Stranger Than Paradise
4th April 2010, 17:50
Link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8602371.stm)
A key Conservative has been recorded suggesting people who run bed and breakfasts in their homes should have the right to reject homosexual guests.
But shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said hotels should not be allowed to discriminate in that way.
Labour and the Lib Dems said the Tories would allow discrimination "to thrive".
Mr Grayling later said he was looking at being "sensitive to the genuinely held principles of faith groups" but was not seeking a change in the law.
The secret recording has been published on the Observer newspaper's website.
The BBC's political correspondent Norman Smith said the stance taken by Mr Grayling, MP for Epsom and Ewell, "put him at odds with the law".
Mr Grayling, MP for Epsom and Ewell, made his comments after a speech at the Centre for Policy Studies in London on Wednesday.
He was at the think tank to talk on the subject of "A Conservative Home Office."
During the recording, Mr Grayling is heard responding to a question from the audience about civil liberties. He said: "I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences.
"I personally always took the view that... if you look at the case of 'Should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from their 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.
"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."
The part where he says that he thinks it's on a high street because "in this day and age" we need to accept this is particularly memorable. "In this day and age" in other words is we can't say these things publicly because people will look at us weird.
A key Conservative has been recorded suggesting people who run bed and breakfasts in their homes should have the right to reject homosexual guests.
But shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said hotels should not be allowed to discriminate in that way.
Labour and the Lib Dems said the Tories would allow discrimination "to thrive".
Mr Grayling later said he was looking at being "sensitive to the genuinely held principles of faith groups" but was not seeking a change in the law.
The secret recording has been published on the Observer newspaper's website.
The BBC's political correspondent Norman Smith said the stance taken by Mr Grayling, MP for Epsom and Ewell, "put him at odds with the law".
Mr Grayling, MP for Epsom and Ewell, made his comments after a speech at the Centre for Policy Studies in London on Wednesday.
He was at the think tank to talk on the subject of "A Conservative Home Office."
During the recording, Mr Grayling is heard responding to a question from the audience about civil liberties. He said: "I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences.
"I personally always took the view that... if you look at the case of 'Should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from their 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.
"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."
The part where he says that he thinks it's on a high street because "in this day and age" we need to accept this is particularly memorable. "In this day and age" in other words is we can't say these things publicly because people will look at us weird.