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Registrar has an obvious solution: find another job
• LILLIAN Ladele says she will not register civil partnerships because “I cannot condone something I see as sinful” (Gay weddings are against God’s law, registrar insists, May 23).
We live in a society with people of many different religions, and each faith issues its own prohibitions and requirements, which its adherents may follow to varying extents. It is in all of our interests to be sensitive to many ways of life, and yet it cannot be up to society or employers to make all of the accommodations. There will always be jobs that some religious people will not want to do because of their beliefs. A Muslim or a Jew will not want to work in a facility where he will have to handle pork. A Buddhist or a Jain will not want to be a cook where she is required to taste the meat dishes she is preparing.
The possible conflicts with religion are complex and virtually endless. (A diligent search will turn up prohibitions that will make almost any job impossible!) It hardly seems sensible that employees – particularly public servants – should be given the latitude to take a job and then decline to do it. Employers should not bear the burden of carefully tailoring jobs to each person’s individual beliefs. It is the religionist’s responsibility to find a job that is suitable for them.
And it is particularly outrageous for an employee to refuse to perform her job when the result is illegal discrimination. Lillian Ladele feels she is being discriminated against, persecuted and bullied. As a straight person in a country with an established Christian church, she is in the privileged majority in several ways. Gays and lesbians have long been severely oppressed in this country and elsewhere. Now that the Civil Partnership Act has helped to begin to equalise their legal status, no one should be permitted to turn back the clock, as Ms Ladele seems determined to do.
Lillian Ladele does not have the right to choose which aspects of the law she will follow and which she will refuse. If she is a truly principled person, she should not want to be employed by an organisation that condones what she understands to be sinful. Unless her true agenda is to challenge the law, the obvious answer is to find another job.
Andrew Pakula
Minister, Newington Green and Islington Unitarians
• NO, Mike Judge, Lilian Ladele is not being “disciplined and threatened with the sack because she’s a Christian” (Christian staff await result of ‘gay weddings’ tribunal, May 30).
She is subject to the law like the rest of us, and her extreme beliefs do not place her above it. If she takes the view – as Mr Judge’s fundamentalist group “the Christian Institute” does, that God’s laws supersede the laws of the land, then she must pay the consequences without whining about it. The misguided Ms Ladele has little to worry about anyway. She is unlikely to be requested to perform civil partnership ceremonies now. What self-respecting gay or lesbian couple would want her to conduct their ceremony for them now? She has sanctioned herself with her views.
As for you, Mr Judge, shame on you for ruthlessly exploiting this woman.
Name and address supplied
• THE current fracas over a registrar refusing to conduct marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples only confirms the view that we are not living in the mutually harmonious society we are perhaps given to believe is the case. Dig that little bit deeper and a morass of conflicting beliefs and ideals is there in its shining glory. Religion and politics are never good bedfellows, except if it is a case where religion and politics go together, such as in Islam.
The teachings of Christianity are merely a set of morals affected by levels of personal belief. We are more accessible to belief as children. If we are not taught a set of morals we simply don’t believe or know of other persons’ beliefs or views. For instance, teachers do not have to attend religious ceremonies at schools.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, the morals of the Christian church in relation to the definition of marriage are now under close scrutiny. Perhaps the debate should be widened as far as possible and not be left in the domain only of political correct pressure groups and include as many elements of society as possible.
Tim Clark
Pentonville Road, N1
• HOW very sad for registrar Lillian Ladele, who thinks gays are of no account. All of us, Ms Ladele, have rights.
When my husband Dick died, all our gay kin and friends remained loyal and helpful to my children and now my grandchildren.
At the same time, I would like to salute Meleisha Lovemore who adopted four children and raised them with two of her own (Mother Courage takes in four children when tragedy strikes, May 30).
S Topping
Bath Street, EC1
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