go the extra mile

The Tories got into a minor squabble over the weekend, after one of their senior MPs was reported as having been recorded saying that people who offer Bed and Breakfast in their own homes (a common enough small business; the bottom end of the travel accommodation market) 'should "have the right" to turn away homosexual couples.'

It's rather a storm in a tea-cup (because the same man voted in favour of the legislation which criminalizes precisely this behaviour), but it raises a few questions worth revisiting. The ostensible reason for wanting to turn away such guests is a religious - specifically Christian - one.

Firstly, it seems profoundly illiberal to legislate about who private individuals may or may not do business with - especially when we are talking of (paying) guests in their own homes. And yet we would now look ascance at someone who declined to take particular guests due to the colour of their skin, or to being in a 'mixed marriage'. It matters not whether you or I would make a moral equivalency between racial discrimination and issues around gay rights: society has chosen to do so. Race relations laws have helped to shift and shape public opinion over the last generation or so. We can discuss elsewhere how successful they have been in that; but even so, there is little doubt that significant change has happenened. Moreover, if we argue that religious conscience should trump such societal consensus, then we have little grounds to argue that sometimes in Islam women receive less than the equal treatment that our society has come to expect. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: Christians can't appeal to the notion of human rights only when it appeals (human rights may be a bogus simplistic notion, but that's a separate discussion).

But suppose you do take the view that a gay couple sharing a bed under your roof is morally reprehensible - and you feel persecuted because the law says that if you want to rent rooms to anyone, you have to welcome those guests like any others. What then?

Well, didn't Jesus say something about good behaviour in the case where an unpleasant burden is placed upon you by the law? Isn't the way of love to bit your lip, suck it up, and take the guests? Which behaviour is most likely to win people over? Shutting the door on them, or lavishing love on them - in a household run along the lines which meet the standards you believe are the right ones? Of course, this runs a risk: you might discover that the people in question are human. You might discover that they are ordinary, frail, complex, warm-blooded people who need love. But if you believe in the transforming power of your faith, maybe they are the ones who will be persuaded. Here's the crucible of ideas and idologies: not in the forum or the academy, but in the B&B lounge.

That sounds a bit gushing, I know. It took me a while to get to that conclusion, but it seems robust. If the gospel is about anything, it's about bucking the trend, the tit-for-tat behaviour of the world. About giving without holding back, not about asking for special rights, or equality for ourselves. Isn't that the way to win the world?