British Woman Wins Permission to Marry in Scientology Chapel

Why is this a government issue?

London - A British woman on Wednesday won her fight to get married in a Scientology chapel in London after the Supreme Court ruled that her church could be considered a place of worship.

Louisa Hodkin had been refused permission to wed fiancé Alessandro Calcioli in a Church of Scientology chapel in central London because it was not legally listed as a place of religious worship.

A High Court judge had ruled in 1970 that Scientology services did not count as acts of worship because they involved no "veneration of God or of a supreme being".

But five judges at Britain's highest court on Wednesday said Hodkin and Calcioli should be able to marry in the Scientology chapel, and that religion should not be confined to faiths involving a "supreme deity".