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Refusing to officiate at the celebration of gay civil partnerships may cost a British woman her job.
Lillian Ladele, a Nigerian-born British
registrar, has a conscience which does not permit her to officiate at the
registration of “civil partnerships” for same-sex couples. Her employer, the Islington
Borough in North London, says that she can
keep her conscience, but not her £31,000 job. Now Ms Ladele has taken her
employers to court for discriminating against her religious beliefs.
Islington is Britain’s third most popular borough for civil partnerships and more than 600 gay couples have had ceremonies there since the new form of relationship was legalised in December 2005. But Ladele holds the orthodox Christian view that “marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of others and that this is the God-ordained place for sexual relations.” This constitutes, according to her employers, “discriminating against the homosexual community.” Ms Ladele insists that she has never actually discriminated against anyone, as she has been swapping shifts with her colleagues to avoid tying the knot for same-sex couples.
So basically Lillian Ladele is being threatened with punishment for the thought crime of regarding same-sex marriage as sinful. In fact the punishment began when she voiced misgivings about the new arrangements in August 2004 with her boss, Helen Mendez-Childs. Ms Mendez-Childs ridiculed her and told her that her views were like denying marriage to a black couple. Later on she was denied opportunities to preside over lucrative weddings staged at special premises. She says that her colleagues began to act in a “different, hostile way towards me.” Finally, the borough launched an investigation last year into whether she was guilty of “gross misconduct”.
Writing from Nigeria, I find it amazing that objecting to same-sex marriage constitutes gross misconduct and same-sex marriage doesn’t. It is astonishing that the country which for centuries has regarded itself as the beacon of human freedom should have sunk so low as to punish a woman for following her conscience. And not about a trivial matter, either, but about the nature of the most fundamental of human relationships. I would hazard a guess that 90 percent of the world would agree with Ms Ladele. She does not represent an unhinged minority.
No, it’s probably closer to 98 percent. In fact, the lunacy of gay marriage threatens to split the Anglican Church. Nigerian’s Jasper Akionla, Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, and other African Bishops have stated time and again that it goes against the Gospel, which paradoxically came to us through European missionaries. Akionla is not a lone voice in this regard. The former Nigerian government of Olusegun Obasanjo insisted that it goes against our value system as Africans.
I sometimes wonder if Mother England’s insistence on democratic freedoms is not sheer hypocrisy. On the one hand, we hear her politicians pontificating about Robert Mugabe’s tyranny and abuse of democratic process in Zimbabwe. Yet when a woman asserts her natural right to behave in accordance with a rational conscience, she is bullied, ostracised and threatened with the loss of her job. Ladele’s case shows that “democracy” can also become a monster. Why should your livelihood be threatened because you hold contrary views? Or is freedom of religion dependent on a majority opinion?
What I found excruciatingly offensive was the suggestion that Lillian Ladele’s views were analogous to racism. In fact, I suspect that a subtle new 21st Century racism underlies the harshness with which she is being treated. Even though she represents a traditional moral view, even though it violates her religious views, even though 98 percent of the world agrees, she is not being taken seriously. I suspect that Islington Borough’s argument ultimately is that opposition to same-sex marriage is a primitive way of thinking fit for uncultured people. It is tantamount to racism.
I applaud my sister, Ladele, because no sane Yoruba will acquiescence in such absurdity. What will she tell her relatives? That she has been officiating at gay weddings? Tufiakwa, God forbid! “To most of us mere mortals,” Olukayode Thomas of one of Nigeria’s largest newspapers, The Guardian, writes, “a job that pays about N7 million a year plus other fringe benefits, a dream car, mortgage on a nice house in a good neighbourhood and other goodies of life in a society that works like five fingers, is the ideal job. Many who place material things above their souls will give their arms and legs to keep it.” Well done, Lillian, for daring to swim against the tide!
Nwachukwu Egbunike is a book editor in Ibadan, Nigeria.
I think it was Samuel Ullman who said ‘nobody grows old by simply living a certain number of years, but by deserting one’s ideals’.
You are not alone Lilian. Persevere.
Lilian chose to follow her conscience than money. A very courageous and sincere lady.
hmmm…
In the olden days, people were fed to the lions in public view for having such contrary belief. At this day and age, one can lose a job.
And so, we were left with a prayer “do not put us to a test, but deliver us from evil,” ...and if it is so; so be it.
Thank you for the article, and our sincerest and deepest sympathies to Lilian for making that stand.
Considering all the nutty things that happen [or don’t happen] because of ‘political correctness’, ‘privacy’, etc. I am wondering what happened in the case in point to the notion of conscience. Are there not conscience clauses built into all kinds of things?
Racism? Please!
Charles+
What a courageous lady. We’re with you Lillian and fighting this same-sex lunacy from a Catholic perspective. It is a mockery of marriage and the true nature of ‘family’, let alone against human rights to impose this kind of ‘fascist dicatorial’ nonsense on society.
Truth is that the homosex lobbysists while always playing the ‘tolerance’ card are the most INTOLERANT minority group on this planet. And when they can see that they are losing, they pull out their ace from the pack - ‘hate crime’ to which our overburdened police force have to respond as regrettably under the Blair government sexual depravity and amorality have become enshrined in law vis a vis SOR.
People suffering from Same Sex Attraction Disorder can be helped - log onto NARTH.com
Many homosexually inclined people have been assisted to get through this problem and their testimonies can be read. There is hope.
Lillian, isn’t the Mayor of Islington a Catholic? Well, to be honest I know for a fact that he is. Take this to the Mayor and let’s see the sparks fly. God is with you - stand firm. Our prayers are with you. God Bless.
I think the only way Ms. Ladele can hold her position is if she also refuses to marry opposite sex individuals. We have been too inconsistent in how we view cohabitation, same sex, civil marriage, divorce, etc. They’re all of the same fruit.
I think what’s being lost here is that Lillian Ladele has not been fired. I believe she has been moved to a position where she does not have to officiate over civil unions. She objected to some of those civil unions and now she doesn’t have to worry about it. Obviously, she can’t make as much money because she won’t be getting the extra money for performing these ceremonies. What she wants is a special deal just for herself. She doesn’t seem to care about the burden she would put on her fellow employees by getting this special deal. I’ve got three In-laws who are supervisors in local government in England and, from the stories they’ve told me, it sounds like she’s trolling for a golden buyout. She is not making a ‘principled stand’ because that would require a willingness to accept the consequences. None of her actions point to that. They point to a cynical manipulation of a soft system that all too often bends to this kind of blackmail.
In a related matter, the Reverend Pakula, a Unitarian minister from Islington who has publicly commented on this case, has refused to perform any weddings until the law calls all English marriages equal. Gay marriage in England is a pitiful shadow of heterosexual marriage. No religious institutions are allowed to perform same-sex ceremonies, regardless of their willingness to do so. The law governing civil unions is a tribute to the cowardice of English politicians. Reverend Pakula, by refusing to perform weddings until they are equal for everyone, is giving up a decent part of what I’m sure is a paltry income. Now that is a principled stand.
Michael Carrack in Australia:
High time to stop calling “gay marriage” a right and come clean, “sodomy is a right.”
One can only compare racism and the discrimination commited
in it`s name to the “discrimination” against “lgbt” people if there were a legitimate comparison between the two.
Those who claim a “gay” identity have the same rights as anyone else. If a “gay” is attacked, it`s a crime. “They” are not legislated against, behaviors are legislated against or not given recognition.
Same-sex marriage is lunacy. Marriage is the social and legal recognition of the unique, natural union of male and female. Any two adults can love each other, but if it`s not a mature male and female, what is sense of this love being eroticized? Why should we have legal and societal recognition of relationships, that by thier very nature are unnatural and whose only biological basis is a mental, emotional abberation?
If 98% of people agree with something (in this case,that “lgbt” behavior is unnatural) after thousands of years there might be something to it.
Why is there no physical difference between “gay and straight” males; “lesbians and straight” women? When a baby is born why can`t the doctor say"Awww, it`s a little lesbian!”? Has anyone ever been born obviously “homosexual”?
“Gay” is a purely cultural creation whose promotion and approval are utterly demeaning.
(Continued)
Egbunike knows quite well that Obasanjo, the ex-president, who says homosexuality is against Africa’s value system is not the sagest of humans, nor is he the most morally solid. A man - the president of a country who also paraded himself as a born-again Christian - who slept with his son’s wife could hardly have stood on a higher moral ground than a gay man might not have a son in the first place let alone sleeping with a daughter in law. Is such Obasanjo’s misbehaviour part of Africa’s value system?
Like Obasanjo and the woman who declined to marry a gay couple in Islington, I am of Yoruba extraction, and I do ‘acquiesce in the absurdity’ of gayness and gay union - although I may not parse it as a ‘marriage,’ really to me it does not matter what the relationship is called.
Like comparisons, generalisations are indeed odious. I think you’ve gone over the top writing that no ‘sane’ Yoruba person should approve of gays. And Mr Egbunike, how do you define the boundaries of sanity?
I have always avoided engaging with anyone about the many ontologies of homosexuality: gayness, gay marriage and so on. It’s often a futile dingdong. While I will never agree with anyone that gay people are committing any ‘sin’ or that what they are doing is wrong, I will not expect religious bigots to come round to my way of thinking.
Even then if it comes to it, I will defend those who are living with the biological fact of gayness, although I do find myself on the obverse of such a fact.
I understand where Egbunike was coming from displaying such antediluvian animus against the state of gayness in his article. Just like him I grew up in Nigeria, where even today most still think homosexuality is an impossible taboo. But do we need to bury our heads in the narrow white sheets of missionary-position morality?
There are thousands of gay people in Nigeria, and by extension Africa. It gets my goat when some fellow Africans gloat about gayness being unAfrican. It sounds so differentist, it’s as good as saying AIDS is unEuropean or un-American. Just because gay people flaunt their gayness in the West than in places like Africa does not mean the continent is innocent of gays or the promptings of homosexuality. A nineteenth central African king, in today’s Uganda, was almost as voracious as Caligula in his appetite for boys, I mean this was even before Europeans stepped foot on that corner of Africa. Through skin, flesh and bones, I guess we are all brothers and sisters to the very marrow of our common humanity. It’s time Africa stopped seeing itself as permanently esconced in the shaded pre-Nabobokovian cradle-bed.
Communism may never have taken root politically in most Western countries, but sadly socialist ideologies took root in govt dept’s, particularly in areas of education and social services in many western countries. This type of thing is just another example of an attempt to break down the family and society in a subversive rather than violent way.
The lunies have taken over the asylum in this Borough.
While I do believe that swapping shifts in order to avoid participating in same-sex unions is and acceptable compromise and the Ms. Ladele has not committed anything close to gross misconduct, I find it unnecessary and divisive for Mr. Egbunike to call same-sex unions “lunacy”. There is nothing crazy about to adults who love each other to want to publicly declare the intention of their relationship nor is there insanity in those same adults looking for the legal protection frequently afforded to married couples.
Arguing that 98% of people disagree with accepting people who are LGBT is also not a particularly useful argument. There have also been times on this planet when most people believed that slavery was acceptable, sex with children was appropriate and that monogamous relationships where a sign of male weakness.
The right to marry the person of one’s choosing (consenting adult) is now considered a fundamental human right right up there with the right to practice the faith (or not) of one’s choosing. If Mr. Egbunike wants to make the case for the respect of Ms. Ladele’s right to religious freedom he’d likely be better served respecting *all* basic human rights.
I am one of the 98% who agree with you that disagreement with others’ ideas/decisions/plans is NOT equal to hate/discrimination/or any other of the “loaded” terms so freely used today.
There is no sensible argument for support of same-sex “marriage”. I don’t mind if two men/women have a legal agreement in terms of shared property....two sisters or brothers or friends sharing a home/estate should be allowed that privilege. But the word “marriage” holds a much deeper meaning than “friends/co-habitants”....it is a relationship which potentially (but not always) produces new life....thus it requires a man and a woman.
Congratulations to this brave woman, Ladele. I am grateful you have told us some of her story. I wish her well in this fight against discrimination of the beliefs of so many of us.
......M. Howlett
I applaud Lillian Ladele for her stand and like the author of this article, I find it disgraceful that Islington Borough Council have equated it with racism. Christians are mocked and marginalised in this country; freedom of conscience does not apply to them. It would be a simple thing to put registrars who object to same-sex unions onto different shifts...as was happening already with Lilian until Islington Council decided to make an issue of it.
This was no doubt done on purpose by the likes of Helen Mendez-Childs who have an issue with religious conscience.
I wish Lillian all the blessings due to her and that she will succeed in her discrimination case; or find a better and nicer job.
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