Two gay men who said they faced persecution in their home countries have the right to asylum in the UK, the Supreme Court has ruled.

The panel of judges said it had agreed “unanimously” to allow the appeals from the men, from Cameroon and Iran.

They had earlier been refused asylum on the grounds they could hide their sexuality by behaving discreetly.

It was an inhuman policy, which no doubt Alan Johnson will go back on the TV politics shows to defend. And the counter-argument of course is that anyone could pretend they’re gay in order to claim asylum, but of course it’s the job of the UK Border Agency to determine the legitimacy of all asylum claims. Brendan Keenan is right when he says:

Equally important is that while one paragraph makes reference to stereotypes of gay men enjoying Kylie Minogue and “exotically coloured cocktails” (paragraph 78), it does so only to make the broader point that sexuality is a living thing, expressed in infinitely different and individual ways, and that as a result each individual’s case must be treated with the respect and attention it deserves, rather than looking solely at some prescribed categories of behaviour or preconceptions.

And Lord Hope got it equally right however in the ruling, when he said:

“To compel a homosexual person to pretend that his sexuality does not exist or suppress the behaviour by which to manifest itself is to deny his fundamental right to be who he is.

“Homosexuals are as much entitled to freedom of association with others who are of the same sexual orientation as people who are straight.”

The court said it would be passing detailed guidance to the lower courts about how to treat such cases in the future.

We live in a bizarre political landscape when Theresa May thanks the Supreme Court for justifying her Tory Home Office’s liberal position on this.

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Michael Black, 62, and John Morgan, 56, will take legal action against Susanne and Mike Wilkinson, owners of the Swiss B&B in Berkshire.

They are being supported by human rights and civil freedom charity Liberty, which compared them to black American civil rights heroine Rosa Parks.

The couple had already booked a room and paid a deposit when they arrived at the B&B but Mrs Wilkinson turned them away when she realised they were two men.

She said that allowing them to stay would violate her religious beliefs.

Mr Black and Mr Morgan called the police over her refusal and were told they could make a civil claim against the Wilkinsons.

Good. They were in breach of the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, and there needs to be a consequence for anti-gay discrimination when in breach of the law. Many Tories in the new ConDemNation coalition, particularly the new intake of evangelical Christians, will no doubt be aghast, but the law applies equally to everyone or it might as well apply to noone. Mr Wilkinson responded saying:

Mr Wilkinson said he was disappointed that Liberty was taking the side of the gay couple.

“We are rather surprised that Liberty would be so one-sided in a matter of liberty because there are two liberties to uphold in this case.

“There is a religious liberty to uphold and there is the right for homosexuals to practise what they want to do. We have received the letter from them.

“We don’t want to go to court but if they want us to then I suppose we will have to. We are sorry we have offended these guys.”

Liberty fortunately understands that just because there are two liberties to be considered, that both cannot and should not always be accommodated. In this case the Wilkinsons have the right to practice their religion and believe whatever they like, but do not have the right, as a business providing a service,  for any reason to discriminate in the provision of goods or services. Belief rightly doesn’t get an opt out from the provisions of the law, and nor should it.

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Note how Hague answers a different question to the one answered. He suggests that Philippa Stroud hasn’t been suspended as Sutton & Cheam’s Tory PPC because isn’t in favour of discrimination against gay people, yet that wasn’t what was asked, nor is that what the controversy around her centres around:

Question: “If Philip Lardner, Conservative candidate for North Ayrshire & Arran was suspended after writing on his website that homosexuality was ‘not normal’, why hasn’t Philippa Stroud been suspended – she clearly thinks the same thing?”

Hague: “Well I hope she doesn’t think the same thing and she’s made the statement that I referred to yesterday about her current views, and about the suggestion that she is in favour of discrimination against gay people would be false. I think she has put that right.”

He clearly wants this story to go away, but what if this story is true? Don’t anyone let this drop. Religious extremism, despite what Hague wants you to think, is not the same as straightforward bigotry – it’s far more insidious, and at the heart of a new Tory government it would make the Thatcher years feel like a walk in the park.

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Abi, a teenage girl with transsexual issues, was sent to the church by her parents, who were evangelical Christians. “Convinced I was demonically possessed, my parents made the decision to move to Bedford, because of this woman [Stroud] who had come back from Hong Kong and had the power to set me free,” Abi told the Observer.

“She wanted me to know all my thinking was wrong, I was wrong and the so-called demons inside me were wrong. The session ended with her and others praying over me, calling out the demons. She really believed things like homosexuality, transsexualism and addiction could be fixed just by prayer, all in the name of Jesus.”

Is this the party you want in government? One whose social policy thinktank is headed by someone who thinks this is ok? I mean why not just make a manifesto commitment to witchcraft? If David Cameron becomes Prime Minister on Friday, her views will be heard and acknowledged at governmental level. Would Section 28 just have been the tip of the iceberg for this thoroughly unreconstructed, nasty party?

And for that matter why hasn’t anyone interviewed her about this yet? And then there’s David Cameron, who professes to support gay rights, yet sees no problem with his MEPs voting against them. Last week homophobic Tory candidate Philip Lardner was suspended for his extreme, anti-gay views, yet Ms Stroud is allowed to continue as a PPC – could it be that ‘Dave’s’ support of gay rights goes only as far as his self-interest will allow?

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The senior church figure called for a specially-constituted panel of judges with a “proven sensitivity and understanding of religious issues” to hear the case.

Lord Carey said recent decisions involving Christians by the courts had used “dangerous” reasoning and this could lead to civil unrest.

The judge’s ruling continued: “We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs.

“The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other.

“If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens, and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic.

“The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments.

“The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the State, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.”

A great line there, attacking Carey’s position, and the whole notion that religious belief should ever trump the rule of law. Carey’s line though was quite outrageous, seeking to suggest that anti-gay discrimination by theists somehow wasn’t bigotry at all. Sorry George, according to the rule of the land, anti-gay discrimination is bigotry from however you look at it, and the religiously devout should not have an opt-out from the same rules which apply to everyone else, however (outrageously) discriminated against they then feel. Laws though completely rejected Carey’s entire premise:

“[But] the conferment of any legal protection of preference upon a particular substantive moral position on the ground only that it is espoused by the adherents of a particular faith, however long its tradition, however long its culture, is deeply unprincipled.”

He said this would mean that laws would be imposed not to advance the general good on objective grounds but to give effect to the force of subjective opinion since faith, other than to the believer, was subjective.

“It may of course be true; but the ascertainment of such a truth lies beyond the means by which laws are made in a reasonable society

“Therefore it lies only in the heart of the believer, who is alone bound by it. No-one else is or can be so bound, unless by his own free choice he accepts its claims.

Stonewall quite rightly points out the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007. Noone, despite Chris Grayling’s wishes, who provides goods or services in the UK can opt out – that’s the point. Sadly though,completely missing the point, Carey felt the need to say this:

As reported in The Guardian, Carey said the judgment “continues a trend on the part of the courts to downgrade the right of religious believers to manifest their faith in what has become a deeply unedifying collision of human rights.”

“It heralded a ‘secular’ state rather than a ‘neutral’ one. And while with one hand the ruling seeks to protect the right of religious believers to hold and express their faith, with the other it takes away those same rights. It says that the sacking of religious believers in recent cases was not a denial of their rights even though religious belief cannot be divided from its expression in every area of the believer’s life.

“Oddly the judge doesn’t address the argument that rights have to be held in balance and he is apparently indifferent to the fact that religious believers are adversely affected by this judgment and others.”

I know it’s his job to stand up for his religion as well as his faith, but this is blatantly ridiculous. The judgments all acknowledge that the right to religious belief and the right to protection from anti-gay discrimination are often in conflict and will always be in tension. But Lilian Ladele and Gary McFarlane had equal opportunities policies which they weren’t allowed an opt-out from. If they did any theist in the country could then behave according to whatever mad thing they believed legally, rather than be obliged  follow the secular laws made by and applicable to everyone else in ‘a reasonable society’. I’m sure this will keep coming back, but it’s become an interesting illustration of how the Christian Church in this country increasingly feels the need to fight to keep its special privilege, be it Carey’s unelected place in the House of Lords, or the previous (because it wasn’t codified otherwise) tacit right to discriminate against gay people.

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They can’t help themselves, can they? After David Cameron’s inability to understand that allowing his MEPs to vote against gay rights, and Chris Grayling’s ‘unintentional offence’ at saying B&B owners should be able to discriminate against gay people, and Julian Lewis attacking an equal age of consent, it’s becoming utterly ludicrous to suggest that the party has shrugged off its ‘nasty’ reputation. It’s even more ludicrous for Cameron to suggest that the Tory Party is the natural home for progressives. Fortunately the Chairman of the Conservative Party in Scotland, Andrew Fulton has suspended Lardner from the party and ended his candidacy:

“The views expressed by Philip Lardner, the candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, are deeply offensive and unacceptable and as a result he has been suspended as a member of the Conservative party. We therefore do not support Mr Lardner’s candidacy in the North Ayrshire and Arran constituency. These views have no place in the modern Conservative party.”

But as I’ve said before it’s one thing to talk the talk, another to walk the walk. It remains a party full of very nasty people. Should they really be the party of government next Friday?

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David Cameron is to dispatch the most senior gay member of his frontbench team to Poland to encourage the Tories’ rightwing allies in the European parliament to abandon their homophobic views.

In a move designed to defuse criticism in tonight’s leaders’ television debate that the Tories have allied themselves with extremists in the EU, Cameron has revealed that the shadow environment secretary, Nick Herbert, will attend a gay rights march in Warsaw in July.

Cameron told the Guardian that Herbert’s trip to Poland is designed to persuade the highly conservative Law and Justice party to embark on a “journey” to moderate its views on sexuality.

Last year that wasn’t important. Last year they were going to get away with masking their nastiness rather than having to genuinely grow up as a political party and move away from it. But with Cameron so far eclipsed by Clegg in the opinion polls, whoever is actually running the campaign is getting worried. They should be: this manoevre confirms the Tory leadership knows it’s running a party just as nasty as it used to be. There is a terrible schism between David Cameron and the party itself, and anyone thinking of voting for them should at the very least be deeply unsettled by this. Just who is David Cameron speaking for these days?

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David Cameron was urged to sack one of his frontbench team who said the age of consent for homosexuals should not have been lowered to 16 because it put teenage boys at “serious physical risk” and in danger of catching HIV.

Julian Lewis, the shadow minister for Defence and Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Hampshire seat of New Forest East, wrote to a constituent last week saying he had been “very strongly against” lowering the age of consent for gays from 18 to 16 because of the “seriously increased risk of HIV”. He appeared to compare it with the decision to prevent service personnel aged under 18 from fighting on frontlines. Last night, Dr Lewis reiterated his view, telling The Independent that anyone aged 16 to 18 who had unprotected gay sex was “at risk, and potentially at risk of their lives”.

Dr Lewis wrote last week: “There is a seriously increased risk of HIV infection from male homosexual activity. When it comes to legalising practices that involve serious risk, I believe the higher limit should apply. This is the reason we no longer allow 16- and 17-year-olds into frontline situations in the armed forces, for example.”

Dr Lewis, 58, has a history of voting against legislation enshrining gay rights. He opposed adoptions by gay couples and also battled against the repeal of Section 28 – a law enacted by Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government in 1988 to prevent schools from “promoting” homosexuality. Dr Lewis, does, however, back civil partnerships.

“One of the criticisms commonly made of gay relationships is that very often they do not last,” he explained in his letter. “It therefore seems obvious to me that, when a gay couple wish to commit to each other, by forming a permanent relationships, they should be encouraged and assisted in every way.”

Why doesn’t he just go the whole hog and just embrace social Darwinism while he’s at it? I mean our clearly lesser relationships need the help of the state to last, otherwise they’d just fail. Pathetic, and it’s yet another nail in the coffin for Cameron’s attempt to rebrand the Conservative Party as no longer ‘nasty’. Notably Cameron has failed to fire Lewis from his shadow cabinet position, and considering he didn’t discipline Grayling either, is sending out a really strong message that he’s not in control of the attitudes of a party which is now desperately worried it’s losing…

Senior, old-school Tories like Mr Lewis always assume that TEH GAY means that teenage boys need special protection from AIDS RIDDLED OLDER GAYZ, and in their frenzy forget that teenage boys and girls (both gay and straight) tend to make better sexual decisions when they’re better informed about the subject. Then again the Tory Party doesn’t believe in mandatory sex education.

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This is really the way to show up the meaningless waffle coming from the two main parties. The pro-gay rhetoric coming from the Tories really needs to be exposed for the sham it is (Cameron’s and Grayling’s gaffes don’t prove it but the article above sure does). Tamsin and The Commons deserve unlimited support – they may just be the future of politics.

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Today, Andrew Bridgen, who is standing in North West Leicestershire, said he had “considerable sympathy” with B&B owners. He was speaking after Mr Grayling made a visit to the marginal constituency to help canvass votes. Mr Bridgen told the Leicestershire Mercury: “At the end of the day our policy is, we voted for the Equality Bill and as far as people who run a business, they have to offer the same services to everyone. “But I do have sympathy with someone who is opening up their own home to a guest.” He continued: “A public house has the right to refuse a customer and they don’t have to give a reason, so I have considerable sympathy for B&B owners in this case. “It’s a grey area, but perhaps the size of the establishment could separate the difference between opening your home to paying guests and a business.”

It’s not a gray area, and perhaps the size of the establishment has nothing to do with it. A pub does indeed have the right to refuse a customer without having to give a reason, but they cannot refuse them because they are gay; the same is true for B&B owners. As in the case of Grayling he’s either an idiot or is using the language of equality to mask deep-rooted homophobia. Grayling meanwhile has issued an ‘apology’ for his comments:

Until today, Grayling had been conspicuous in his silence. In the radio interview [on BBC Radio 5 Live], he said: “I am sorry if what I said gave the wrong impression, I certainly didn’t intend to offend anyone…I voted for gay rights, I voted for this particular measure [the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007].”

The ‘wrong impression’? Just what sort of impression was he trying to give?! Even if what he says is true, it’s unfathomable to think that the Shadow Cabinet is unaware of what effect their tolerance of casual homophobia or homophobic ideas has on those who support them or answer to them. Voting for gay rights is commendable but unless it’s supported with a change in attitudes it’s an empty gesture.

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Anastasia Beaumont-Bott, the first chairman of the LGBTory group, said she felt guilty for having told gay voters to back the Tories in the past after Chris Grayling, the shadow Home Secretary, said he believed bed and breakfast owners should have the right to ban gay couples from staying in their property. She called on the Tory leader to dismiss Mr Grayling. So far, Mr Cameron has refused to take any action against him.

“I feel guilty because as a gay woman affected by LGBT rights I am on record saying you should vote Conservative, and I want to reverse that,” she said. “I want to go on record to say don’t vote Conservative. I’d go as far to say that I’ll vote Labour at this general election.” The endorsement for Labour from Ms Beaumont-Bott, 20, will be an embarrassment for the Tories. She had been picked out as one of the faces of Mr Cameron’s young, modern Conservatives for her work in promoting gay rights within the party.

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In a recording of the meeting of the Centre for Policy Studies, obtained by the Observer, Grayling makes clear he has always believed that those who run B&Bs should be free to turn away guests.

“I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences,” he said. “I personally always took the view that, if you look at the case of should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from a hotel, I took the view that if it’s a question of somebody 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.”

He draws a distinction, however, with hotels, which he says should admit gay couples. “If they are running a hotel on the high street, I really don’t think that it is right in this day and age that a gay couple should walk into a hotel and be turned away because they are a gay couple, and I think that is where the dividing line comes.”

The man who intends to be the Home Secretary in a matter of weeks, from the party which desperately wants you to think it’s no longer homophobic, seems not to understand that the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 doesn’t allow for such a distinction. As a society, when dealing with a conflict of religious and gay rights, we’ve decided that preventing businesses providing a service to the public from discriminating against gay people trumps the rights of religious people running any of those businesses to discriminate with their consciences. It’s fair, it’s proportionate and Grayling not understanding the meaning of the Sexual Orientation Regulations (and equalities legislation in general) should send a shiver down the spines of any gay person thinking of voting Tory.

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Compassionate Conservative leader David Cameron has lost the plot on gay rights:

The Tory leader was pressed on why, in light of his recent pronouncements on gay rights, his MEPs refused to support a motion condemning a homophobic law in Lithuania.

He agreed in the interview that gay equality was a fundamental human right, before going on to say that the Tories usually had free votes on equality issues.

Cameron said he was unaware of this particular European vote, before insisting that he rarely issues instruction to MEPs “to vote in this way or that way because they have their own leader and their own group”.

Cameron has previously been criticised for pulling Tory MEPs out of the main centre-right grouping in the European parliament and forming a new group alongside colleagues from the Polish Law and Justice party, which has faced repeated accusations of homophobia.

The Tory leader told the Gay Times: “I’ve tried to have free votes where possible on these sorts of issues but, er … I’m responsible for votes here. Sorry, it’s not a very good answer.”

Pressed on whether free votes were appropriate for a fundamental human right, a clearly flustered Cameron said: “You’re right, you’re right. Sorry, sorry. You’re right … The two are very different. Sorry.”

Whoops. There you have it folks. The Tory leader either doesn’t understand that human rights are indivisible, or he’s just playing to a script which he’s lost track of. Either way it’s an appalling display by a man who wants to be Prime Minister within the next two months and a pretty strong demonstration for progressives toying with voting for someone less illiberal than New Labour, that the Tories are very much not that party. Whilst professing support for gay equality and rights he has the nerve to go on to say:

As the filmed interview draws to a close, Cameron also struggles to answer a question on whether Conservative peers would have a free vote on civil partnerships, or whether how the Tories voted would be decided by party whips.

Asked about an amendment to allow civil partnerships to take place in places of worship, Cameron said: “I think it’s an important debate, this, and I don’t rule out changes. I think it’s right there should be a free vote. It was a backbench amendment.”

This prompted the interviewer to tell Cameron: “If we vote for you, we want you to vote for us.”

The Tory leader said: “I do, I do. Do you know – Can we stop for a second?”

He’s about as sincere in his support for gay rights as Tony Blair was for civil liberties and the rule of law. Given that he clearly doesn’t understand human rights at all, it’s no wonder he thinks he can get away with trying to repeal the Human Rights Act. Should he become Prime Minister he must not be allowed to do so.

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The amendment to the Equality Bill, which was tabled as a free vote by gay Muslim peer Waheed Alli, received overwhelming backing in the Lords, including from a number of prominent Anglican bishops.

Under current UK law religious venues are forbidden from holding civil partnerships, although some liberal denominations within Christianity and Judaism have been willing to bless gay unions once a partnership ceremony has taken place elsewhere.

The lifting of the ban, which still needs to be approved by the House of Commons, will now give religious venues the option of conducting civil partnerships – but it will not compel them to do so, as some traditionalists had feared.

Lord Alli denied the suggestion that religious communities would be forced to accept gay marriages.

“Religious freedom cannot begin and end with what one religion wants,” he said. “This amendment does not place an obligation on any religious organisation to host civil partnerships in their buildings. But there are many gay and lesbian couples who want to share their civil partnership with the congregations that they worship with. And there are a number of religious organisations that want to allow gay and lesbian couples to do exactly that.”

No doubt the religious fundamentalist set will denounce this as an anti-religious move, but as Alli points out this, if approved by the Commons (and how appalling would it be if the Commons struck this down?), would allow civil partnerships on religious premises, not demand them. It’s amazing how often the devoutly religious wilfully mix the the two up, but the distinction is pretty important because it’s about religious freedom for all. As Stonewall Chief Executive Ben Summerskill says:

‘We’ve argued throughout that this is an important matter of religious freedom. Ministers have known for some months that we intended to table this measure and we regret that the Government didn’t stand up to the bullying it faced from some churches on this issue. We’ll now work closely with ministers to ensure that we secure implementation of this further step towards equality. This vote is hugely important to those gay people of faith (and, as Lady Neuberger pointed out, to their Jewish mothers too!) who wish to celebrate their civil partnerships in their own place of worship.’

It should have been unthinkable to have had a ban in the first place. Why any religion should have the freedom to discriminate based purely on the grounds of the bigoted beliefs of some, is beyond me. But this government has kowtowed incessantly towards the religious lobby, and in the run-up to the general election will no doubt continue to do so. Remember civil partnerships are still only for gay people, and marriage is only for straight people. In a European Union where even Catholic Spain has marriage equality I fail to comprehend why Britain’s inequality is allowed to continue.

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In a ruling, the commission said it was “uncomfortable with the tenor of the columnist’s remarks” but that censuring Moir, and the paper, would represent “a slide towards censorship”. It added: “Argument and debate are working parts of an active society and should not be constrained unnecessarily.”

The PCC’s director, Stephen Abell said the article contained flaws, but the commission had decided: “It would not be proportionate to rule against the columnist’s right to offer freely expressed views about something that was the focus of public attention.”

It’s a ridiculous argument. The PCC was set up because there is no such thing as absolutely free speech, yet now they conveniently champion absolute free speech, when their code was flagrantly breached? They have it entirely the wrong way around – censoring her would be the problem, not censuring her. For speech which is constrained there have to be consequences, which the PCC was set up to enforce. Yet PCC director Abell persists with a thoroughly absurd argument – the article doesn’t just contain flaws, but untruths, and in the name of denigrating Gately for his sexual orientation. I don’t think for a moment that an article can only be homophobic if it uses outright homophobic language; the subtext of her hate-filled rant couldn’t have been more homophobic. The PCC disagrees there too:

Gately’s civil partner, Andrew Cowles, said he was disgusted by the article and claimed the Daily Mail had broken the PCC’s code of conduct on three grounds, arguing that it was inaccurate, intruded into private grief and contained homophobic remarks.

The code says that the press must avoid making pejorative references to a person’s sexual orientation, but the commission said that Moir did not use any abusive or discriminatory language.

“While many complainants considered that there was an underlying tone of negativity towards Mr Gately and the complainant on account of the fact that they were gay, it was not possible to identify any direct uses of pejorative or prejudicial language in the article,” it said.

The PCC added that a distinction should be drawn “between critical innuendo which, though perhaps distasteful, was permissible in a free society – and discriminatory description of individuals, and the code was designed to constrain the latter rather than the former”.

So a homophobic subtext is now ‘critical innuendo’? Whilst it’s entirely possible that 25,000 could be wrong, that is the biggest disgrace of all. Whilst making Moir and the HateMail pay a price wouldn’t be unnecessary constrain argument or debate – her column contained neither, just underhanded homophobic slurs, and the PCC has impressively absolved itself of its own remit. If the quick way around it is merely not to use proscribed words in combination (ie. ‘fag’, ‘poof’, ‘homo’, ‘queer’) then the Commission and its code might as well not even exist.

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