The private religious beliefs of the registrar were, at the time, no concern of ours. Inevitably, they have become relevant given that she now appears to think that her beliefs place her outside the law.
I want to make it clear that, despite our gratitude to Lillian for marrying us, if her beliefs and actions are as described in the article she does not have our support. If we had known that she believed that civil partnerships were contrary to God’s law and that she would therefore in future refuse to conduct ceremonies between same-sex couples we would undoubtedly have asked to be married by someone else.
Lillian is entitled to believe that homosexual relationships are sinful (abhorrent though I find this view).
She is not entitled to continue to flout the law she is being paid to uphold.
I have worked as a public servant for much of my life (some of the time for Islington). I have always thought that, should I be required to do something in my working life that I could not in all conscience do, the only moral course of action would be for me to resign.
I am not clear why Lillian seems to think that Islington should continue to pay her for not doing her job.
James Hood
(Address supplied) N4
• AS someone brought up as a Christian, I fully agree with Lillian Ladele’s refusal to conduct a same-sex ceremony.
How can anybody in their right frame of mind discipline Ms Ladele for her religious beliefs? Why are we Christians always ignored? Is it because Christianity is more open-minded than many other religions and therefore our goodwill is abused? I wonder what would have happened if the said religion was, for a matter of discussion, Islam.
I want Ms Ladele to know she has her supporters and that she should take the matter to the humans right committee.
I am sick and tired of all these rights given to gays. Will I be charged with homophobia because I cannot accept a gay/lesbian person? I want my rights too.
Religion is the backbone of society. Because this society lacks it, we are seeing the consequences.
David Joseph Gomez
(Address supplied) N1
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