"Moral complicity" - think about it

In the aftermath of the Bulls guest house case (see my previous post), Christian barrister Neil Addison posted this blog setting out his frustration that, in his words, the courts are unable to recognise the "nuance" of moral complicity which sits behind the case.

In his words, this means :

"... the fact that giving a double room to an unmarried couple would make the Bulls morally complicit in an immoral act. Were they, for example, running a restaurant and had refused to give a meal to a same sex couple then that would have been simple discrimination but their stand was more nuanced than that ..."

He seems to be saying that discrimination is generally a bad thing, but it's OK if the alternative is to be an accessory to something that you consider to be morally wrong.  Fair enough, yes?

Well actually, no.  If we agree that it is OK to discriminate in order to avoid moral complicity, then who is to decide what is or isn't moral?  The Bulls acted as they did because they believe that gay sex is immoral, so should we all just accept that their behaviour was reasonable?  What if I thought that it was immoral for black people to sit at the front of a bus?  Would that make it OK for me to stop Rosa Parkes from taking her seat?

The point here of course is that we all have our own moral code, and with over 60 million of us in the UK, we're not all going to agree on what is or isn't morally right.  That's why we have a democratically elected parliament to make laws on our behalf, and those laws must apply to us all, whether we like them or not.