Reply #11: After several days of searching, I have located (and posted in this forum) several

[struggle4progress]

of the rulings in this case, which (which other easily available materials) provide enough detail to describe the events in question

McFarlane had a former legal career as a solicitor, which he left after several decades, for a career in marital and relationship counseling: he was employed at Relate Avon after a brief volunteering period there. He does not object to counseling same sex couples on relationship issues and has counseled such couples at Relate Avon. For religious reasons, he does object to counseling same sex couples on sexual matters and raised this concern earlier. Relate Avon has a nondiscrimination statement which he accepted by signing. Notwithstanding the potential conflict between his conscience concerns regarding counseling same sex couples on sexual matters and the nondiscrimination statement, McFarlane then sought to move into sexual counseling at Relate Avon: he began appropriate academic training and was given different work responsibilities. He was not terminated for failure to perform specific job functions: he was terminated after a series of conversations with management about hypotheticals, in which management considered his responses too ambiguous

As a general rule, I should sympathize with the employee fired after hypothetical conversations, but certain features here almost scream "rightwing organizing effort." McFarlane, a former lawyer, seeks employment at an organization with a nondiscrimination policy and, though not objecting to counseling same sex couples on relationship issues, he does object to counseling same sex couples on sexual issues -- whereafter he seeks to specialize in sexual counseling matters, and his new position provides an opportunity for a series of run-ins with the employer over purely hypothetical matters. McFarlane's termination then leads Lord Carey's hysterical public predictions about persecution and urban unrest

I don't think rhetorical questions and empty hypothetical jabber are nearly as far as informative as the actual details