The sleepy rural parish of Cookham in Bedfordshire, England, has recently been the focus of some unwanted media attention - and unwanted guests, it would seem.

A gay couple booked a night's stay in a double room at a Bed and Breakfast in the village. When they turned up, the owners, who are Evangelical Christians, refused to accommodate them because it is "against their convictions" to have two men sharing a bed. They were given a refund and politely asked to leave.

The bad old days: until 1965, B&Bs
could bar guests on grounds of ethnicity
as well as species

This situation is not unusual -  for years, B&Bs have been free to run a "no gays" policy. The Cookham incident is an unpleasant throwback to the days when "no Blacks, no Irish" signs next to "no vacancies" were a common sight (outlawed by the Race Relations Act 1965, much to the discomfort of B&B owners). In spite of the Equality Act 2006 now making it illegal to refuse to provide goods or services to anyone on grounds of sexual orientation, the B&B owners decided they didn't want any gayers under their roof.

These days, we would like to think that society has moved on and become more tolerant, but alas, a cursory reading of the newspapers reveal that prejudice is alive and well in modern Britain. The Daily Mail's reporting on the story is of little concern, but a glance over the readers' comments is very revealing: the vast majority think that turning people away from a B&B just because they are gay is perfectly all right. Given that the Mail is UK's second-biggest-selling newspaper leads one to the depressing conclusion that the vast majority of Britons are homophobic bigots. We have a long way to go.

Gay couple 'turned away from guest house because owner would not let them share a bed'
Daily Mail, 23 March 2010
(headline later changed to the rather more polemic We've been vilified for turning away gays, say Christian B&B couple)

Even the Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has lent his support to this wretched line of thinking.

The chief argument centres around a perception of the provision of bed & breakfast as a legal grey area - while the owners are providing a service, they are inviting people into their own private home and should be able to decide who they do and do not welcome. Arguably, there are good reasons not to admit, say, smokers, children, pets, swingers or stag parties (noise, smell, bad behaviour, shedding hair... in no particular order). But in turning away a gay couple, do they assume all gay couples will behave badly, leave a mess, have orgies and so on? Possibly, but the issue here is religious belief - although they are providing a public service for payment, the B&B owners see fit to inflict a personal religious prohibition on the general public. While they are entitled to expect good behaviour and respect, they are forfeiting the privacy of their own home by making it their place of business. Just as they are subject to the laws covering fire safety, food hygiene and racial equality, they are also no longer allowed to operate a "no poofters" policy. The private home argument simply does not wash.

Part of me pities them. Is there then no room for freedom of conscience? Are these genuinely-held religious beliefs to be trampled by secularism and the new morality? There is a way out for these poor B&B owners: they should start a private members' club, a national network of Evangelical Christian bed and breakfasts. Members will be able to book accommodation safe in the knowledge that all other guests and hosts will believe in Jesus Christ, the substituionary atonement, the infallibility of Scripture, one holy Cathlolic and Apostolic Church, the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come - and there will be no sex outside marriage or homosexual goings-on under the contiental quilts, no hands sullied by boy-on-boy action handling the tea-and-coffee-making facilities. The tenets of Leviticus will be upheld to the fullest extent, presumably also pushing scampi and bacon and eggs off the menu. They will be cocooned in their pure, sanctified existence, protected from the modern world; and as they will not be promising a public service, they will not have the embarrassment of refusing it to the people they do not agree with. Iris Robinson and the Pope would be most at home.

Freedom of religious conscience is a hot topic in the right-wing press. The Mail readership is evidently firmly in favour of the freedom to refuse to provide goods and services on grounds of religious conscience, and any assault on this is branded Political Correctness Gone Mad, discussion closed - but only if it applies to Christians. The very next day, the paper ran a story about a branch of KFC removing bacon from its burgers in order to offer a Halal menu to Muslim customers. Another triumph for religious freedom over commercial service provision... completely derided by the entire readership of the Daily Mail! Just fancy that!