Relating well

McFarlane v Relate Avon Ltd

The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 outlaw discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief. However, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has said in McFarlane v Relate Avon Ltd that it was not discriminatory to dismiss a committed Christian for refusing to comply with his employer’s equal opportunities policy which stated that it offered all its services equally to all sections of the community.

Basic facts

Mr McFarlane was a committed Christian who worked as a counsellor for Relate, an organisation offering relationship counselling. Its code of ethics stated that therapists must not impose any particular “standards, values or ideals upon clients”, and its equal opportunities policy explicitly stated (amongst other things) that no one should be treated less favourably because of their sexual orientation.

In 2006 Mr McFarlane said that he wanted to start a postgraduate diploma in psycho-sexual therapy looking at problems of sexual dysfunction. Around this time he raised with his employer the possibility of being exempted from working with same-sex couples with sexual issues.

Relate refused and asked Mr McFarlane to confirm that he would continue to provide relationship counselling which involved same-sex sexual issues. He said at first that he would but then intimated in a conversation with his supervisor that he was not willing to do so. As a result, Mr McFarlane was dismissed. He lodged a number of claims, including direct and indirect discrimination under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003.

Tribunal decision

The tribunal decided that Mr McFarlane was dismissed not because of his faith but because of his refusal to comply with Relate’s equal opportunities policy. It said that any counsellor who expressed similar concerns “for reasons unrelated to religion” would have been treated the same way and therefore rejected this claim of direct discrimination.

It also rejected his claim of indirect discrimination claim on the basis that his dismissal was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, which was to provide a full range of counselling services to all sections of the community.

Mr McFarlane appealed, arguing (amongst other things), that because his faith was the reason for his refusal to comply with the equal opportunities policy, he had been dismissed on the grounds of his religion/belief.

EAT decision

The EAT upheld the tribunal’s decision. It accepted that people with religious beliefs were likely to “manifest that belief in their conduct” and that there would be cases when employers were objecting to the belief itself (as opposed to a manifestation of it).

But in other cases (as here) a legitimate distinction could be made between the reason for the dismissal and the underlying reason for the behavior that prompted the dismissal.

The fact that the motivation for the employee's conduct was a wish to manifest a religious belief did not mean that that belief was also the motivation behind the employer's action. Such claims would have to be based on indirect discrimination in order to succeed.

The EAT also dismissed the claim of indirect discrimination. Relying on the decision in the case of London Borough of Islington v Ladele (weekly LELR 103) in which it was held that the Council was entitled to expect all registrars to perform civil partnership duties. The EAT said there was no reason to treat Relate any differently from the Council as the situations in the two cases were substantially the same and therefore the dismissal was perceived as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.