School priest fired after opposing LGBTQ-inclusive education to sue former employers
Bernard Randall told students that gay sex is "morally problematic."
Words: Jamie Tabberer; picture: Pixabay (posed by model)
A chaplain is to sue a Church of England school after it sacked him following comments he made against LGBTQ-inclusive education and marriage equality.
An official at Trent College near Nottingham also reported Bernard Randall to terrorism watchdog Prevent after he told students during a sermon that the Anglican Church viewed marriage as between a man and woman.
The 48-year-old priest also told students at the fee-paying boarding school that they didn’t have to “accept an ideology they disagree with”, after Dr. Elly Barnes – founder of LGBT+ inclusion training organisation Educate and Celebrate – was recruited to train the school’s staff.
“Morally problematic”
After an investigation, Derbyshire Police informed the school via email that Randall posed “no counter-terrorism risk, or risk of radicalisation,” adding: “The case did not meet the threshold for a Prevent referral.”
Randall claims he was then disciplined and told by the school that his future sermons would be censored in advance, and monitored to ensure “requirements are met.” He was later dismissed.
He is now suing for discrimination, harassment, victimisation, and unfair dismissal. According to the Mail On Sunday, he claims: “My career and life are in tatters.”
Randall delivered the sermon in June 2019. According to MoS, he told students: “You should no more be told you have to accept LGBT ideology than you should be told you must be in favour of Brexit or must be Muslim.”
He also said: “There are several areas where many or most Christians (and, for that matter, people of other faiths, too), will be in disagreement with LGBT activists, and where you must make up your own mind. So it is perfectly legitimate to think that marriage should only properly be understood as being a lifelong exclusive union of a man and a woman; indeed, that definition is written into English law.
“You may perfectly properly believe that, as an ideal, sexual activity belongs only within such marriage, and that therefore any other kind is morally problematic. That is the position of all the major faith groups – though note that it doesn’t apply only to same-sex couples.”
Days later he was allegedly told by school officials his sermon was “harmful to LGBT pupils.”
Update: when asked for comment, a spokesperson for Trent College provided the following statement to Attitude.
“A number of media outlets have run pieces about an upcoming Employment Tribunal. To respect the legal process, we are unable to comment in detail on the specifics of the case.
“For clarity, however, it is important to note that the local authority advised us to refer the matter to Prevent, as is common practise for schools and colleges. The matter was reviewed and we were subsequently advised that it did not meet the threshold for further action from Prevent. The Employment Tribunal proceedings are ongoing.
“Trent College is a school with a Christian ethos where we are proud of our commitment to supporting the wellbeing of all our students, regardless of faith, ethnicity, gender or sexuality.
“We seek opportunities to establish the most current understanding of the fast-moving landscape our community is living in, so that we can best serve our pupils’ needs and those of our staff. We work hard to stay abreast of the most current thinking on inclusivity, including the fast-moving LGBT+ landscape.
“We are a community that seeks to be characterised by the inclusive, empathetic and caring approach to and by the pupils. We work tirelessly in our aim that they are equipped to thrive in day-to-day modern life in all of its facets.”