Legal challenge to church's advertising
A BELFAST church's legal battle against an advertising ban on proclaiming sodomy an abomination has been strengthened by being allowed to widen its grounds of challenge, it has been claimed.
The Rev David McIlveen stressed the significance of a Court of Appeal ruling that arguments on conflicting ideologies could be added to the bid to judicially review restrictions imposed by regulators.
Sandown Free Presbyterian Church is challenging the prohibition by the Advertising Standards Authority, who found that a newspaper notice it placed had caused serious offence.
A High Court judge has already held there is an arguable case that its rights to religious belief and freedom of expression were breached, and that it may have been denied the chance to offer an explanation before the ban was imposed.
But lawyers for the church appealed the decision to refuse leave to seek judicial review on three additional grounds.
The legal case centres on a full-page advert it took out in the News Letter ahead of a Gay Pride parade in Belfast in August 2008.
It was headlined: "The word of God against sodomy" and invited people to meet for gospel witness against the act.
After receiving seven complaints that the notice was homophobic the ASA ruled it could not appear again in the same form. It also told the church to take more care in future to avoid causing serious offence.
John Larkin QC, for Sandown, told the Court of Appeal there was an ideological divide between those who see sodomy as harmless and his clients, who see the practice as a "very grave sin, putting those who commit it on the road to perdition".
He argued that those who warn of the threat of damnation should not be "castigated" any more than others who caution of the consequences of not wearing a seat-belt.
Following submissions judges held that the competing ideologies ground could be added to the judicial review when it proceeds to a full hearing later this year.
Outside the court Mr McIlveen described it as a significant advancement in the church's case.
He said: "We have a right to express publicly our belief in what the Bible teaches on the subject of sodomy. Other people object to that of course and therefore they have a right to do so.
"But the Advertising Standards Authority has no right, as we see it, to adjudicate on those two ideologies."
He insisted the challenge was not against those who complained about the advertisement.
"I will defend the right of those seven complainants to complain – I have no difficulty with that, although I do have to say it's a very small number with regard to the population of Northern Ireland for the ASA to get so involved and to consider we have caused serious offence whenever only seven people have objected."
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Wednesday 15 February 2012
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