Now B&B owner who banned gays is taken to court over website
A CHRISTIAN bed and breakfast owner has been taken to court for advertising his business as ‘heterosexual-friendly’.
Tom Forrest first provoked controversy in 2004 by refusing to let a homosexual couple share a double bed in his guest house.
He was later struck off VisitScotland’s accommodation list for practising discrimination. Now Mr Forrest has been taken to the civil court in Inverness by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
After a private hearing at Inverness Sheriff Court yesterday, the EHRC confirmed its counsel, Dorothy Bain, was seeking an interim interdict to force the 70-year-old to remove certain comments and images from the website for his B&B in Kinlochewe, Ross-shire.
The EHRC’s concerns related to the use of the term ‘heterosexual-friendly’ and the statement ‘man + woman = marriage’, in pictorial terms.
But Mr Forrest is understood to have only hired a lawyer, Murray McCheyne, to represent him shortly before the hearing. Neither would make a comment after Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood continued consideration of the EHRC’s application until March 20.
This was to allow Mr Forrest to properly instruct his legal representative.
In the meantime, an EHRC spokesman said Mr Forrest had agreed to remove the contentious wording on his website temporarily while the legal battle progresses.
An EHRC spokesman said: ‘We are pleased that Cromasaig bed and breakfast has agreed to remove these phrases from their website until such time as the court makes an order in relation to the matter.
‘The Commission had received complaints which led to us having concerns that the phrases, in the context they were used, may be discriminatory.
‘We asked Cromasaig to remove them but they were not willing to do so and so we took this legal action. We now await the court’s decision.
‘This action is only about those references and of course Mr Forrest has to comply with the Equality Act.’
Mr Forrest’s stance has been a controversial one for more than 13 years. He has been flooded with emails from gay activists supporting the legislation that bans tourism operators from refusing homosexual customers.
Last year he said: ‘They’re hammering our online pages. I reported it to the police because I find these emails offensive.
‘We can’t take the email address down. We can’t remove the telephone number. My wife Liz is a first responder, anyway, so it’s effectively an emergency phone.’
Mr Forrest reaffirmed a declaration he made six years ago that he was prepared to go to jail rather than be forced by law to accept gay couples in double beds at Cromasaig.
Kevin Crowe, a spokesman for the Highland Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Forum, said in relation to the legislation: ‘A lot of B&B owners, of course, work from home and some have claimed that because it’s their home they should be exempt.
‘My view is that if their home is a workplace they should be covered by the same rules as every other workplace – that includes equality legislation.’
‘Owner must comply with Equality Act’