Gscene News Archive

The Christian Institute – an evangelical pressure group – has announced that it intends to fund a legal case against Brighton & Hove City Council on the grounds of religious discrimination, after £13,000 of funding was withdrawn from a care home for the elderly because it was unable to prove that it is open to lesbians and gay men.

Pilgrim Homes - which run the home in Egremont Place housing 39 single Christians aged over 80 - was found not to be in compliance with the council’s fair access and diversity policy. This was introduced under the government’s Equality Act 2006 and Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, which make it illegal for providers of “goods and services” to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality.

Pilgrim Homes is an independent Christian charity. The £13,000 grant would have helped to pay for a warder. All parties on Brighton Council have expressed support from the grant’s withdrawal.

The story has been taken up by The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. Both claimed the council instructed the home that all residents had to fill out a form asking if they were “lesbian, gay, bisexual, heterosexual or unsure.”

Julie Harris from Brighton Council told Gscene this was not true.
“No-one was being made to fill the questionnaires in if they did not want to. They were sent to the home as part of a standard procedure. The home is providing a service, and it’s good practice to make sure if public money is being spent that the service is available to everyone in the community, otherwise the money is not being spent fairly.”

Council officers reported to the LGBT Housing & Support Working Group that staff from Pilgrim Homes had attended workshops on monitoring of sexual orientation and had not refused to conduct monitoring.

As Gscene went to press Julie Harris said the council and Pilgrim Homes were still in talks, and that “the council were hopeful of resolving the issue to everyone’s satisfaction.” However Pilgrim Homes told GScene they were still planning on taking legal action together with the Christian Institute. Phil Wainwright, director of Human Resources, said he was unable to comment further because the case was subject to a legal process.

The Christian Institute has supported other high profile challenges to gay equality legislation, including that of a Scottish fire fighter who was disciplined for refusing to hand out leaflets at a pride event in Glasgow, and a registrar in Islington who claimed she was discriminated against because she refused to conduct civil partnership registrations. Both were successful.