The Church of Scientology, founded by a science fiction writer and long the subject of derision and suspicion, is a religion, the supreme court in Britain has ruled.
The unanimous ruling from five judges came following a two-year battle by a London couple, who want to be married at a Church of Scientology premises.
Louisa Hodkin (25) and her fiance Alessandro Calcioli, who are both volunteers at the church in Queen Victoria Street, say they now hope to get married within months.
The registrar of births, marriages and deaths had refused to list the London Church Chapel as a place where marriages could be held because it was not a place for religious worship. The registrar’s decision was based on a 1970 court of appeal ruling Scientology did not involve “reverence or veneration of God or of a Supreme Being”. The couple first lost in the high court, though the judge took a different view to 40 years ago when he ruled Scientology was a religion.
However, he ruled its premises, such as the one in London, were not places of worship. The couple appealed to the supreme court because the judge certified a point of law of general public importance existed.
Lord Toulson said there has never been a single legal definition of religion in English law.
The Places of Worship Registration Act 1855 must be interpreted in accordance with contemporary understanding of religion, he said, citing two cases from the US and Australia.
The high court was right to decide that Scientology was a religion because religion should not be confined to faiths involving a supreme deity, since that would exclude Buddhism, for instance, he said. Scientologists, who include actor Tom Cruise among their number, believe in a supreme deity, but one of abstract and impersonal nature, the supreme court judge ruled. Religions are codes whereby people share beliefs and try to live in conformity with them. By this rule, Scientology is clearly a religion, he went on.
Since the Church of Scientology held religious services, its church is a “place of meeting for religious worship”, and the registrar general is obliged to record its marriages.
Scientology was founded in 1953 by American science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, who decreed an alien, Xenu, brought billions of his people to Earth 75 million years ago. Their spaceship crashed, so their spirits, followers believe, have wandered the Earth ever since harming humans. Belief in Scientology protects people from Xenu’s people.
