Church groups are to challenge in court gay rights legislation that would make it illegal for hotels to turn away guests because of their sexuality.

Christian organisations say that the regulations interfere with religious belief and are seeking a judicial review of the regulations in Northern Ireland, where they took effect this month, before similar moves planned for the rest of the United Kingdom.

An attempt to scrap the regulations in Northern Ireland failed in the Lords last night by 199 to 68, a majority of 131.

Critics of the regulations say that they will force guest houses, schools, churches, nursing homes, printers, adoption agencies and even wedding photographers to compromise on moral objections to homosexuality or face being sued. But Stonewall, the gay rights group, accused religious groups of creating a false picture by citing examples that would not arise or could not lead to legal action.

The application for a judicial review is due to be heard in March at the High Court in Belfast. It has the potential to embarrass the Government, which is split over the introduction of legislation in England, Wales and Scotland.

Ruth Kelly, the Cabinet minister responsible for equality legislation, is an active Roman Catholic.

She has infuriated colleagues by delaying the regulations, ostensibly because of the volume of responses to a consultation launched in March last year. She now has just three months to publish her department’s formal response, release the regulations in draft form and secure the approval from the Commons and Lords in time for their planned introduction on April 6.

The already tight timetable could be thrown into doubt if the court hearing in Belfast finds procedural flaws in the process followed in Northern Ireland and triggers similar legal moves to challenge Ms Kelly’s regulations.

Among the most sensitive areas is accommodation, where operators of larger guest-houses, hotels or boarding houses could be sued for discrimination if they turn away a gay couple saying that their presence might offend other guests, or if they refuse them a room with a double bed.

The Northern Ireland regulations offer an exemption to people who take in lodgers in their own homes and to small guesthouses that double as the proprietor’s home, but other forms of accommodation fall firmly within their scope.

There have been a number of cases of discrimination against gay couples in tourist accommodation, boarding houses or hotels, usually in rural areas, according to Keith Etherington, a solicitor and member of the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers’ Association.

“This is where the law will bite: in the services industry, the small hotels where couples have turned up and the hotelier has not realised it was two men, or two women, and they have been turned away. If that continues, then the couple will now have a right of action against the hotel.”

The regulations for Northern Ireland are particularly controversial as they introduce an additional concept of harassment caused by conduct that might create “an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment”.

Ministers have said that this addition is due to the special circumstances of Northern Ireland, where equality legislation has a different process due to the sectarian tensions in the Province, and they have pledged that the regulations for the rest of Britain will deal solely with discrimination and not harassment.

Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall, said that most of the examples cited by critics were implausible or inaccurate. The regulations also had an exemption for doctrinal religious belief, he said.

“It has been slightly frustrating as we have had over the past few weeks people getting exercised over things who almost appear not to have read these regulations,” Mr Summerskill added.

Other supporters of the laws, including the Trades Union Congress, urged ministers not to give ground.

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