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As we enter the full tennis season, the tennis star Martina Navratilova has called the former world No 1 Margaret Court, a "homophobe" accusing her of demonising the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The 74 year old Margaret Court, who is seen as tennis royalty is a Christian pastor and has been a critic of homosexuality for years as well as being opposed to same sex marriage. In a letter published in The West Australian newspaper, Court wrote that she would stop flying Qantas ''where possible'' because the Australian airline has in her view become an active promoter same-sex marriage. Navratilova wants the Margaret Court arena at the Australian open to be changed to a name which reflects a commitment to embracing equality, diversity and inclusion.

These three words are the words of the modern age which have in recent decades transformed our societies but what if your own ideas and beliefs on equality and diversity don’t resonate with the language of acceptance, of human rights for all? What if your belief isn’t just an opinion but ends up being an implicit or explicit denial of someone else’s rights? The logic is to say that for human rights to flourish, certain views should not be expressed in society. This always has the potential to polarise.

In a liberal society, we have the right to hold and express views which other people might disagree with, but public expression comes with consequences; our words can move beyond a seeming moral disagreement to an outright condemnation of the way people lives their lives; this can have tragic consequences. Liberalism speaks a language of rights where the individual is at the centre of the worldview; it celebrates individual choice because it recognises the individual over the collective. This has given a new model of freedom to society, where all kinds of human rights including gender and sexual rights are part of this new political and moral consciousness. Whatever our personal beliefs we can’t talk of human flourishing and yet dismiss human rights as optional or irrelevant. Human rights are a struggle but they are a powerful struggle precisely because they speak of a more just world. Although there are Muslims who condemn certain sexual practices as being un-Islamic, the Qur’an reminds us that justice for all is our fundamental struggle in this life, 'witness with justice, Be just; that is nearer to righteousness.'

But the question is what do we mean by justice – there is no single understanding and the range of views within religion and society can be divisive in our struggle to understand right and wrong. But for me justice requires a social imagination that locates God in the here and now, where scripture isn’t reduced simply to debates about virtue and vice but becomes the poetry, vision and heart which lifts us all.

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