LONDON, England — Britain’s highest court ruled Dec. 11, 2013, that Scientology is a religion, giving a 25-year-old woman and her fiancé the legal rights to marry at the church’s headquarters in London.
Louisa Hodkin appealed to the Supreme Court after a lower court ruled that services run by Scientologists were not acts of worship.
In his ruling, Supreme Court Justice Lord Roger Toulson wrote that religions should not be confined to those with belief in a supreme deity.
The Church of Scientology was not a party to the legal action, but the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling is seen as an important victory for an organization often described by British academics, lawyers and theologians as either a harmless philosophy or a dangerous cult.
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