Plan B Forum

A woman who wants to marry in a Church of Scientology chapel has won her Supreme Court challenge.

Five Supreme Court judges ruled the church was a "place of meeting for religious worship".

Louisa Hodkin launched legal action after officials refused to register a Church of Scientology chapel in central London as a place for marriage.

This was due to a 1970 High Court ruling which said Scientology services were not "acts of worship".
Evolution of beliefs

In their unanimous decision, the Supreme Court justices said that the 1970 ruling's definition of religious worship as involving "reverence or veneration of God or of a supreme being" was out of date.

"Religion should not be confined to religions which recognise a supreme deity," wrote Lord Toulson, giving the judgment.

"To do so would be a form of religious discrimination unacceptable in today's society," he wrote, noting that the criteria would exclude Buddhism, among other faiths.

The court said it was not the job of the Registrar General of Births, Marriages and Deaths to venture into "fine theological or liturgical niceties" and declared that the Scientology chapel should be recorded as a place for the solemnisation of marriages.

Miss Hodkin says she and fiance Alessandro Calcioli hope to marry in the next few months but are yet to set a date.