You know, when gay marriage legislation was going through parliament and Christian campaigners were warning about the possibility that those with a conscientious objection to gay marriage would find themselves at a disadvantage in public life – especially teachers – I honestly thought that it would take some time to happen. You might have some nutty secularist calling out a teacher who stubbornly refused to teach the parity of gay and straight marriage to children, but outside the Liberal Democrats, I couldn’t really see persecution ahead, other than for marriage registrars who would, unfortunately, just have to lump their conscientious difficulties with marrying same-sex couples.
Well, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. For Mr Mark Spencer, Tory MP for Sherwood, Notts, Robin Hood territory, has just emerged from complete obscurity to suggest that teachers who use their position to teach children that gay marriage is ‘wrong’ should be subject to Extremism Disruption Orders.
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