A senior member of the Church of England has hit out at Christian Concern for allegedly "aggressive" behaviour when it comes to transgender issues. Andrea Williams says the comments were "blatantly unfair"
Rev Dr Malcolm Brown made an astonishing assertion in yesterday’s The Telegraph that Christians are seen as “aggressive” in court cases involving issues of transgenderism.
Looking at the catalogue of recent Christian Legal Centre cases which meet the description, the blatant unfairness of this criticism becomes obvious.
How can there be any doubt as to which side has been the aggressor?
Was it Kristie Higgs, who shared, on her private Facebook page, a petition against the introduction of compulsory sex education in primary schools? Or was it her employer, a secondary school, who summarily dismissed her for this ‘gross misconduct’?
Was it Joshua Sutcliffe, the maths teacher who said “well done girls” to a group of students, forgetting for a moment that one of them currently ‘identified as a boy’? Or was it the school who dismissed him for that, and the regulator who banned him from teaching?
Was it Rev. Dr Bernard Randall who gave a sermon in the school chapel preaching mutual tolerance and respect between different religious and philosophical beliefs, including LGBT ‘Pride’ and orthodox Christian belief about marriage? Or was it the Educate and Celebrate who marched into the CofE school to require all staff to chant "smash heteronormativity" to warm them up for a proper session of indoctrination?
Was it ‘Hannah,’ the anonymised primary school teacher who politely and formally raised a safeguarding concern questioning the propriety of an 8-year-old being guided through gender transition at school by Mermaids and Stonewall? Or was it Hannah’s employer, Nottinghamshire County Council, who dismissed her, reported her to a regulator, falsely accused her of a criminal offence, and is now demanding that she re-mortgages her family house to pay for their legal costs?
How can there be any doubt as to which side has been the aggressor?
Was it Nigel and Sally Rowe, who rescued their six-year-old son from a Church of England school to protect him from transgender indoctrination, and chose to home-school him instead? Or was it the school and the Diocese who had warned them explicitly that any failure by their boy to go along with ‘affirmation’ pf ‘transgender children’ would be considered ‘transphobic bullying’ and severely disciplined?
Was it Dr David Mackereth, a doctor with 30 years’ experience, who frankly told his new employer that as a conscientious Christian he does not believe in gender fluidity and cannot tell lies to his patients? Or was it the employer, the DWP, who first told him that he would be required to call a hypothetical six foot bearded patient ‘madam’; and when Dr Mackereth wrote “I am a Christian”, replied “we accept your resignation”?
The basic facts of those cases speak for themselves, and it is disingenuous of Dr Brown to insinuate there are faults of both sides or to criticise our clients for reporting exactly what happened to them.
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