A gay clergyman who was prevented by the Church of England from taking up a job in the NHS as a hospital chaplain after he married his partner has lost his case against discrimination.

Canon Jeremy Pemberton, who has been a priest for more than 30 years, went to the court of appeal to challenge earlier rulings against him. It rejected his claim, saying the church had applied “its sincerely held beliefs in a way expressly permitted by … the Equality Act”.

Lord Justice Underhill said he could understand Pemberton’s feeling but “if you belong to an institution with known and lawful rules, it implies no violation of dignity and it is not cause for reasonable offence that those rules should be applied to you, however wrong you may believe them to be.”

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