What Grayling Should Have Said

So, Grayling is trying to squirm out of his difficulties? Meanwhile, our liberal minded friends are releasing their inner-Robespierre on anyone who questions orthodoxy on discrimination issues, even in the slightest degree. Hence, I suggest here what Grayling should have said:

"John Stuart Mill once said that no issue should be closed off from debate and criticism lest it become a matter of dogma. A long time ago, Chris Huhne and maybe even Peter Mandelson would have known that. We have seen the harm done to the immigration debate by it being policed by constant denuncations of racism. It is a bad thing for democracy and public debate if the smallest criticism of the existing law is made impossible.

This is effectively what Labour and the Liberal Democrats have sought to do with their exaggerated response to my comments on Bed and Breakfast establishments and gay customers. They have not merely asserted - which is understandable - that the cause of gay equality must come ahead of any socially conservative religious sentiment and that this priority should be given legal force; they have asserted that to doubt that legal force should be given to that priority in all situations is akin to being a vile bigot.

In short, their position is not just absolutist in its championship of gay rights, but they demand that it should not in any way be subject to criticism. It is not just that their position should not be qualified, but that no one should dare even suggesting that it should be criticised.

This is a dangerous proposition. It really will not do to say "what if a major religion objected to black people?" No religion does. We should not use hypothetical analogies to add to the categories of what is seen as beyond debate. That should be a rare thing indeed.

But what of the subject at hand? It is worth remembering that, as the liberals never tire of reminding us, that we live in a diverse society. There are religious ethics which contradict from time to time modern secular ethics. We do not want to create different systems of law. People cannot opt out of any legal obligation by citing real or spurious religious scrupples.

But it has always been the case, at least since we stopped enforcing religious conformity, that in some situations we allow conscientious objection rather than drive people of strong faith from society. For example, at times of war, we accommodate Quakers with their objections to fighting. I suspect that, as diversity increases, we shall increasingly find ourselves making such accommodations in order that we can live together.

However, what is proposed is that we should never accommodate. To the crude liberal mind there are two possibilities, 1) never accommodate, or 2) always accommodate. So to make any exceptions means you must scrap the entire law. This simply does not follow: if we made no exceptions then the Catholic Church would have to employ men as nuns, and women as priests. Also, let us suppose that Mr and Mrs Smith want to hire a nanny - but Mr Smith is a philanderer on his very last chance - do we doubt that Mrs Smith should be entitled to discriminate against young, pretty female candidates?

What I have suggested is no more than this. The principle of equality is a good principle. It may be uncomfortable to some, but so be it. However, when it brings that discomfort into their own home, I begin to doubt. If someone runs a hotel or a guest house, then it should be open to all. But when it is very much their own house, and they will in the ordinary course sit down with their guests at the same table, the situation is different. As with my nanny example, the subject matter is intimate as well as commercial.

That is my doubt, and I am aware that there are counter-arguments, and arguments with considerable strength. A Bed and Breakfast that generally advertises is a commercial enterprise, so must not turn people away. I am aware of the strength of that, but there is strength in the arguments for accommodating the squeamishness of a minority. Were this exception to cause great problems in practice, then I would think again.

So, all that I have suggested is a minor exception in a marginal case. It is a case that I find difficult, but many would disagree with that. The point is that there is no warrant for saying that such points ought never to be raised nor argued. That appears, perversely, to be the liberal position.

I should say one more thing. It has been suggested that having this view would disqualify me from being home secretary - the home office enforces these laws, how can the home secretary disagree with a law that he will be enforcing? This is also nonsense. Ministers uphold laws whether they disagree with them or not. In the Victorian days, some Home Secretaries upheld capital punishment although they were abolitionists. Until it was repealed, Labour education ministers upheld section 28. The law on this point is clear. Whatever my personal doubts may be - and those doubts are not Conservative Party policy - are frankly irrelevant."

Unfortunately, he contented himself with squirming.