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A senior Conservative MP has voiced his support for the right of bed and breakfast owners to stop same-sex couples from staying in their properties.

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, was secretly recorded by the Observer newspaper stating that he believed that Christians, as well as the followers of other faiths, should be able to turn away lesbian and gay people who wanted to stay at their establishments.

He said: “If you look at the case of should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from a hotel, I took the view that if it’s a question of somebody who’s doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn’t come into their own home.”

Under the Equality Act, no business is allowed refuse goods or services to someone on the grounds of their sexual orientation. Grayling said that he did not believe the law should be changed, but that it should be a matter of “conscience” for individual B&B owners.

He said he believed that hotels, however, should be forced to admit same-sex couples: “If they are running a hotel on the high street, I really don’t think that it is right in this day and age that a gay couple should walk into a hotel and be turned away because they are a gay couple, and I think that is where the dividing line comes.”

For many gay rights campaigners, Grayling’s comment raises questions about the Conservative Party’s recent LGBT-friendly stance. Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, said the comments would be “alarming to a lot of gay people who may have been thinking of voting Conservative,” while Peter Tatchell says that the MP should retract his comments.

Posted in: Campaigns & Politics |