Readers of this blog will no doubt be aware Chris Grayling provided the following comment in response to a direct question concerning Bed and Breakfast owner Susan Wilkinson and prospective clients Michael Black and John Morgan.

“I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences.  If you look at the case of: Should a Christian Hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from their hotel? I took the view that, if it’s a question of someone who’s doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn’t come into their own home.  If they are running a hotel on the high street I really don’t think it’s right and proper in this day and age that a gay couple should walk into a Hotel and be turned away because they’re a gay couple.”

Firstly the baser point to be made is that this will, for better or worse, hurt the Tories, electorally speaking.  I can even think of personal friends who might have been considering voting Tory who now will not do so now almost entirely because of this comment.  But, in politics, even one month prior to a General Election, votes are not everything.  Ideas are important too.

This comment by Grayling raises and opens up one of the most challenging areas of current legal/moral philosophy.  Psepholgists may, however, be right to question whether the right time to raise this difficult and explosive issue is during the last 2% of the electoral cycle, when the Tories have just opened up an 11% opinion poll lead (they need 8% to win).

This area that has been a political minefield for over forty years, since the race relations act of 1968 (and Enoch Powell’s infamous speech). The debate is unlikely to move onto a higher plane in the next forty days and just about every other issue seems to be going the Tories’ Way.

However the issue has been broached and the luxury of this Blog’s relative obscurity is that there is little likely damage to be done by further sophistry on the issue.  The reaction of most Tories on this issue has, at least privately, been one of anger towards Mr. Grayling.  This comment on conHome (from veteran contributor “BritishWatcher”) was typical of the Tory rank and file response:

“If a B+B owner can say No Gays because of their religious belief can we say no Jews or no Blacks?

“Why is religion’s silly obsession and hatred for homosexuality “special” and worthy of being allowed?”

This point is powerfully made and reasonably sound but I think we have to, to some extent, avoid arguing too much by syllogism in this area.  Sooner or later, we are going to have to take a long hard look at all discrimination legislation, in the round.  Syllogism will only get us so far because syllogisms of this sort only tells us there is a logical conflict between TWO ideas.  It does not tell us in which idea the problem lies. (The same problem arises with the arguments over Methadrone).

On the discrimination issue arguing by syllogism it is possible to build a fairly watertight case that we should be enacting all sorts of new laws criminalising all sorts of people.  Be it Land Lords who refuse to let to students or B+B’s and boarding houses that only allow people of one gender. Right through to Youth Hostels and holiday companies which only sell to people aged between 18 and 30 (or the over 50s). The banning of all these, and more, can be argued, by syllogism, to be a natural extension of the philosophy of 1968.

So is Mr. Grayling right to raise the question of when it is or isn’t appropriate to criminalise people? Even if his timing isn’t as good as it could have been?

I think in at least one way, he is, and I think Cameron has, once again, shown great judgment in refusing to publically denounce Mr. Graylings comments, while still distancing himself from them.  I have always found that the great irony of anti-discrimination legislation is that those who need it most cannot get it until their need is substantially reduced.   Anti-discrimination legislation to protect group x is most helpful when x-aphobia is widespread and commonplace.

But of course, in a somewhat democratic system, it is not possible to pass legislation against people acting on views which are “widespread and commonplace”. We only get such legislation when it can be passed, when people (and parliament) have changed i.e. when the bulk of the need has subsided.

I have, after a number of years, gradually come to the conclusion that anti-disrimination legislation does more harm than good in two ways.  Firstly it serves to entrench discriminatory attitudes by re-inforcing the idea that the choice is between “persecuting or being persecuted”.

It can also, directly, make life harder for the very people it is supposed to protect as I have found from the experiences of members of my own family.  My mother is over 50 and is finding it difficult to find employment. She is “protected” by anti-discrimination legislation which prevents job advertisers targeting their positions to younger applicants.  However the effect, in practice, is that they just “discriminate” at a later time.  She is rarely called to interview despite having a good degree from Cambridge University.  It is not really possible to disguise her age, even on paper, without it looking “fishy”.  So discrimination is done privately.

There are employers who are happy to employ older people and there might even a smaller minority for whom her age might be a positive.  I can’t help thinking that she would be better off if she could target her efforts at such employers.  At the end of he day, she can’t force people to give her a job but she can choose where to apply and how much time to spend constructing a “good” covering letter.  It also makes it very difficult to learn lessons from her rejections because she doesn’t know whether “it’s me or them”.

There are those that will tell you that this sort of sophistry is “all very well” but “we don’t want to go back to the days of signs saying, “No Blacks, No Gays, No Irish””.  I think this view displays a fasinating out-of-touchness with modern Britain.  The ideas that forests of such signs would suddenly start sprouting from every shop window, if only shops were free to put them up, is a myth perpetuated by people with fairly dim view of the current state of humanity. If they did then it would only be in a tiny minority of establishments and the community would close ranks against those who put them up, without the need to resort to criminal sanctions.  Which are a fairly blunt instrument.  It does mean that people like Susan Wilkinson would not face criminal sanctions because of her (however badly judged) view of her faith.  But then It is not much fun feeling that you can’t express “who” you are without being legally castigated for doing so.  And nobody realises this more clearly than the older members of the Gay Community.  It applies equally to tolerance of the intolerant.  We must start to realise that there in no “law of conservation of freedom”.  Freedom, unlike energy, can be created and destroyed.

As a submission suggesting that such “tolerance of intolerance” can be effective I recall a conversation that I once had with a fellow student, we’ll call him Duncan.  Duncan wanted to become a priest.  He was very adamant however that he would not want to work under a Gay Bishop, I think Duncan thought that I might be Gay and I didn’t dissuade him of that notion as we discussed the issue.  He had a multitude of handy biblical references to back up his argument that homosexuality was sinful and furthermore so sinful that it should preclude one form membership of the clergy.  He had his Bible handy for quotations, which was also handy for me, because it meant I was able to read and discuss his quotations in their full context.

I disagreed with many of his biblical interpretations and he generously accepted some of my points, but not others.  The conversation was quite long and difficult for him and I must admit that I admired his bravery in being prepared to give his view.

It would have been just as hard for him to espouse this view in 2008 as it would be for a homosexual to advocate the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1950s.  I told him this and I wondered aloud if he worried that he might be required to live a lie and change a heartfelt belief or give up his chosen career.

He said he did worry but he more or less said that he couldn’t “change who he was”.  And so I, gently, made the obvious point, drawing a parallel in this between him and the homosexual clergymen.  I think this made an impression and although I’m not sure of the theological soundness of many of my points it was certainly much more effective than the typical “bigot bashing” which is commonplace today and indeed enshrined by law in many areas.

It would be a huge step to throw out all the legislative changes of the last 40 years and to simply trust people, to trust the “Big Society” to moderate intolerance without criminal sanctions. Perhaps the country is not ready for such a move and it certainly isn’t the stuff raise in a general election campaign.

However I think it’s worth considering whether fear or tolerance is a better mechanism for creating a freer and better society.  Ultimately this will be for others to Judge but it is important for people to understand that there are reasons to oppose equality laws other than out of bigotry and that we must not be scared into advocating such laws simply out of fear that we will be tarred with the bigot brush.

Some context:

The BBC article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8578787.stm

“That image”- Or one like it

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_azWmV5p47Rs/SDmPVeRQFQI/AAAAAAAAAio/hdxZIb6jplg/s400/no+irish+no+blacks.jpg

Enoch Powell’s –Rivers of Blood speech.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643826/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html

Grayling’s clarification which, taken together with his original statement, makes it clear that, while he is uneasy about the implications of the current Law, he is not advocating a change:

“Any suggestion that I am against gay rights is wholly wrong - it is a matter of record that I voted for civil partnerships. I also voted in favour of the legislation that prohibited bed and breakfast owners from discriminating against gay people. However, this is a difficult area and on Wednesday I made comments which reflected my view that we must be sensitive to the genuinely held principles of faith groups in this country. But the law is now clear on this issue, I am happy with it and would not wish to see it changed.”

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