No direct or indirect religious discrimination occurred when an employee was disciplined for condemning homosexuality and speaking of repentance during a prison church service, ruled the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT).
In Trayhorn v The Secretary of State for Justice the claimant, who was a Pentecostal Christian, was disciplined for elaborating on a Bible passage from Corinthians 6, which condemned homosexuality. He resigned claiming constructive dismissal. However, the employment tribunal held that he had not been constructively dismissed or suffered religious discrimination.
The EAT agreed, finding no evidence that religious discrimination had occurred. It said that it was not the manifestation of his belief that caused the treatment, but the way in which he did so which went beyond scripture.
The claimant had relied upon PCPs (provisions, criteria or practices) to bring his case. These were whether Christians were disadvantaged by the prison’s disciplinary and equality of treatment policies and, whether the unwritten practice of not discussing homosexuality and Christian ethics was religious discrimination.
The EAT found that, if it had been necessary to consider whether the PCPs pursued legitimate aims, it would have found the aims of order and national security as wholly legitimate.
