The Government's refusal to allow a Christian magistrate to excuse himself from hearing gay adoption cases risked introducing a "religious barrier" for judicial office, the Employment Appeal Tribunal heard today.

Andrew McClintock, 63, resigned from hearing family cases in Sheffield after he was refused permission to opt out of hearing cases that could have led to adoption by gay couples.

He lost his claim for discrimination on the grounds of his religious beliefs at an employment tribunal earlier this year.

Opening his appeal today, Mr McClintock's lawyer, Paul Diamond, said: "Is a practising Christian, Jew or Muslim allowed to sit [as a judge], or will there be a religious test for office?"

Mr Diamond said the case was not concerned with homosexuality but whether the Department of Constitutional Affairs, which oversees the judiciary, should “accommodate” judges and magistrates with particular views.

Mr McClintock, a father of four and a member of the Christian People’s Alliance council, had served as a magistrate in the family courts in Sheffield for 15 years. His role was to decide whether children needed to be taken from troubled families and put into care.

But the new civil partnership laws led to a situation where he could have inadvertently sanctioned the removal of a child from its natural family to be placed in the care of a gay couple.

Mr McClintock said that contradicted both his personal religious beliefs and his duty as a magistrate to put the child’s welfare first.

His request to be excluded from such cases was refused and he believed he had no option but to resign from those responsibilities.

But lawyers for the Department of Constitutional Affairs told the tribunal panel in March no judge or magistrates could select which parts of the general law he or she wished to apply.

The hearing is expected to finish today.

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