Hotels to be banned from turning away gay couples

Hoteliers are to be banned from turning away homosexual couples in a fresh drive against anti-gay prejudice. A Single Equality Act, which forbids discrimination against homosexuals in goods and services, is to be introduced by the Government, Jacqui Smith, the Equalities minister said.

Hoteliers are to be banned from turning away homosexual couples in a fresh drive against anti-gay prejudice. A Single Equality Act, which forbids discrimination against homosexuals in goods and services, is to be introduced by the Government, Jacqui Smith, the Equalities minister said.

The move follows the furore that erupted after Tom Forrest, a guesthouse owner in Kinlochewe in the Scottish Highlands, refused to let a room to two gay men. He told Stephen Nock and his partner that their relationship was "unnatural". Although the pair won an apology from VisitScotland, which recommended the guesthouse, they had no redress in law.

Ms Smith told a Department of Trade and Industryseminar that a law would be drafted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, set up to combat all forms of discrimination. A spokesman for Stonewall, the campaign group for gay equality, said he was delighted.