h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Goliath? That's about as relevant as usual..

Of course, all discrimination is blatant and overt.

So, little if any blatant or overt discrimination is taking place then. It's all subtle and hidden.

And this legislation is going to help, how? If people were sly enough to practice homophobia in public before without being caught, do you think this legislation is going to stop them?

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely see the need for this legislation in theory. It's just that I'm not convinced that we're a country in the grip of rampant homophobia where gays cannot get a hotel room or a job or a taxi.

I'm genuinely open to be convinced. If this law leads to one petty-minded homophobe being prosecuted, it will be worth it.

I just don't see it happening.

mcKay - don't forget the ABSO's!!!

For me, it's just codifying the current (inclusive) standards of society. It's now illegal for another form of bigotry. Good.

With the increased polarisation of views these days, it may just nip the fundie/right-wing religious nutters in the bud.

Another thing about this silly B&B example. There aren't always substitutes to choose from. Imagine up in the Highlands or somewhere. 'Naw. Yer poofs. Yer no' gettin in.'

>>"The European angle comes in as the laws we see being enacted now are to bring us more in line with European legislation. As we become more & more integrated with the EU we will inevitably start to legislate more along the lines of the European model."

Is there any chance you can actually answer the question:

Of what actual relevance are differences between European legal systems when it comes to the question of the UK enacting legislation to make a previously allowable form of discrimination illegal?

Presumably the UK government is enacting laws because it either thinks they are right, or that they are politically popular.
In this case, it may think *both* those conditions are satisfied.

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The relevance is that if an organisation in the UK last week publicly said "no gays", it would have faced public opprobrium and a possible boycott. The legislation is arguably unnecessary in practice although equally no-one can say it is a bad thing in itself It is a step along the road to legislating for every facet of public life. This has never been seen as necessary in the UK, but has been a historical fact in Europe.

To see where this may lead: http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1379536,00.html

"France outlaws sexist and anti-gay insults"
"In theory, critics say, the law could mean that devout Christians who denounce homosexuality as "deviant" would be prosecuted; comedians can no longer make mother-in-law jokes; the producers and distributors of the camp comedy film La Cage Aux Folles could end up in the dock"

The *only* valid part there is preventing the church spreading intolerance. The rest is ridiculous. Graham Norton would lose half of his act.

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Are you saying we were forced to legislate by Europe, that the government didn't really want to, that it thought the legislation was wrong and/or politcally unpopular?

Are you saying that in the rest of Europe there isn't any explicit anti-discrimination legislation due to their legal systems being so, well *foreign* and not needing it, or just that *we* didn't need it, what with us being so superior and tolerant and British?

Better watch this while you can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16wtwjyTzjA&mode=related&search=

"This legislation wasn't necessary in British Law because of the fundamental difference between British & European law. In Britain, everything is presumed to be permissable unless specifically legislated against. In Europe, the opposite applies."

This is "sceptered isle" tosh. In "Europe" (which is a collection of very different countries of which we are one, remember) something cannot be illegal unless the law actually states it is. If I go to (say) Germany and do something no statute exists against German law cannot touch me. If what you were saying were true the German police would be able to arrest and charge me because no statute exists saying I *can* do what I am. For example, I expect there is no specific German law stating I can whistle whilst walking backwards. Were your claim true, this would mean that the German police would have the right to arrest me. They don't, because it's hogwash. This is not how any law system works.

You're repeating a romantic old-Tory myth that in Britain the state essentially leaves you alone whilst in "Europe" everything is highly regulated. In fact, Britain is as bureacratic and regulated as anywhere else in Europe - infamously so. And this has less to do with the EU and more to do with the tendency towards more and more organisation of the state and more control (and therefore more bureaucracy) from the two World Wars and the post-war concensus.

Jeremy Clarkson did a "tour of Europe" TV show a while back in which he demonstrated real differences between us and our neighbours that would surprised the romanticised ideas about Britain. Whilst visiting France, he showed footage massive offices in London. These, he explained, contained part of Britain's Health and Safety Executive who regulate and legislate workplace and other health and safetly for the UK. In France (statist, corporatist "Europe", remember), he explained, there was no such building. Because the French don't have a Health and Safety Executive. They don't see the point.

Laws in the UK and "Europe" are not based on polar-opposite ideas, they are based the same way - what is illegal is written down as such and what is not, isn't. You have taken the fact that some European countries (Germany, for example) tend to create more laws and regulations than others and claimed, unthruthfully, that our entire legal systems work completely differently.

There is a divide between countries with a "common law" based system (such as the UK and other Anglo-Saxon nations) and a "civil law" based system, many of which derive from the Napoleonic Code. But the difference between the two is the relative importance of tradition and precedent (much more important in common law systems). Both codes share the view (from Thomas Hobbes) that freedom lies in the silence of the law.

The tongue-in-cheek contrast between systems where you can do what you want unless the law says otherwise and systems where you can only do what the law allows you to do is one that was drawn between liberal democracies and Communist countries, not between UK and European countries.

On the topic of making discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation illegal, I really don't understand why this legislation is held unnecessary and other kinds of anti-discrimination legislation are held to be necessary. Is the suggestion that anti-racism legislation be repealed too?

Is somebody going to provide concrete examples of homophobic discrimination along the lines of "No Gays"?

How about hate crimes against gays? What's the incidence of those? You wouldn't need examples of signs if hate crimes are occurring.

Isn't there already seperate legislation against hate crimes?

"But when a gay couple tried to book a hotel room in the Scottish Highlands earlier this month, they were stunned to be branded 'sexual perverts ' by the owner, and refused accommodation."
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1251651,00.html

cf post 84, para 3.

At last, actual evidence. Thank you.

I notice the Guest House was subsequently dumped by Visit Scotland, hitting the owners in the pocket. If their trade is anything like the Isle of Arran, that will take away 40-50% of their trade.

That was in 2004. In 2005 there was a similar incident at Dunborrodale Guest House on Skye, but Visit Scotland don't appear to have done anything.

Well done. Legislation to protect 4 people in the last few years. Sledgehammers & nuts comes to mind.

More relevant and more insiduous is http://www.gayfinance.info/gay-discrimination/index.htm

Discrimination in pensions, insurance and tax.

>>"Well done. Legislation to protect 4 people in the last few years. Sledgehammers & nuts comes to mind."

SWL, even for you, that's pretty odd logic.

If I don't personally remember any specific incidents of discrimination happening to people in group X, and a handful of people I chat with (most of whom aren't in group X either) only give me a couple of examples, does that mean that those examples must be all that there are?

Actually, "the handful of people" only came up with one example. I provided the other. I also found three cases of financial discrimination.

All that searching hardly uncovered mass homophobic abuse. What it did find was a statistically insignificant number of bigots.

What I'm saying, repeatedly, is the legislation was an exercise in "just in case" lawmaking from a government that passes laws like I pass wind: frequently and with unpleasant results.

Skye: absolutely love the place...but wierd people (I am allowed to say that as my amcestors fo actually come from there and the highland clan of my surname has its seat at Scorrvbreac.

I was over there a few years ago trying to find a Guardian. I walked into one of the more remote village shops and asked for the newspaper to have the reply: Oh, we don't stock *that* newspaper here!

For a second I thought I had asked for the latest Playboy.