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

What lies?

Read your post 63. Then read Ottos and Potholers and subsequent ones - then tell me yours isn't abusive.

Hi Potholer,

Can you foresee a point when the 'believers' are in such a minority, that since harmless and legal, tney might have a case for a law prohibiting discrimination against them?

If so that might not limit non-believers thoughts and feelings, but it might limit what they wrote.........

Novo

Sorry, Ive re-read it and cant see the abuse you have said is there please post examples with explanantions if you would be so kind.

I am unfailingly polite when addressing you Blicky, and I think in debating terms too. So i finf thi objectionable,

<>

Maybe it is just your 'style' which offends

Well excuse me for stating the facts!

Im sorry (for you) that you are offended by my candour.

Here's another little heads up that you may not like. Despite your attempts to be polite I often find the views you express to be offensive, but I dont sink to the level of attacking you on that account I try to stick to the issues. You appear to have a problem with me pointing out the failings in your arguments.

Like I say I feel sorry for you.

>>"Can you foresee a point when the 'believers' are in such a minority, that since harmless and legal, tney might have a case for a law prohibiting discrimination against them?"

No. If their claim was that they want the special right to be able to do things that other people can't legally do (ie discriminate against other people), it doesn't matter *how* many of them there are.

In discrimination law in general, numbers aren't relevant - one group may be small (Sikhs, Jews), one may be large (women), but the principle stays the same.

If you're suggesting a law *allowing* some special group to discriminate, that law simply isn't an anti-discrimination one.

Post 63

Item 2

<"Fault 1, I think you are wrong but I will check to be sure

Youve used the comparisson several times to back your position and NOW you think about checking the facts >

I have checked the facts with my lawyers. I am right. the proprietor of any business Pub, Shop B&B etc has the right to refuse service, without giving a reason.

Clearly courting danger of a accusation in some obvious instances.

>>"I have checked the facts with my lawyers. I am right. the proprietor of any business Pub, Shop B&B etc has the right to refuse service, without giving a reason."

"Without *giving* a reason" isn't the same thing as "without *having* a reason".
If chucking out someone you think is drunk, obnoxious, and/or potentially violent, it's useful not to have to explain the reason at the time, to avoid arguments building up.

However, I guess that right to refuse service is trumped by discrimination law. A hotel lacking a sign saying 'No Blacks' can't simply *happen* to refuse to admit black guests without risking action on the basis of discrimination.

Unless I've missed it while skimming through the backlog, is any mention of public funding. This seems to me to be a crucial element.
Anti-discriminatory legislation is not going to make people change their views or beliefs. Personally I'm not keen on the idea of faith schools, religious based adoption agencies, but if they are allowed to exist, I certianly don't agree with them receiving any public funding.

"No, of course I wouldn't argue that a racist B&B owner should refuse a black guest. I am clearly unable to find the words to express what I am thinking on this point."

My point is what is the difference between a B&B Owner refusing a guest because they are black from refusing a guest because they are gay? I cannot see any difference.

Blicky > Come on Bro you are being a little harsh on Novo, ease up a bit.

>>"Unless I've missed it while skimming through the backlog, is any mention of public funding."

See post 58, and the link therein.

As far as I can see, even if there *was* an opt-out given to allow the Catholic agencies to discriminate, if the local authorities weren't allowed to *fund* discriminating services, the end result would still be closure unless the church was to put its money where its principles are.

Yes, you're right, and I dont want to be a harsh person, but some people just bring it out in me. No not some people but its an attude of Novo's that gets my back up.

Once I suggested that his take on a certain subject was coloured by his advanced years. He told me it was unfair to pick on him for being old, later I see him using his age as an excuse for giving us the "benefit" offensive and outmoded attitudes. We can all be inconsistent but that just takes the biscuit.

This is the second or third tread in quick succesion where he has trotted out the tired and thouroughly false "what goes on in someones home" defense for allowing people to use their nasty prejudices against decent people.

The CRE website has some case studies which are helpful in understanding anti-discrimination law.

http://www.cre.gov.uk/legal/cases_road.html
In this case, the victim was denied a service (hiring a van and taking it a certain distance) that was subsequently offered to a white friend of his. Because the company were unable to provide a convincing explanation of the difference in treatment, the company lost the case.

http://www.cre.gov.uk/legal/cases_face.html
This is about a white employee who was effectively dismissed and replaced with an family member of the (Asian) owners of the garage where she worked. Again, because the garage could not explain why they had told her she wasn't needed and then replaced her, the tribunal found in her favour.

The first is goods and services law, which is different to employment law (I think!). From these, it looks as if a company could successfully defend itself against an accusation of discrimination by providing a convincing explanation for its actions. So the onus is on the 'defendant' to show that they didn't discriminate (by explaining the difference in treatment), not for the complainant to prove that they did.

This matches the information I've been given on how to conduct interviews for jobs - we need notes and records of decisions to show why decisions were reached in case we are ever asked for them.

Blicky, can you explain how this statement

"why doont we carry on as if you are wrong because most times you are."

advances your argument?

Oh for Gods sake Blicky.

<< This is the second or third tread in quick succesion where he has trotted out the tired and thouroughly false "what goes on in someones home" defense for allowing people to use their nasty prejudices against decent people. >>

Show me where in this thread where I have said or even implied that. then look at the number of times that I have stated that the anti discrimination laws are good.

Then go back to my post in reply to your unpleasant post, where I have checked what I thought to be right ( in legal terms). I was proved correct. You were therefore wrong.

Not a snowballs chance in hell of an admission, or apology from you I bet.

Novo

Afternoon FB

No, in essence you are right and there is no difference. Either act is discriminatory and illegal. I don't defend it as an action. I havee been trying to find a way of dealing with an abstract notion that religious groups 'may' have a legitimate wish to exclude gays - as in the current case under discussion.

I don't argue for either side, simply point out that laws preventing discromination against one group could be interpreted as descriminating against the other.

In the case of a B&B, it would be possible to say "Sorry, I have just had all my rooms booked by a group of cavers" I don't advocate, merely point out a way of saving face all round?

Novo

"Show me where in this thread where I have said or even implied that. then look at the number of times that I have stated that the anti discrimination laws are good."

In fairness, Novo, although you have consistently said that you support anti-discrimination legislation, you do appear to me to have been arguing for exceptions to these rules on the grounds of conscience and on the grounds of individual liberty (see post 57) as an example.

Your point that anti-discrimination legislation amounts to a curtailment of liberty for some is well made and well taken. And I can quite understand the intuition that a person's house/business is her castle and that she should be entitled to admit or deny service to whosoever she pleases on libertarian grounds.

But the price of having anti-discrimination legislation is the curtailment of precisely this liberty. And I can't see how it's possible to be in favour of anti-discrimination legislation and an opt-out for conscience. That just seems like inconsistency to me, though I would be happy to read arguments that say otherwise.

>>"This is about a white employee who was effectively dismissed and replaced with an family member of the (Asian) owners of the garage where she worked. Again, because the garage could not explain why they had told her she wasn't needed and then replaced her, the tribunal found in her favour."

That's an interesting one - had the person dismissed been the same race, religion, sex and sexual orientation as the replacement, would they have had a case?
Is there any protection against simple nepotism?

Yes and Yes. It would just be unfair dismissal. I once interviewed someone who'd been dismissed and then replaced with a relative of the boss, who won a case at tribunal.

Afternoon Otto,

I had not intended to ask for exceptions, merely to point out that IMHO the Churches have a point. Regrettably, I mentioned the B&B man again, referring to the actual B&B in The Lake District, recently discussed.This seems to have been taken as a plea for Hotels and B&B's to be able to turn away gays.

What I was trying to do,in an abstract way, was point out that one mans rights could become another mans burden, which though legally correct may be seen as a bit unfair.

I have no further case to argue. I have said too many times that I have no prejudices, but like all peope there are some things I like and some I dont.

Incidentally I work in a firm of Employment Law Specialists, providing support to employers. Just an aside.

Novo