A British doctor who lost a court case over the use of transgender pronouns says he is “deeply concerned” over the survival of freedom of speech in the U.K., reports BBC.
Disability assessor Dr. David Mackereth from Dudley, West Midlands, England, claimed the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) restricted his freedom of religion by requiring him to use a transgender person’s chosen pronouns. But the court ruled his Christian principles as “incompatible with human dignity.”
Dr. Mackereth said using pronouns incompatible with a person’s biological sex was “a ritual denial of an obvious truth.” He was suspended from his job after telling a manager at an assessment center that he would not use feminine pronouns to refer to “any 6-foot-tall bearded man” in June 2018.
Dr. Mackereth made his beliefs clear: “As a Christian, I would not be able to accede to such a request in good conscience.”
His counsel, Michael Phillips of the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), argued that the DWP discriminated against Dr. Mackereth for his Christian beliefs, reports Christian Today.
“It follows that every person is created by God as either male or female,” Phillips said during the hearing. “A person cannot change their sex [or] gender at will. Any attempt at, or pretence of, doing so, is pointless, self-destructive and sinful.”
But the tribunal in Birmingham did not agree.
“A lack of belief in transgenderism and conscientious objection to transgenderism in our judgment are incompatible with human dignity and conflict with the fundamental rights of others,” the judgment said.
Dr. Mackereth plans to appeal the decision in order to defend Christians’ rights to free speech.
“If they cannot [speak the truth], then freedom of speech has died in this country, with serious ramifications for the practice of medicine in the U.K.”
Back in July, before the panel had reached their decision, Franklin Graham spoke up in Dr. Mackereth’s defense and called for prayer.
“What kind of mixed-up world are we living in that would require—or even ask—a doctor to refer to a man as she or a woman as he?” Franklin wrote on Facebook. “Dr. David Mackereth is a Christian doctor in the UK who refused to call men and women by the gender pronouns they preferred rather than their actual biological sex. Dr. Mackereth told a tribunal panel that using transgender pronouns was a ‘denial of an obvious truth.’ Dr. Mackereth is referred to as ‘unashamedly Christian’—That’s a good thing! We should not be ashamed to stand up for our faith or the truth.
“This former emergency department doctor of 26 years argued before the tribunal that maleness and femaleness are ‘unchangeable and fundamental to who we are as people who were created in the image of God.’ He said, ‘I don’t believe a person can change their gender. It’s not scientifically or medically possible. We have a problem here of two world views that struggle to accept each other.’
“I think we have a crisis of common sense, letting the LGBTQ agenda over-run even biological facts. Pray for Dr. Mackereth, that his rights to religious conscience would be upheld—it’s a decision that could impact many.” {eoa}
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