A Sad Day for Christianity and Western Culture

Duke Amachree had a spotless record for 18 years as a homelessness prevention officer counseling housing clients for Wandsworth Council in the United Kingdom. And then a terminally-ill woman with an incurable condition came to ask his advice.

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The woman's landlord was selling her apartment, and she wanted to find accommodations near a hospital where she could be treated. After almost an hour of discussing her options, Amachree mentioned that doctors don't have all the answers and that she should not give up hope and put her faith in God.

"Sometimes we read in newspapers, or see on television, instances where doctors have declared a patient's condition incurable but they went on and recovered."--Duke Amachree

Amachree said the woman did not seem offended by his words of encouragement, but did say that religion had not worked for her. Then she smiled, thanked him, and left. However, two days later the Council's director of housing handed Amachree a two-page letter informing him that the woman had complained, and he was being suspended.

"[Amachree] gave wholly inappropriate and unprofessional advice to a very sick person who has an incurable illness, which caused great upset and distress."--Council spokesman

Council officers accused Amachree of crossing boundaries, i.e., raising the issue of religion with a client during an interview. They went on to say that "God had to be kept out of the workplace" and that it was inappropriate to ever mention God to a client, even to say something as benign as "God bless."

"It was a like a bad dream. I could not believe it. I was so stunned I could not even bring myself to tell my wife what had happened."--Duke Amachree

Following a six-month investigation and three interviews with the Council, Amachree was fired for "gross misconduct." Gross misconduct is usually levied for serious offenses such as violence in the workplace or theft. Christian Legal Centre (CLC), which promotes religious freedom for Christians and Christianity, took Amachree's case to the job tribunal arguing that the Council had fired him unfairly and had discriminated against him on the basis of his religion. Even though the tribunal learned that the woman did not want Amachree fired, that his motivation was purely compassionate, and that the Council hadn't told him before the suspension not to mention God during a housing interview, they upheld the Council's decision that it was gross misconduct to tell a client with an incurable illness to trust in God.

"This is a sad day for Christians who simply want to live out their faith in the workplace without fear."--Duke Amachree

The Amachree case comes on the heels of the case against the nurse who was accused by her employer of failing to demonstrate a "personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity" because she offered to pray for an elderly patient who was ill. Caroline Petrie was suspended by the North Somerset Primary Care Trust but has since been reinstated. Amachree and the CLC plan to appeal the tribunal's decision. UK and US laws have become progressively more draconian and less tolerant of practicing Jews and Christians. The decline of Christianity's and Judaism's influence on western culture grows increasing apparent in the wake of the courts' mad rush to cater to Muslims and to embrace sexual deviants.

"Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot."--Alexis de Tocqueville

When a society gives a homosexual activist masquerading as a federal judge the power to trash thousands of years of western tradition, overthrow the will of the electorate in a sovereign state, and redefine marriage for an entire nation, that society cannot escape destruction. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity"--W. B. Yeats