Victory for the Straight Truth

A woman campaigning to become a mayor in London has won substantial damages after being sacked for telling voters she believed in marriage between men and women.

Maureen Martin was accused of gross misconduct after her employer, a housing association, claimed her campaign pledge to promote 'natural marriage' was discriminatory and would offend gay and trans people.

Ms Martin sued London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) for unfair dismissal, discrimination and harassment in a case called 'an attack on democracy'. Last night she told The Mail on Sunday she was happy with the out-of-court settlement but described her treatment as chilling.

'Much of our culture is anti-Christian and believes that biblical beliefs, especially on marriage and human sexuality, are hate speech and therefore illegal,' she said.

'It is disturbing how Christian beliefs on marriage, which have been held and expressed for thousands of years, are being silenced and treated with such hostility and disdain in this country.

The case began in April last year when the 56-year-old, a candidate for the Christian Peoples Alliance in the contest to become mayor of Lewisham in South-East London, published a leaflet that was posted to the borough's 205,000 registered voters.

It promoted a 'six-point plan' and included promises to tackle flytipping, boost recycling rates and target knife crime.

The third point, however, proved incendiary for a small group of LGBTQ+ people.

In it, Ms Martin vowed to 'cut through political correctness and state the truth that natural marriage between a man and a woman is the fundamental building block for a successful society, and the safest environment for raising children'. 

Dragged into a disciplinary meeting, Ms Martin was told that her tweets, which included comments about transgenderism in women's sport, and her manifesto were 'homophobic and had breached L&Q's social media policy and had potentially brought the company into disrepute'.

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