A Christian man had his social worker job withdrawn because it was feared his beliefs would lead to the suicides of LGBT patients, an employment tribunal has heard. The Telegraph has more.
Rev Felix Ngole, 46, had been offered employment with Stonewall-backed NHS provider Touchstone, which provides mental health and wellbeing services to over 10,000 individuals each year across Yorkshire, in 2022.
After the charity learned that he believed homosexuality was a sin, he was called in for a second interview and turned down.
Mr. Ngole, of Barnsley, in South Yorkshire, told Leeds employment tribunal he has worked as a youth worker, teacher and pastor for 20 years, and has helped gypsies, lesbians, gays and trans people during that time.
In answer to a Touchstone report in which it was stated Mr. Ngole’s employment could lead to vulnerable service users killing themselves because of his Christian beliefs, he said: “If just 2% of it [the report] was correct, that when people see me they might kill themselves, then, I’m telling you, the graveyards in Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster would be full.
“I have worked with people from the gypsy community, gay and lesbian. Not long ago I worked with a trans person and I treated them as a human being.
“When I look at a person I see a human being, I don’t look under your trousers to see if you are a man or a woman.”
The tribunal heard Mr. Ngole, who came to Britain from Cameroon as an asylum seeker, saw the Touchstone job on the website Indeed and applied for the role, stating that he was a reverend.
Mr. Ngole, a grandfather who is being supported in the tribunal by his wife, Pepsy, 55, qualified as a social worker in 2021.
Just under a month after offering Mr. Ngole a job, Touchstone bosses googled his name and read about an earlier court hearing involving the University of Sheffield.
In that instance, Mr. Ngole had posted on Facebook that he believed homosexuality was “wicked” and “sinful”.
Touchstone then felt Mr. Ngole’s Christian values went against the charity’s values and ethos.
Kathryn Hart, Deputy Chief Executive at the charity, was concerned that Mr. Ngole’s “viewpoints on LGBTQI+ relationships and same sex marriage would be visible to all, and it was of serious concern to me how the Claimant’s views could potentially negatively impact the vulnerable service users”.
Despite the father of three seeking to assure Leeds-based Touchstone that he had never been accused of forcing his beliefs on anyone and that he had never been accused of discriminating against anybody, he was called in for another interview and the job offer was eventually withdrawn.
Worth reading in full.
The case represents a potentially major escalation in the war on non-woke beliefs as it’s believed to be the first time it has been argued that a person merely holding and expressing on social media traditional Christian views on marriage and sexuality ought to be a reason to discriminate in employment against him due to the potential harm to LGBT people. A victory for the charity could have a major impact on freedom of speech, and not just for Christians. For instance, it may mean an employer would be free to do the same in relation to a person espousing gender critical views, claiming a risk of trans people committing suicide. Will the tribunal recognise that Christian views, like gender critical views, are protected beliefs and so may not be discriminated against in this way? That would clearly be best for freedom of speech and freedom of belief, and would seem the right outcome under current U.K. law. But employment tribunals can be hard to second guess, so we shall see.
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