Chris

A B&B most certainly can. We are a B&B. We don't get many walk-up guests because we're normally full with pre-booked ones, but on the odd occasion when someone just turns up on our doorstep we can, and do, make a decision on whether to let them in based not just on the number of empty rooms available.

I should add, we don't make that decision based on whether they look gay or not. It would have more to do with the possible use of alcohol and, most of all, how late at night it is (we live in a remote spot and have no guarantee that we can discover the identity and home address of someone who just turns up on our doorstep, so are quite likely to have a blanket 'no availability' for people who arrive at 10pm, or young couples who have tried camping in their car, are fed up of it, but then want to haggle over the room rate on the doorstep. Basically, if we have reason to believe they're not going to cherish our lovely room and appreciate everything that makes it worth the price, they're not likely to get a foot in the door).

The Christian couple in question here made the cardinal error of telling the gay couple, truthfully, why they were being refused entry. They gave the couple an avenue for legal redress, because the reason they were given was one disallowed by law. They could simply have refused admission and would have been under no obligation to give any reason whatsoever. The guests might have had a civil claim for expenses suffered as a result of this but given that this sort of thing happens all the time without people going to court I can't see it having ended up this way under those circumstances.

Now, despite pointing all that out, I'm not saying the couple should have lied. That would have been somewhat dodgy from a faith point of view IMO. I also happen to think it is dodgy from a faith point of view that they are rejecting people who do not live a Christian life. That's no way to reach out to a fallen world and it's not the way Jesus operated.

There was a lot of argument when this case was first aired (and another similar to it) over whether the HRA was being used to over-ride someone's right to religious freedom or family life. We got into a lot of detail over whether a small B&B, which for fire and food safety purposes is not treated as business purposes, was therefore a private dwelling where the owner's religious preferences are sacrosanct. Clearly, the court and the appeal court have determined that a B&B, guest house or inn, no matter how small, is operating as a business and therefore has to follow anti-discrimination laws just as any other business does.

---------- Post added at 18:56 ---------- Previous post was at 18:50 ----------

Don't put the cart before the horse. Everybody is brought up with a certain moral code. Religion isn't a cover for prejudice, it's the source of morality for a great many people, and not just those that actively practice the religion.

People don't think, "I don't like that, and I can use my religion as an excuse for not liking it". They think, "My religion teaches me that this is wrong - therefore I don't like it".

This is not a semantic difference, it's a crucial one. It's all very well railing against religious people from the safety of your keyboard, especially on a forum where you feel comfortable that the majority will agree with you, but the fact is, we all need to get along out there in the big wide world, yet the view you have expressed here, IMO, is not just prejudice but teetering on the brink of outright intolerance.