1. VICTORY FOR FREEDOM
KRISTIE HIGGS WINS AS COURT OF APPEAL RULES DISMISSAL FOR FREE SPEECH IS ILLEGAL

In a seminal judgment for Christian freedom and free speech, the Court of Appeal has reversed a ruling which defended the dismissal of Kristie Higgs from Farmor’s School in Gloucestershire for raising concern on Facebook about extreme sex education and transgender ideology being taught in her son's Church of England primary school. 

The groundbreaking decision, handed down this morning by Lord Justice Underhill, Lord Justice Bean and Lady Justice Falk, re-examines and re-shapes England’s law on religious discrimination. (see legal analysis in notes to editors.)

The dramatic six-year legal battle has been supported by the Christian Legal Centre from the beginning. Mrs Higgs, 48, was represented in court by barrister, Mr Richard O'Dair. 

The ruling confirms that the Equality Act protects traditional Christian beliefs on social issues, such as opposition to the ideas of transgenderism and ‘gender-fluidity’ and opposition to same-sex marriage.

The authoritative judgment re-shapes the law on freedom of religion in the workplace. For the first time in employment law, the judgment has effectively established a legal presumption that any dismissal for an expression or manifestation of Christian faith is illegal.

It explained that the burden is on the employer to prove in the Employment Tribunal that any such dismissal can be objectively justified (not just that they believed it was justified) and was prescribed by law, proportionate and otherwise necessary in a democratic society to address a pressing social need.

The Court of Appeal has also ruled that such a dismissal would only be lawful if it was objectively justified as prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society.

Mrs Higgs' employer had argued during the case that its justification for sacking Mrs Higgs was not to do with her Christian beliefs but because of the language she used in the posts.

This argument, however, was rejected by the judges, who said in their ruling that Kristie's: "dismissal was unquestionably a disproportionate response", and that "even if the language of the re-posts passes the threshold of objectionability, it is not grossly offensive."

They added that: "There was no evidence that the reputation of the School had thus far been damaged: its concern was about potential damage in the future (see, again, the final paragraph of the passage in the dismissal letter quoted at para. 22 above). As it also accepted, there was no possibility that, even if readers of the posts associated the Claimant with the School, they would believe that they represented its own views.

"Any reputational damage would only take the form of the fear expressed by the complainant, namely that the Claimant might express at work the homophobic and transphobic attitudes arguably implicit in the language used. I accept that if that belief became widespread it could harm the School’s reputation in the community, as the panel clearly thought. But the risk of widespread circulation was speculative at best. The posts were made on her personal Facebook account, in her maiden name and with no reference to the School. By the time of the hearing, several weeks after the posts were made, only one person was known to have recognised who she was.”

Furthermore they have ruled that: "Even if readers of the posts might fear that the Claimant would let her views influence her work, neither the panel nor the ET believed that she would do so. There was no reason to doubt her assertion that her concern was specifically about the content of sex education in primary schools; that she “wouldn’t bring this into school”; and that she would never treat gay or trans pupils differently (see para. 16 above). There had indeed been no complaints about any aspect of her work for over six years.”

"Taking those reasons together,", the judges said, "I do not believe that dismissal was even arguably a proportionate sanction for the Claimant’s conduct. It was no doubt unwise of her to re-post material expressed in (to use the ET’s words) florid and provocative language with which she did not agree, and in circumstances where people were liable to realise her connection with the School. But I cannot accept that that can justify her dismissal, and still less so where she was a long-serving employee against whose actual work there was no complaint of any kind.”

The Court therefore overruled the earlier decision of Employment Appeal Tribunal to remit the case for a re-trial, and concluded: “we should ourselves hold that the Claimant’s dismissal constituted unlawful discrimination on the ground of religion and belief”.

christianconcern.com/ccpressrelease… 2. In 2019, pastoral administrator Mrs Higgs was sacked for gross misconduct by Farmor’s Secondary School in Gloucestershire, and had her Christian beliefs compared to Neo-Nazism, for two Facebook posts.

The posts were made under her maiden name on a private account to her friends, which had no mention of her employer.

The posts were made in response to extreme gender identity books being introduced under the radar to her son’s Church of England primary school, which was not the school where she was employed. 

The first post shared a petition against compulsory sex education. The second post shared an article about the dangers of extreme transgender ideology in children’s books being introduced into UK and US schools.

An anonymous complaint was made about the posts to the headteacher which led to Mrs Higgs facing a six-hour interrogation, being investigated, and eventually sacked for allegedly bringing the school into disrepute.

Mrs Higgs launched legal action claiming she had been harassed, directly discriminated against, and had her rights breached under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).

The legal battle that followed has been plagued by delay and controversy with repeated recusals and evidence of transgender, Stonewall and extreme sex education activists sitting as lay magistrates on the presiding panels.

🧵1. Political Islam is already in Britain.

Did you know that the London Borough of Tower Hamlets is under the full political control of an exclusively Bangladeshi-Islamic male-only political party, called Aspire?

Replacing Labour as the party in power in 2022, Aspire shocked the political establishment by winning the local elections with no mainstream support, sectarian campaigning, and a leader, Lutfur Rahman, previously banned from office due to electoral fraud and practicing undue spiritual influence.

What is revealed about Britain's most Islamic area in this thread demonstrates how the Government must urgently review the teaching of “British values” in schools, and ensure the inclusion of the common foundations of Christianity, and shared British culture, history and habits.

Read the full piece with @DanielDieppe in @TheCriticMag today.

thecritic.co.uk/political-isla…

Find out more on election fraud Tower Hamlets Mayor, Luftur Rahman.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
2. The case of the Aspire Party, which only operates in Tower Hamlets, has become increasingly common in multicultural Britain under the increasing influence of Islam.

Whilst Muslims make up 6.5 per cent of the total UK population, they account for 40 per cent of the Tower Hamlets population — making it the most Islamic and most Bangladeshi local authority in Britain.

Although still unusual, the election of several independent “Pro-Gaza” MPs, the disruption of Parliament and political meetings has alerted political commentators of the increasingly isolated political views of British Muslims from the mainstream.

Tower Hamlets, in a sense, is the first British manifestation of such opinion.

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

1. England and Crystal Palace footballer, Marc Guehi, is not alone in being criticised, pressurised and punished for loving Jesus and expressing Christian beliefs in public. What he is facing is not a new theme for us and gets to the heart of many of the biggest legal cases the Christian Legal Centre supports. This thread gives you just some of their stories... 2. Felix Ngole was expelled from his university social work course after posting comments on his Facebook page in support of Biblical teaching. Despite a big win in the Court of Appeal, and now qualifying as a social worker, he continues to be punished for his beliefs. christianconcern.com/cccases/felix-…

GB News' @calvinrobinson speaks to our Head of Education, Steve Beegoo, about the "anti-Christian" and "sinister" teaching on gender identity that has been exposed at a CofE primary school in Norfolk: christianconcern.com/news/cofe-prim… Sadly, as Steve tells Calvin, what has been exposed in Norfolk "is just another example of what's happening up and down the country...".

christianconcern.com/comment/pm-ala…

"Of over five hundred sexual abuse cases between under-18s in Britain, fifty per cent featured behaviours learned from porn."

@Con_Tomlinson, presenter of the Lotus Eaters podcast, reveals the devastating consequences of porn on children: thecritic.co.uk/the-price-of-p… In 2020, we held a conference championing sexual purity - you can listen to all the sessions on our website: christianconcern.com/resource/champ…

The Bishop of Manchester, The Rt Rev. Dr David Walker, has seemingly revealed his belief that abortion is 'healthcare'.

@BishManchester said yesterday: "My concerns regarding Clause 9 had nothing to do with the moral merits or otherwise of abortion; they lie in my passion to see upheld the rights of citizens of this land, both to receive healthcare and to protest."

christianconcern.com/comment/lords-…

BREAKING: A Christian mother whose four-year-old son was required to take part in a school’s LGBT pride parade against her will is to have her legal case heard in court this week.

christianconcern.com/news/mother-to… Izzy Montague made national headlines after being aggressively told by the headteacher of Heaver’s Farm Primary School in Croydon, South London, that her son could not opt-out of the Pride event, despite the families’ Christian beliefs.

BREAKING: Christian parents, Calvin and Nicola Watts, have been forced to remove their children from a @churchofengland primary school after discovering that their 8-year-old child and classmates were being given extreme teaching on gender identity.

christianconcern.com/news/parents-f… The family were alerted by other parents that a video of ‘It feels good to be yourself: a book about gender identity’, by Theresa Thorn, had been shown in class without their knowledge or consent.

"We all therefore have a responsibility under God to protect our children, especially church leaders."

Yesterday, we delivered a petition, backed by 15,000 people, urging Justin Welby to drop the Church of England's trans-affirming guidance.

christianconcern.com/news/15000-cal… The petition hand-in coincided with the House of Bishops gathering from Monday 12 December to discuss its Living in Love and Faith project.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said for the first time that he will keep his views on same-sex marriage in church a secret as long as he is in post, according to The Times.

thetimes.co.uk/article/archbi… It comes as Bishops are meeting TODAY, and over the next couple of days, to discuss whether to formally bless same-sex relationships.

BREAKING: School chaplain Rev. Dr Bernard Randall has revealed to the Mail on Sunday how he was ‘betrayed’ by the Church of England after being forced out of his job and reported to counter-terrorism for a Christian sermon in a school chapel.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1… @A_Minichiello said: "Bernard Randall is a good man who loves Jesus and loves biblical truth and is passionate about the hope that is found in the gospel for school communities. He is kind, intelligent and not a safeguarding risk to anyone.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Psalm 139:13-14

#WorldDownSyndromeDay #WDSD #WorldDownSyndromeDay2022 #WDSD2022 On #WorldDownSyndromeDay, Psalm 139 serves as a beautiful reminder of how people with Down's syndrome are fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving creator.

Being born with an extra chromosome is no barrier to living happy, fulfilling lives either.

BREAKING: No evidence to justify Oxford college cancelling Christian Concern's Wilberforce Academy, says independent review

telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/2… Worcester College has been warned it could be unlawfully discriminating against Christians after it cancelled a conference booking amid "ill-founded complaints" from student activists who complained they were “distressed” by the event.

telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/2…

Street preacher Olu update: As Olu was driven away from the scene of his arrest, it was clear to him that the police wanted to take him as far away as possible so that he could not return and preach.
#StreetPreacher #FreedomOfSpeech Olu should not have been arrested, but to make matters worse here is what happened to him after his arrest. If you are concerned by this, please sign and share our petition. christianconcern.com/streetpreacher…

#StreetPreacher #FreedomOfSpeech