European Human Rights Court Drop Kicks Anti-Gay Christofascists

As numerous posts on this blog seek to highlight, whenever one hears the Christofascists bleating that "Christians" are being persecuted, the real story is that these "godly folk" are miffed that they aren't allowed to openly discriminate against and mistreat gays under the guise of exercising their  rights of "religious freedom."  As demonstrated time and time again, the self-centered - dare we say shockingly selfish? - Christofascists believe that they should have carte blanche to do whatever they want and to ignore non-discrimination laws provided that they cite "deeply held religious beliefs" as their justification.  Three British Christofascists who had been prosecuted for anti-gay discrimination appealed their convictions to the European Human Rights Court which basically bitch slapped them and dropped kicked them while upholding their convictions.  The Guardian looks at this devlopment.  Here are excerpts:

Three British Christians who argued that their beliefs saw them wrongly disciplined by their employers for actions such as refusing to counsel same-sex couples have lost their legal battle at the European court of human rights.

Shirley Chaplin, Gary McFarlane and Lillian Ladele had their appeals to the Strasbourg court rejected in January as part of the same ruling as that in which Nadia Eweida, a British Airways check-in attendant, won her fight against being banned from wearing a cross at work.

The three sought to resolve the matter in the court's grand chamber, its final arbiter. However, judges at the court have rejected the request, in effect ending the legal battle.

Ladele, 52, a local authority registrar, was disciplined by Islington council in London for refusing to conduct civil partnership ceremonies, while McFarlane, 51, a Bristol relationship counsellor, was dismissed by the charity Relate for saying he might object to assisting same-sex couples.

The court had ruled that both employers' actions were justified, given their obligations to prevent discrimination against people using their services.

Tuesday's decision was welcomed by the National Secular Society. The group's executive director, Keith Porteous Wood, said: "Fortunately, Europe's highest court has now wisely followed numerous lower courts and rejected the applicants' attempts for religious conscience to trump equality law.

"We hope that this will now draw a line under the attempts by a small coterie of Christian activists to obtain special privileges for themselves which would invariably come at the expense of other people's rights.

"The principle of equality for all, including for religious believers, is now established and they should stop wasting the time of the courts with these vexatious cases."

As I continue to say, these Christofascists are NOT nice people.  They are mean spirited, hate and bigotry filled individuals and they don't give a rat's ass about the rights of anyone but themselves.  They are indeed modern day Pharisees.  Would that they would read their Bibles and see what Christ had to say about Pharisees.