Freedom of Conscience and Marriage
In brief: Since civil partnerships arrived in 2005 and Parliament redefined marriage in 2013, bakers, registrars, students, school staff and others have faced discipline, dismissal and years of litigation for the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/30/section/1 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/3175/made In all four UK cases below, the penalty was for the belief, spoken or acted on - not for treating anyone worse for who they were. The law has slowly turned. In 2025 the Court of Appeal held in Higgs v Farmor's School that dismissing Kristie Higgs for expressing her beliefs on marriage and gender was unlawful discrimination. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf The Supreme Court's refusal of permission to appeal made that final. https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2025-0040 Yet the protection is incomplete, the chilling effect is measurable, and 'conversion practices' Bills at Westminster and at Stormont, Northern Ireland's Assembly, now pose the sharpest question yet - whether ordinary Christian teaching on marriage can be prosecuted as a "practice".
ON THIS PAGE
- The pattern
- The key cases
- The chilling effect, measured
- The framework - and the gap in it
- The sharpest test yet: the conversion practices Bills
- Abroad: won narrowly, lost finally, withdrawn quietly, prosecuted openly
- The remedy: reasonable accommodation
- What we believe
- Related pages on c4m.org.uk
- Key sources
THE PATTERN
Since civil partnerships arrived in 2005, real people - a baking family in Belfast, a registrar in Islington, a social work student in Sheffield, a school's pastoral administrator in Gloucestershire - have paid dearly for the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/3175/made Some lost their jobs. Others spent the better part of a decade in court.
Read the cases together and one fact stands out. In none of them was anyone they served shown to have been treated worse for who they were. The penalty came for the belief, whether it was spoken outside work or acted on at work. That's the pattern a pluralist society is supposed to make impossible. Can a country that punishes the peaceful expression of a belief its own law protects really call itself pluralist? Let the cases answer.
THE KEY CASES
ASHERS: THE MESSAGE, NOT THE MESSENGER
Lee v Ashers Baking Company Ltd [2018] UKSC 49, the so-called gay cake case, is the UK Supreme Court's ruling on where anti-discrimination law stops and compelled speech begins. https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2017-0020
In 2014 Gareth Lee, a gay man who volunteered with QueerSpace, a Belfast lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group, ordered a cake from Ashers, a Christian-owned Belfast bakery run by the McArthur family, to be iced with the words "Support Gay Marriage". The McArthurs declined to produce it, because the message contradicted their beliefs. The county court found direct discrimination, and the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal agreed. On 10 October 2018 the Supreme Court unanimously reversed them. https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2017_0020_judgment_ff95b65913.pdf
Lady Hale's reasoning turned on one distinction. The McArthurs hadn't refused to serve Mr Lee because of his sexual orientation, and they'd have refused that message to any customer. In her words, "The objection was to the message, not the messenger." https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2017_0020_judgment_ff95b65913.pdf Compelling them to ice a message with which they profoundly disagreed would violate their rights under the European Convention to freedom of conscience and freedom of expression. And, Lady Hale added, "it does the project of equal treatment no favours to seek to extend it beyond its proper scope". https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2017_0020_judgment_ff95b65913.pdf
That's the Ashers principle. You may object to the message, but never to the messenger, and you may not be conscripted to say what you don't believe. It protects both sides of the counter, and it remains the cleanest statement of the balance anywhere in the common-law world.
LADELE: WHAT THE LAW DOES NOT PROTECT
If Ashers shows what the law protects, Lillian Ladele's case shows what it doesn't.
Ms Ladele, an orthodox Christian, was a registrar of births, marriages and deaths for the London Borough of Islington. https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2009/1357 When civil partnerships arrived, she asked to be excused from officiating at them. Colleagues swapped duties with her informally until two of them complained - colleagues, not couples. Islington's equality policy required every registrar to officiate regardless, and she was found guilty of gross misconduct. The Court of Appeal upheld the council in Ladele v London Borough of Islington [2009] EWCA Civ 1357. https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2009/1357 On 15 January 2013 the European Court of Human Rights, in Eweida and Others v United Kingdom, ruled against her by five votes to two. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-115881
Judges De Gaetano and Vučinić, dissenting, called her right to conscientious objection "one of the most fundamental rights inherent in the human person - a right which is not given by the Convention but is recognised and protected by it", and the means used against her "totally disproportionate". What eventually led to her dismissal, they wrote, was "a combination of back-stabbing by her colleagues and the blinkered political correctness of the Borough of Islington (which clearly favoured 'gay rights' over fundamental human rights)". Islington could have accommodated her without detriment to any couple. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-115881 It chose the principle over the person, and the courts let it.
NGOLE: WON, THEN PUNISHED AGAIN
Felix Ngole, a second-year social work masters student at the University of Sheffield, posted on Facebook in 2015 quoting Leviticus and expressing the view that "same sex marriage is a sin". https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ngole-v-sheffield-university-judgment.pdf The university dismissed him from his course. In Ngole v University of Sheffield [2019] EWCA Civ 1127 the Court of Appeal allowed his appeal, ruling the university's proceedings "flawed and unfair". https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ngole-v-sheffield-university-judgment.pdf It held that "The University wrongly confused the expression of religious views with the notion of discrimination. The mere expression of views on theological grounds (e.g. that 'homosexuality is a sin') does not necessarily connote that the person expressing such views will discriminate on such grounds." There was positive evidence he had never discriminated on those grounds, and the university had reached for the "extreme penalty" without trying anything lesser. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ngole-v-sheffield-university-judgment.pdf
He won, yet it didn't end. In 2022 Touchstone Leeds withdrew a job offer after discovering his beliefs. An employment tribunal found direct discrimination in that withdrawal but dismissed his other claims. https://www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/mr-f-ngole-v-touchstone-leeds-2026-eat-29 On 16 February 2026 the Employment Appeal Tribunal held, in Ngole v Touchstone Leeds [2026] EAT 29, that calling him to a second interview because service users might react badly "merely to the fact" that he held his Christian beliefs "would be treatment because of the belief and not capable of justification". It sent that complaint, and Touchstone's refusal to reinstate the offer, back to the same tribunal to be decided again - more than 10 years after his Facebook post. https://www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/mr-f-ngole-v-touchstone-leeds-2026-eat-29 He appealed against parts of the Appeal Tribunal's ruling. The Court of Appeal heard his case on 28 and 29 September 2026 and has reserved judgment. https://www.judiciary.uk/live-hearings/ngole-appellant-v-touchstone-leeds-respondent/ https://christianconcern.com/cccases/felix-ngole/
HIGGS: THE LANDMARK, AND IT'S FINAL
Kristie Higgs had worked at Farmor's School in Gloucestershire for six years without a single complaint about her work. In 2018 a parent objected to a post she had re-shared on a personal Facebook account under a different name, criticising plans to teach children that same-sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf She added, "PLEASE READ THIS! THEY ARE BRAINWASHING OUR CHILDREN!" The school dismissed her for gross misconduct. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf
On 12 February 2025 the Court of Appeal allowed her appeal and substituted a finding of unlawful discrimination (Higgs v Farmor's School [2025] EWCA Civ 109). https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf After the 2021 Forstater ruling on gender-critical belief, nobody in the Court of Appeal even disputed that her beliefs on marriage and gender are protected by the Equality Act 2010. https://www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/maya-forstater-v-cgd-europe-and-others-ukeat-slash-0105-slash-20-slash-joj https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf The court held that dismissal merely for expressing a protected belief is unlawful, and dismissal over how it was expressed is lawful only if the employer shows it was proportionate. And on these facts - one complaint, a personal account, a different name, no evidence her views ever touched her work - "dismissal was unquestionably a disproportionate response". https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf
The school sought permission to appeal, and on 4 June 2025 the Supreme Court refused it (UKSC/2025/0040). The judgment stands as settled law. It took Mrs Higgs nearly seven years to establish what should never have been in doubt. https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2025-0040 A school's pastoral administrator may hold the view of marriage that the law of England and Wales held until 2014, and say so on her own Facebook page, without losing her job. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/93/made
THE CHILLING EFFECT, MEASURED
Court victories arrive at the end of a process most people will do anything to avoid. That's why the surveys matter as much as the judgments.
Polling by Savanta ComRes in February 2021 found that 42 per cent of Britons believed people in the UK are afraid to speak their minds about transgender rights, and 36 per cent about gay rights. Half agreed that freedom of speech in the UK is under threat. https://savanta.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Final_Reclaim_20210209_Private.pdf An Ipsos survey for the Commission for Countering Extremism questioned 2,291 people aged 16 and over in England and Wales in 2025. It found that 41 per cent of Christians thought Christianity wasn't protected enough, against 28 per cent of all respondents. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68776afd39d0452326e28f2d/190625+FoE+Survey+FINAL.pdf An Evangelical Alliance survey of 884 evangelical Christians, run in November and December 2025, found 24 per cent hesitant to talk about their faith at work. Around 48 per cent said it had become harder to practise their faith publicly over the past five years, pointing to "greater sensitivity around issues of sexuality and gender". https://www.eauk.org/assets/files/downloads/Confident-faith-contested-culture.pdf And in a Free Speech Union survey of British workers, published in March 2024, 62 per cent said they'd had to conceal what they really think about the diversity training they'd received, including 22 per cent "compelled to say things that they don't really believe". https://freespeechunion.org/archive/the-edi-tax-how-equity-diversity-and-inclusion-is-hobbling-british-businesses Many have learned to keep quiet.
The universities show the same pattern. The most authoritative UK evidence is the independent review for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, led by Professor Alice Sullivan and published in July 2025. Academics holding gender-critical views reported repeated discrimination, research blocked or delayed by ethics committees, and severe career and health consequences, with no equivalent pattern on the other side of the question. https://www.sullivanreview.uk/barriers.pdf The belief that marriage is between a man and a woman is close kin to the belief that biological sex is real.
THE FRAMEWORK - AND THE GAP IN IT
The Equality Act 2010 protects religion or belief, sexual orientation, and - in employment only - being married or in a civil partnership. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/4 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/13 The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 added a quadruple lock for religious bodies: no religious organisation or minister can be compelled to marry a same-sex couple; opting in requires the governing body's explicit consent; refusing a religious same-sex ceremony isn't unlawful discrimination; and the Act leaves the canon law of the Church of England and the Church in Wales untouched. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/30/notes
The lock is real, but let's look at what it covers and what it leaves out. It protects religious organisations acting in a religious capacity - not the individual teacher, employee or professional in a secular role. It doesn't protect public officials. The Act's own explanatory notes say that "the conduct of a marriage registrar, superintendent registrar or the Registrar General is not included in the protection". https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/30/notes The lock protects no business either. The institution is shielded, but the believer is exposed. The lock would have covered none of the cases above.
The remedy has a name - reasonable accommodation. American and Canadian employers must make reasonable accommodation for an employee's religious practice, and an American employer is excused only by proving undue hardship. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-115881 The Equality Act 2010 imposes such a duty only for disability, not for religious belief. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/20 The idea was put to the European Court of Human Rights in Eweida, and it declined to apply it to Ms Ladele. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-115881 After Higgs, sacking someone for how they expressed a protected belief has to be proportionate, but a tribunal only tests that afterwards, once they've lost their job. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf A duty of reasonable accommodation would make the employer look for a way round before it gets that far.
THE SHARPEST TEST YET: THE CONVERSION PRACTICES BILLS
On 25 June 2026 the Government published its draft Conversion Practices Bill for England and Wales. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-conversion-practices-bill As drafted, it creates offences carrying up to five years' imprisonment, with no free-speech clause and no defence of consent. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-conversion-practices-bill/conversion-practices-draft-bill Its Conversion Practice Protection Orders can be made without notice, on the application of the police or a local authority. And if a charity, a church or any other body run by a governing body commits an offence, so does any member of its governing body who "fails to take all reasonable steps to prevent" it. So a church's trustees could be prosecuted over what is said from its pulpit. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-conversion-practices-bill/conversion-practices-draft-bill
Genuine abuse is already criminal, and the Coalition for Marriage (C4M) would defend every one of those laws. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-conversion-practices-bill/explanatory-notes The question the draft Bill poses is different. It's whether ordinary Christian teaching on marriage and sexual ethics, the belief every case on this page concerns, can be prosecuted as a "practice". A Bill that can't answer that question on its face, in its own clauses rather than its press release, hasn't earned the benefit of the doubt. The then Minister for Equalities, Olivia Bailey, told the Commons on 25 June that "This Bill does not remove anyone's right to freedom of expression or religion, or to choose how to parent". https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2026-06-25/debates/505981C1-2B0A-46E2-8FE0-ADFEA1F3743E/DraftConversionPracticesBill That's her assurance, and it isn't in the Bill. Health care got an exemption in the Bill's own clauses, but belief got only a line in the explanatory notes, which aren't part of the Bill. The line says the Bill "is also not intended to interfere with people's right to religious belief and expression". https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-conversion-practices-bill/explanatory-notes An intention is not a protection. Meanwhile the clauses list "use of psychological or emotional pressure" as a mark of abuse, a charge that could be laid against a sermon or a parent's plea. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-conversion-practices-bill/conversion-practices-draft-bill
A joint committee of both Houses, appointed in September 2026, must report on the draft by 22 January 2027. https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/851/ Its members include Ms Bailey herself, who gave the Commons that assurance as minister. The minister who presented the draft is now marking her own homework. https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/851/ On 26 October the committee called for written evidence from anyone with answers to its questions, by 5pm on 16 November 2026. https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/4010/ C4M is campaigning for the Bill to be dropped, not amended, before it goes any further. After 13 years of individual believers paying for the 2013 Act's missing protections, Parliament is being asked to add a criminal layer on top. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/30/notes The time to say so is now, while it's still a draft - to the committee and to your MP. https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/write-to-your-mp-about-marriage
Northern Ireland is further down the same road. The Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill, brought by the Assembly member Eóin Tennyson, passed its Second Stage in the Assembly by 46 votes to 29 on 28 September 2026 and is now at Committee Stage. https://www.niassembly.gov.uk/assembly-business/legislation/2022-2027-mandate/primary-legislation-bills-22-27-mandate/conversion-practices-criminalisation-bill/ https://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/officialreport/report.aspx?&eveDate=2026/09/28&docID=500209 Its only protection for speech covers an intent "solely to express beliefs or opinions, without directing a victim towards a particular sexual orientation or gender identity". It has no exemption at all for prayer or for religious teaching. https://www.niassembly.gov.uk/assembly-business/legislation/2022-2027-mandate/primary-legislation-bills-22-27-mandate/conversion-practices-criminalisation-bill/bill---as-introduced/ So a church that teaches what marriage is, and urges its young people to live by it, is safe only for as long as nobody says it was directing them. C4M's written evidence to the Assembly's Committee for Communities argues that the Bill should be withdrawn, not improved. https://www.c4m.org.uk/storage/media/79/C4M-Written-Evidence-NI-Conversion-Practices-Bill-2026.pdf
ABROAD: WON NARROWLY, LOST FINALLY, WITHDRAWN QUIETLY, PROSECUTED OPENLY
The pattern isn't only British.
In the United States, the Supreme Court decided Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018) for the Christian baker, but narrowly, on the Commission's religious hostility. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf Barronelle Stutzman of Arlene's Flowers was less fortunate. Washington's Supreme Court ruled against her twice, the US Supreme Court declined her final appeal in 2021 though three Justices would have heard it, and she was left personally liable. https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/19-333.html https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-333/115374/20190911110711424_USSC%20Petition%20for%20Writ%20of%20Certiorari.pdf Only in 303 Creative v Elenis (2023) did the Court hold that the First Amendment bars a state from forcing a website designer to create messages with which the designer disagrees, and it cited Ashers for that distinction: "The less favourable treatment was afforded to the message not to the man." https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf The British principle - the message, not the messenger - had reached the US Supreme Court, two years after it turned Barronelle Stutzman away. https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/19-333.html
Conscience protections, once granted, can also be withdrawn. South Africa's Civil Union Act 2006 expressly allowed state marriage officers to object on grounds of conscience, religion and belief to solemnising same-sex civil unions. https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a17-061.pdf The Civil Union Amendment Act 2020 (Act 8 of 2020), assented to on 20 October 2020 and in force from 22 October, repealed that provision, and every existing exemption lapsed on 22 October 2022. https://www.gov.za/documents/acts/civil-union-amendment-act-8-2020-english-isizulu-22-oct-2020 https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202010/43832gon1108.pdf In the Netherlands, a 2014 law barred the appointment of any new objecting registrar and gave municipalities the legal basis to move against those in post, with no transitional protection. https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/stb-2014-260.html
And the criminal law is now in play in Europe. On 26 March 2026 the Supreme Court of Finland convicted MP Päivi Räsänen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola of "agitation against a population group" over a 2004 church pamphlet on marriage and sexuality that had remained available online. https://www.finlex.fi/fi/oikeuskaytanto/korkein-oikeus/ennakkopaatokset/2026/27 https://adfinternational.org/case/paivi/ It did so by three votes to two, overturning the acquittals of two lower courts and against the recommendation of its own legal officer, the referendary. https://www.korkeinoikeus.fi/en/news/news-archive/kko202627-agitation-against-a-population-group/ The same court unanimously acquitted Mrs Räsänen over her 2019 social media post quoting Romans. It also accepted that the pamphlet "did not contain incitement to violence or comparable threat-like fomenting of hatred". https://www.finlex.fi/fi/oikeuskaytanto/korkein-oikeus/ennakkopaatokset/2026/27 https://adfinternational.org/case/paivi/ The fines were modest - 20 income-based day-fines each for Mrs Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola, and 5,000 euros for the publishing foundation - but the court also ordered the condemned passages to be "removed from public access and destroyed". https://www.finlex.fi/fi/oikeuskaytanto/korkein-oikeus/ennakkopaatokset/2026/27 https://adfinternational.org/case/paivi/ So a European supreme court has ordered passages of a church pamphlet on marriage and sexuality destroyed, and counted its "strong religious context" against her. https://www.korkeinoikeus.fi/en/news/news-archive/kko202627-agitation-against-a-population-group/ In July 2026 Mrs Räsänen, Bishop Pohjola and the Luther Foundation Finland lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights. https://adfinternational.org/news/finnish-parliamentarian-files-appeal-to-european-court-of-human-rights/ In Malta, Matthew Grech was prosecuted for describing his own decision to leave a gay lifestyle, and acquitted on 4 March 2026 after a three-year trial and 17 court appearances. https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/court_and_police/140115/court_acquits_three_over_interview_on_gay_conversion_therapy_ https://christianconcern.com/cccases/matthew-grech/ Malta's Attorney General has appealed, so his case isn't over. https://christianconcern.com/cccases/matthew-grech/ Under conversion-practices laws the process is the punishment, and Westminster and Stormont are now both being asked to pass one.
THE REMEDY: REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
The British cases point to the fix. C4M advocates a statutory duty of reasonable accommodation for religious and philosophical belief in employment. Before any question of discipline arises, the employer must explore whether a conscientious objection can be accommodated without undue hardship - a colleague covering a ceremony, a duty reassigned.
The test would be practical possibility, not the employer's sympathy for the belief. It would give no employee a veto over any service. If a colleague can conduct the ceremony, the ceremony happens. It would apply symmetrically to every protected belief, not only Christian ones. And it isn't special pleading. The Equality Act already requires reasonable adjustments for disability, and extending the same duty to deep moral conviction is a modest, proportionate step. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/20 Some other UK councils allowed registrars like Ms Ladele to opt out. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-115881
Believers keep their livelihoods. Service users lose nothing, because the accommodation test guarantees provision. Employers avoid the ruinous litigation that follows firing long-serving staff for private beliefs. The only position that loses under reasonable accommodation is the position that no dissent from the new orthodoxy should be tolerated at all. A society that adopts that position has given up on pluralism while keeping the word.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
The Coalition for Marriage holds that marriage is the voluntary, exclusive, lifelong union of one man and one woman - the gold standard for families and society - and that a free country protects the people who say so.
This is no fringe position seeking shelter but the law of England and Wales until 2014, and a belief the Equality Act protects. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/93/made https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf As it redefined marriage in 2013, the Government itself called the belief "mainstream, legitimate and lawful" and promised to "protect the right to express it". https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2013-07-16/debates/130716101000002/MarriageSameSexCouplesBill That promise has not been kept - Mr Ngole lost his course and Mrs Higgs her job for saying it. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ngole-v-sheffield-university-judgment.pdf https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf We don't ask for believers to be above the law, only for the law to be complete.
Much of that law already exists. In Redmond-Bate v DPP [1999] EWHC Admin 733, the Divisional Court held that free speech protects the irritating, the contentious and the unwelcome. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/1999/733.html Section 29JA of the Public Order Act 1986 protects the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct. Its subsection (2), inserted by the same 2013 Act that redefined marriage, says that "any discussion or criticism of marriage which concerns the sex of the parties to marriage shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred". https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/29JA
So let's hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You can speak. The belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman is protected in law. The law is on your side, and the Ashers, Ngole and Higgs courts put it there. You're not alone, and you're not required to be silent - at work, in the lecture hall, or at the school gate. C4M stands with everyone under pressure to abandon this belief, and we'll keep standing until the protection is complete.
Join us. Share this page, receive the Coalition for Marriage briefings at https://www.c4m.org.uk/subscribe, and support the campaign at https://www.c4m.org.uk/donate.
RELATED PAGES ON C4M.ORG.UK
https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/why-marriage-matters - Why Marriage Matters: the evidence for marriage https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/marriage-facts-and-figures - Marriage in the UK: facts and figures https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/write-to-your-mp-about-marriage - Write to your MP about marriage https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/our-responses-to-consultations - Our responses to consultations
KEY SOURCES
Links accessed 8 to 27 October 2026.
Lee v Ashers Baking Company Ltd and Others [2018] UKSC 49. https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2017-0020 Ladele v London Borough of Islington [2009] EWCA Civ 1357. https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2009/1357 Eweida and Others v United Kingdom, judgment of 15 January 2013, Application no. 51671/10 (Ladele). https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-115881 Ngole v University of Sheffield [2019] EWCA Civ 1127. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ngole-v-sheffield-university-judgment.pdf Ngole v Touchstone Leeds [2026] EAT 29, 16 February 2026. https://www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/mr-f-ngole-v-touchstone-leeds-2026-eat-29 Higgs v Farmor's School [2025] EWCA Civ 109. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Higgs-v-Farmors-School.pdf Supreme Court, UKSC/2025/0040 (Higgs), permission refused 4 June 2025. https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2025-0040 Forstater v CGD Europe, UKEAT/0105/20/JOJ. https://www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/maya-forstater-v-cgd-europe-and-others-ukeat-slash-0105-slash-20-slash-joj Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf State of Washington v Arlene's Flowers, Inc. (2019), as reproduced in the petition to the US Supreme Court. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-333/115374/20190911110711424_USSC%20Petition%20for%20Writ%20of%20Certiorari.pdf Supreme Court of Finland, KKO:2026:27, 26 March 2026. https://www.korkeinoikeus.fi/en/news/news-archive/kko202627-agitation-against-a-population-group/ Redmond-Bate v DPP [1999] EWHC Admin 733. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/1999/733.html
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