Why is it so hard to be a Christian in public life?

Is it any longer acceptable to be a Christian? News reaches me of a strange case involving the Liberal Democrat party. Ordinarily, I would pay no more attention to happenings within the Liberal Democrat party than I would to a golf tournament. But this case is a telling one.

It involves somebody called David Campanale, who has been deselected from the Lib Dems’ parliamentary candidate list. You would have thought that is quite a difficult thing to do. First because it is extraordinary that anyone would want to join the Lib Dems – the party is hardly bursting with talent. Secondly, since the party and its predecessor have traditionally been led by alcoholics and dog-murderers, I should have thought selection is a tricky thing to fail.

Kate Forbes was treated as though she was not just some kind of anomaly, but some sort of monster

But Mr Campanale is a Christian. And not just a Christian but a Christian who was involved with the Christian Peoples Alliance – a political party which has anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage views. I’ve met people from this party and thought them very nice. Nevertheless the fact that Campanale was once a member (he left in 2012) means that the usual deranged activists demanded he be deselected. Various LGBT activists apparently joined the charge.

Campanale is now in touch with the Equality and Human Rights Commission claiming that the Lib Dems committed ‘multiple alleged breaches of equality law’ and that he ‘was driven out from his democratically elected position not because of any objective failings or wrongdoing but because a vocal group within Sutton Borough Liberal Democrats refused to tolerate his Christian worldview’.