When mental health service Touchstone Leeds found out that Felix Ngole had conservative Christian views on homosexuality, they canceled the offer of a job to the social worker. But Felix Ngole won his case before the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in London, challenging an earlier ruling that he had been lawfully denied employment due to his Christian beliefs on marriage and sexuality.
“Touchstone found Mr Ngole was the best-qualified candidate for the post of hospital discharge mental health support worker and offered him the job, but after management conducted a Google search and discovered reports on the Sheffield University case, the offer was withdrawn,” the BBC reported. Ngole had won an earlier free speech case in the Court of Appeal when the Uni had tried to block him from receiving his Social Work degree because of his beliefs.
“The ruling makes clear what should always have been obvious – there can be no excuse for discriminating [against] Christians in the workplace because members of the public might discover their protected beliefs online,” Andrea Minichiello Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which is backing Mr Ngole’s case, said.
The balance between Ngole’s freedom of religious belief, the qualified right of expression of his beliefs and Touchstone’s requirement that LGBTQIA clients have access to services was at the heart of the case. Ngole told Touchstone, “I am happy to give you assurances that I will not discriminate against
anyone on the basis of their sexual orientation. What I cannot do, and you cannot reasonably expect me to do without yourselves being discriminatory, is make my participation in the ‘promotion of homosexual
rights’ a condition of my employment.”
A Touchstone manager responded, “As part of your role, you would in order to gain an understanding of this, be expected to attend transgender training, LGB training and transgender awareness training and other such modules which are mandatory for all staff.
“You would also, as part of your role, be expected to use the correct pronouns by which people wish to be identified, such as he/she, them/they.
“You will also be expected to work and support service users, including from black and minority ethnic and LGBTQI+ communities to identify and reduce barriers to discharging them from hospital, assisting them to navigate and access appropriate support in the community eg Choice Support – LGBT,
TransWakefield. You would also be expected to develop effective partnerships and network with such agencies that directly support individual who are homosexual eg Mesmac for example and promote their services to these often vulnerable individuals.
“I am not therefore stating that the promotion of homosexual rights is a condition of your employment, but I do need to consider the above matters when considering your suitability for the role.”
Touchstone was concerned that LGBTQIA clients could have read Ngole’s views which had been given wide media exposure in The Guardian and the BBC in the Sheffield university case. They wrote, “We then asked you how you would address a service user or colleague who came across your anti-gay marriage comments on
Google and ask you specifically about this. You accepted that some individuals could potentially see your views as being “horrible,” but explained that you would not engage in discussions regarding your
religious views with others and if there was an issue, it could ben referred to your line manager, or the service user in question could be referred to another MH support worker.
“Your suggested approach does, however, concern us, as ultimately, you would be the only MH support worker within the service. If service users cannot (or do not feel comfortable being able to) speak
to you about issues they are facing regarding their sexuality or gender identity, it renders the service redundant and prevents them accessing the help they need, which is a key part of the role.”
Ngole’s win may be temporary as the Employment Apppeal Tribunal has referred the case back to the lower Employmnet Tribunal which had supported Touchstone. The basis for the finding is that the earlier finding had failed to analyse each ground of the decision seperately. “The Employment Tribunal must
analyse each reason, or group of related reasons, for the treatment separately and decide
whether, at least in part, the treatment of the claimant was, in reality, because of his religious
beliefs as opposed to something properly separable from them that justified the treatment.”
A second reason is that a significant and relevant case has since been decided in the court of appeal, Higgs v Farmor’s School where a schools dismissal of a teacher on the basis of her social media texts about LGBTQIA was overturned. The Court of Appeal found that
• The dismissal of an employee merely because they have expressed a religious or other protected belief to which the employer or a third party with whom it wishes to protect its reputation objects will constitute unlawful direct discrimination.
• However, if the dismissal is motivated not simply by the expression of the belief but by something objectionable in the way in which it was expressed, determined objectively, then dismissal will be lawful if, but only if, the employer shows that it was a proportionate response to the objectionable feature.
Image: Felix Ngole with Christan Concern’s Andrea Minichiello Williams. Image Source: Christian Concern