A victory against those damnable forces of political correctness – an employment tribunal decided last week that Lillian Ladele, a marriage registrar, should not be forced to officiate at gay civil partnerships, despite the fact that it was precisely her job to do so.

Ladele, a bigot, aged 47, does not much like the idea of homosexuals doing anything with each other, let alone getting married. Officiating at such a ceremony was in direct contravention of her beliefs, the tribunal decided.

Crucial to its judgment was Ladele’s “Christian faith” which, she insisted, precluded her from giving a professional blessing to sodomites. I don’t know what would have happened if she had told the tribunal that she wasn’t a Christian or a Muslim or of any other faith but just hated poofs. Probably she’d have lost.

But the fact that she can append her bigotry to a minority view within a church attended by a vanishingly small section of the British population apparently swung the day.

There is a double irony here: civil ceremonies, for both gays and straights, are supposedly the secular alternative to a church service, so it is a bit iniquitous to find God – or at least Ladele’s own, personal, vengeful vision of God – poking his big nose in by proxy.

Further, there is a large swathe of the Christian church which finds quite invidious all marriage services conducted beyond the reach of Jesus Christ, which is why the Church of England fought long and hard to ensure that, by law, the Bible must not be quoted at these ceremonies.

Perhaps Ladele can reconvene the tribunal and tell them that, as a Christian, she objects to all secular marriage ceremonies and therefore cannot, on account of her religion, officiate at any of them. To make her do so would be discriminatory, as would sacking her.

She has the human right to be a marriage registrar and refuse to sanction all secular marriages; to just sit at her desk playing online Sudoku all year while feverishly rubbing her crucifix.

A compromise might have been to force her to officiate at gay civil partnerships, as required in her job description, but to allow her to shower gay couples with virulent abuse as soon as the formalities were over.

Perhaps she could scream at them, as they kissed, “if there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act, they shall surely be put to death”. (Leviticus 20:13) This, I think, would get the reception going nicely and would be a good talking point for the guests.

Members of the right-wing press have seen Ladele’s case as a “victory for common sense” against the political correctness of Islington council, which employed this woman.

It seems to me quite the reverse and the very apogee of political correctness (incidentally, can you imagine the Daily Mail and others taking the same sort of view if Ladele had happened to be a Muslim?).

The victory for common sense would have been achieved if Ladele had resigned from her post because she felt that it was no longer compatible with her private beliefs since the legal approval of civil partnerships for gay people in 2004.

Instead, out of a desire to pay obeisance to any and all forms of religious bigotry, rather than insist to individuals that their views are stupid and medieval, the tribunal has opened the doors to a whole array of nutters with terrible sensibilities to plead their cases.

Ladele was not expected to endow gay couples with a Christian blessing – indeed she would be forbidden from doing so. She should have either resigned or got on with her job without discrimination, reserving her dislike of homosexuals for her private moments.

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+ Pull back those curtains and take a look – that’s the Google van out front, taking photographs of your house, part of the company’s project to put a picture of every home in the world on the internet. An inclusive project, then – especially welcomed by Britain’s vibrant and much maligned community of burglars, who will now be able to case your gaff and then buy some bolt cutters and a blowtorch on eBay.

Perhaps we should make our way around, en masse, to the house of Rachel Whetstone and snap away with our cameras. Rachel – who, incidentally, is a former adviser to Michael Howard and godmother to David Cameron’s son Ivan – is Google’s vice-president of global communications, so I assume she’ll be perfectly at ease with our unbidden invasion of her privacy. We could take some beers and make a day of it.

I wonder if she’s got a fatuous wind turbine on her roof? Find out soon enough, I suppose.

*****

I can resist it easily, thanks

I've been racking my brains trying to think of any film from the last 100 years I would less rather see than Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!, the Abba musical – but nothing, not even Sex and the City, comes close. Could it be worse? Only in the realms of fiction. Robin Williams in You’re Beautiful – The James Blunt Story would be worse, I suppose, but nobody’s been malicious or stupid enough to make it. Yet. Streep will presumably be required to do things she has never done before in a film – smile and move about a bit. She also has to sing – all that reductionist Scando-pop drivel which has somehow, God knows why, achieved a certain respectability over the years. My, my. How can we resist it? Girls: things not to do on a beach in Dubai – or indeed any Muslim Arab country. (1) Organise a giant hog roast. (2) Recite loudly from the Torah while swigging a bottle of Jack Daniels. (3) Have sex with a man called Vince from Bromley and then lamp a policeman when you are arrested.

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Don't fight them on the beach, Michelle

You might argue that no matter where you are it is not a good idea to lamp a copper and have sexual intercourse with a man called Vince from Bromley, even if you are in your own home. But it’s even more the case in Dubai, as Michelle Palmer has latterly discovered.

She and Vince face a possible six-year jail sentence for having done something which, if undertaken at Camber Sands or Filey, would result in nothing more punitive than frostbite and a spot of thrush. However, in order to extricate herself from her predicament, Michelle now requires legal representation.

Her friends, rallying round, say she is a “nice girl”. Well, of course she is. But in this latest gunfight in the battle of ideas, this cultural war between Islam and the West, are you happy with which side you’re on?

*****

It’s not too onerous an operation, shepherding the planes and helicopters into St Mary’s airport on the Scilly Isles. Never more than 120 flights a day in high season – largely comprising little Twin Otter aircraft, bouncing the 30 miles or so from Penzance. So we shouldn’t worry too much that its air traffic control centre, in adherence with equal opportunity guidelines, is sending out its latest job application forms in Braille. Have a safe flight, now.

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