WRC - JUDGEMENT ON BEULAH PRINT

Beulah Print have been notified that the WRC has found us guilty of discrimination
on the grounds of sexual orientation. However while we may have been judged so by
the WRC, we are absolutely clear, and have maintained from the outset, that we did
not discriminate against our customer in turning down the designing and printing of a
same sex wedding invitation. Therefore we reject the findings of the WRC. We
simply acted in accordance with the light of our own consciences as followers of
Christ. We did not refuse our customer service because of who he is or how he
chooses to live, indeed we were happy to serve him in the past and would happily
continue to serve him in the future.
We have turned down many jobs over the years solely because they were in clear
opposition to our Christian faith. We have been asked at various times to facilitate
tax evasion and to promote indecency, drunkenness and false cults in our printing,
however on all these occasions it was not the person we had issue with but the job
they were requesting to have printed. It is the same in this case. We are not against
people who choose to practice homosexuality, but as bible believing Christians, we
cannot in good conscience go along with printing invitations for same sex unions. For
us, designing and printing invitations to such events would be the lending of our
approval and even the promotion of the content and is therefore something we could
never do.
The WRC ruling tends to force conformity with regard to personal moral choices
which many people hold in good faith. We have only recently passed laws to allow
same sex marriage in this country and a sizeable minority voted against – are we
now to require all of those citizens to go against their consciences and bend to the
will of the majority? As followers of Christ we take our lead from Him, irrespective of
current social trends.
The WRC ruling reflects a growing departure from the traditional Judeo/Christian
basis for the laws of Ireland. The modern roots of our individual rights and freedoms
in the Western world are found in Christianity. The recognition by law of the intrinsic
value of each human being did not exist in ancient times. Among the Romans, law
protected social institutions but it did not safeguard the basic rights of the individual,
such as personal security, freedom of conscience, of speech, of assembly, of
association, and so forth. If the state dictates what a person may or may not believe
and demands conformity in matters of personal moral choices we are travelling the
road of intolerance towards totalitarianism.
At our mediation meeting in the WRC offices it was clearly assumed that we were in
the wrong. The mediator went so far as to suggest that we should consider offering
€4,000 to settle the complaint there and then and so avoid a possible bigger amount
of compensation later on plus the attendant negative publicity that we were assured
would ensue. This was not true mediation between two parties but rather a WRC
judgment before its time which suggests a bias in its administration.
It would be hypocrisy for any person to put aside their sincerely held convictions,
while they are at work, in order to fit into a particular culture. For Christians to do so
would be tantamount to saying to God 'I will do what I believe to be right at the
weekends but for the rest of the week I’ll do whatever anyone asks me to do'. Such a
person would be rightly judged a hypocrite.