Court case against Cambridge College - philosophical and religious belief

Yes, this.

It's not particularly an issue of law.

It's what it says about them as an institution. Which might not be so much if they hadn't already made it clear that they don't believe in the foundational values of university education.

CICCU used to be hideous. They hounded one of my friends for being orthodox. She got leaflets describing in detail the torments waiting for her.

I understand the view of the college, but I bet CICCU would be able to book a dinner there...

I didn't mean Church Halls per se- probably not in the way you're thinking.
Several Churches I know have full on conference facilities that they rent out though. Easily the size of a big lecture theatre, sometimes more than one, with all the mod cons and modern conferencing facilities.
My personal view (IANAL and this may not be the legal view) is that the Churches and the University can host whatever views they like, or not- so in this case the Uni can turn down this booking, the Church can turn down the booking from the gay rights group etc. I think the equality act should protect individuals - so you can't be sacked/ refused service/ not housed because of your beliefs but I think forcing venues to accept conference bookings for conferences that don't accord with their values is overreach. I suppose you could say I feel the believer should be protected, but not the belief in its abstract form.
But if the opposite is true in reality- conference venues have to accept bookings for the anti-gay marriage group or be prosecuted, the law should apply fairly- so if Churches want to subsidise their activities through booking secular conferences they should have to take the pro-gay marriage conference booking too.
Otherwise, you're protecting one view more than the other surely?

I think the issue is around what values a university should have. Basically if it wants to be recognised as a valid institution plurality, freedom of speech and open debate within the law must be a foundational value.
It should be open to all beliefs and prepared to debate them.

I don't think that's the same issue as church halls being required to take bookings from Pagan groups. The use of Church halls would be required to be in line with their values seems reasonable.

I understand the logic of this argument, that a conference centre is different, and it may well be the legal position.
Do you think then that a conference venue owned by a Church (not the Church building itself) should have to host a pro-gay marriage conference? Or a pro-abortion conference?
Otherwise it's just privileging one belief over another isn't it.

It seems to me that its far to late as some of the adults where once the idiot students.

Universities no longer seem to be the free thinking places that they were.

I have sympathy with the college too. But I'm a bit concerned about how human rights theory (and this is a worldwide thing) is becoming a bit "all animals are equal but some are more equal than others".

If you have ever encountered Christian Concern, you would take the same stance Fitzwilliam college!

I had them wanting to display their literature, when I refused their representative kept sneaking it into our leaflet display (which I removed as soon as I spotted them). Christian lack of concern for women

I'm probably missing something important here but didn't that bakery in Northern Ireland win their case that they didn't have to provide goods or services which disagreed with the beliefs of their owners, and didn't have to bake a cake supporting gay marriage?

The bakery was sued by the Equalities Commission of NI for refusing to provide a cake iced with the slogan "Support Gay Marriage". The bakery won because they would have refused to provide such a cake to any group. Therefore they weren't discriminating against any protected group.

The irony is that immediately after their win, another local business immediately said they would refuse to serve the bakery due to the bakery owners' beliefs. That's straight out discrimination. But they weren't sued. We can speculate that the ECNI had blown their litigation budget. Or we can speculate that the ECNI thought that the bakery had the Wrong Sort of Protected Beliefs, while the other business had the Right Sort.

That's the difference between the bakery and the college here. The bakery were not refusing to provide service to a protected group. The other business (and the college) are doing precisely that.

CICCU (pronounced “kick you”, incidentally - Oxford have “oik you” & Durham have delusions of Oxbridge so yes, it’s “dick you”) might loathe Saints but they quite fancy the idea of being [non-literal] martyrs so I can’t imagine they’re going to stay silent…

Maybe it’s what this year’s carol service sermon will be about 🤷‍♀️

If FW college were wanting this to go to court then they chose the right organisation.

And Islamic organisations are explicitly anti-Christian, anti-Judaism, anti-Buddhist, anti-zosterfarianism, anti-humanist, anti-paganism...

"We believe this is the true way" tends to be pretty exclusive for all beliefs. And if they don't believe theirs is the true way then what is the point?

Whilst not precedent, this case from 2021 is illustrative on the law regarding religious discrimination when praising services to the public localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/litigation-and-enforcement/400-litigation-news/46720-religious-organisation-wins-county-court-ruling-over-removal-by-council-of-adverts-on-buses

Wasn’t there a similar issue with Worcester College at Oxford last year? From what I recall some student activists complained, David Isaacs (ex Stonewall) got involved and there was some discussion in Parliament. I can’t quite remember but I think there was an investigation where the activists claims were found to be unwarranted. I imagine this may be brought up in proceedings.

Well that might make for somewhat awkward times then. Be interesting to see what response they make 🤔

If Fitz has any CICCU (Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union) members, they’re probably not going to be happy about it. Because Christian Concern is pretty on brand for CICCU. Apparently they’ve mellowed since the early noughties & the infamous Mission Week furore over a speaker saying bestiality & homosexuality = essentially the same (well, in external/public interactions, at least); but they’re all about the US-style evangelism &c. Catholics aren’t Christians to lots of them; never mind Muslims being an issue. Multiple Colleges have banned CICCU Members either individually or as policy from their multifaith societies because their behaviour was so dreadful they made it impossible for the societies to function.

So they’ve also almost certainly made it very clear to actual students that they’re unwelcome in their own College. Stellar move, that.

Yes a conference, but not allowed because it would supposedly challenge the values of the students and the university.

What values - the value of freedom to think about all kinds of ideas and discuss them?

Apparently not.

True, the government can restrict speech as part of an exchange.

But this isn't a university discussion. It's a conference venue.

The point with the bakery in Northern Ireland was that they DIDN'T refuse to bake a cake, they refused to ice a message onto it with which they disagreed. So the case was about compelled speech, rather than denial of service. And, further, by going into the cake making and decorating business they hadn't set up any expectation their "voice" was for hire for political messaging.

Hiring out rooms for conferences is more like baking the cake than icing a message on it. Also it's quite expected that people will voice various political and religious beliefs in a conference setting. So I would think that's something you've accepted by going into that line of business.

Seems a bit similar to this case?

www.heraldscotland.com/news/19363377.edinburgh-council-apologises-pays-25-000-damages-banning-anti-gay-us-preacher/

"a group that believes human rights apply to human beings who are still in the womb"

I see this as parallel to the trans issue, as it places the rights of one group above those of another, that other being in both cases, women and girls.

And with regard to attitudes to Islam, twice in the last week I have heard priests on Thought for the Day quoting the Queen at Lambeth speaking of the duty of the Church of England to protect the rights of other religious groups. And many Christian groups get on perfectly well with Muslims, Jews and. I believe, Sikhs. Probably CC would not regard them as proper Christians.

This would not be a university debate though, this would be a conference using their rooms which is different. They’d have no involvement in the discussion, and it wouldn’t be a university type debate or discussion as there’d be no opposing viewpoint.

It seems bizarre to think there’s a legal right to use university rooms for whatever you want. Of course we have the right to free speech, that doesn’t mean we have a legal right to be hosted by Fitzwilliam College.