Thursday 23 December 2010

Equality imbalance.

There was once a wench with a conviction. It might have been a good conviction, or a bad one, or an irrelevant one, but to her it was extremely serious. She objected to gay 'marriage', actually referred to as civil partnership. Well, normally that's no problem. I object to the Dreadful Arnott and the Damn Shenker producing CO2 by breathing but my objections won't change anything.

The thing is, this particular wench was a registrar, responsible for the non-religious form of marriage-type union, and well, she didn't like it. She was hounded and bullied for not liking something she didn't like.

I have no issue with gay partnerships, nor with straight ones. Nobody can stand more than an hour or two of me so partnerships are not my area of expertise. I also make no judgement on religion. They might be right, but Pascal's wager won't work. It's no good pretending to believe 'just in case'. Either you believe or you don't. If there is no God, it's a waste of time. If there is, he'll know you were faking. Do or do not. There is no 'try'. A little wizened guy said that once, which means ugly + short = smart. I can go along with that.

More recently, someone who felt that abortion was against their beliefs was hammered for pointing out what are, in fact, some genuine risks associated with the procedure. Then there was a young girl prosecuted for 'inciting religious hatred' because she burned a Q'ran which was hers and put it on YouTube.

And yet nobody is arrested, charged with God Crime or hounded and bullied as a result of this. That's Harman Equality in action.

Therefore it is my duty to reach into the Equality Darkness at the edge of Politically Correct Town and bring forth something offensive to the maximum number of players in this particular game.

Enjoy. Be offended, one and all, and rejoice in nondisriminatory derision.



13 comments:

gladiolys said...

Re the Registrar. She was refusing to carry out part of her job description. What if she had not approved a racially mixed relationships on religious grounds? (I know it's not likely but I'm sure some fundamentalists somewhere could find some justification somewhere to hold that point of view.) Would she still be able to do that job? It's got nothing to do with religion, or gay rights or hounding of believers. It's about doing the job you have agreed to do and are paid to do, a public service for the public.

Good song.

PT Barnum said...

All you have to do is to imagine a parallel poster campaign by islamisevil.com (365 days of jihad, honour killings, halal slaughter methods, a woman's testimony being worth half that of a man and so on). A nun and an MP condemning one, the full weight of the law coming down on the other. As a full-on 'Christmas? Bah Humbug' member, I hold no brief for the joys of the season, but I can tell the difference between equality and favouritism.

Anonymous said...

I just LOVE christmassy songs.

Leg-iron said...

Gladyolis - you're right, but there are other registrars. One who objects is no problem, she's easily circumvented.

Instead, her objection makes national news. In a sensible world, she'd have been simply allocated other ceremonies and nobody would really care.

In my previous work, part of the lab's remit was food testing which included testing for Listeria. Some species can cause spontaneous abortion, so any female staff of child bearing age couldn't handle those samples.

You could argue that they weren't able to do the whole of the job, but the matter never caused any problems. All it meant was that the male staff did the Listeria work, and swapped some of the Salmonella work. No need for newspaper involvement.

That regisrtar's objection (while obviously not a safety issue) could have been dealt with in the same way.

Leg-iron said...

PT Barnum - that's what the Righteous can't see. It's not this loony's free speech we object to, it's that the rest of us don't have the same freedom.

I've been wondering if all the Righteous attempts to shut down Christmas 'because it offends other faiths' has led to a few believing their own publicity.

Muslims were never offended in the past. They've been told so often that they should be, that some are now taking offence. Not because there's anything there to offend them, but because they've been told, every year, that they should be.

Islam didn't create these loonies. The Righteous did.

John B said...

Regarding the existence of God, a recommendation I made somewhere else recently is, why not put the theory of His existence to the test?
Ask for some clear indication and see what comes along?
Yes, Islamists are simply taking up slack the West is cutting to a greater and greater degree. So one can only wonder what those who control things in the West are actually playing at. (Do people want to commit suicide?)
But it is actually rather a severe belief system.

gladiolys said...

Mr LI...I agree with you, up to a point. One wonders how far any attempt at resolution took place on either side. Yes, Islington Council could have offered to redeploy her, but she was doing a public job for a public organisation for the public and being paid by public money. You should not discriminate under those circumstances. I believe anybody has the right to discriminate on their own time, just as I have the right to avoid them. Did she ask to be re-deployed - or was she happy to use her Christianity to say "I'm a minority, I'm being discriminated against, give me some money?" (And were her lawyers happy to encourage her?) This only came out at an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal.

Merry Bah Humbug.

gladiolys said...

Mr LI...I agree with you, up to a point. One wonders how far any attempt at resolution took place on either side. Yes, Islington Council could have offered to redeploy her, but she was doing a public job for a public organisation for the public and being paid by public money. You should not discriminate under those circumstances. I believe anybody has the right to discriminate on their own time, just as I have the right to avoid them. Did she ask to be re-deployed - or was she happy to use her Christianity to say "I'm a minority, I'm being discriminated against, give me some money?" (And were her lawyers happy to encourage her?) This only came out at an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal.

Merry Bah Humbug.

PT Barnum said...

Gladiolys, that's the downside with genuine tolerance - tolerating the intolerant. When she joined the service, she wasn't being asked to perform ceremonies she found ideologically offensive. But the ground was moved under her and she could then play the martyr card herself. I have always found ridicule to be the best weapon against such bigotry. One could append a special designation to her title (NQ, maybe) and let her either bask or cringe in its show. And frankly, if it were me I wouldn't want someone like her officiating. Fair warning on both sides?

Od Nick said...

Interestingly, Abu Rumaysah who is behind this piece of religious hatred shit seems to have quite a low profile.

I have only found one picture of him so far and can't seem to find out much about his background other than that he seems to be a mate of Anjem Choudrey.

I would very much like to post the bastard for a good burning, so if anyone has any info please let me know with a comment on my blog or mail me at old-nick@virginmedia.com

Junican said...

I think that the argument needs to be turned around.

The EU human rights legislation says that no one should be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs.

Now, let us suppose that a person has a religious belief that it is ok to kill one's child if he/she has committed adultery. But let us also suppose that a different person has a religious belief that it is NOT ok to kill such a person. How is the matter to be decided? We really upon the law of the land, do we not? But the law of the land is based upon Christian ethics, is it not? Christian ethics says that it is not ok to kill in these circumstances, and that is why our laws say the same thing.

The lady's problem was the idea of MARRIAGE, which is a Christian idea. On the basis of her religious beliefs, she wished not to officiate in THE MARRIAGE of two people of the same sex.

Christian ethics abhors homosexuality, and if our law is based upon Christian ethics, it too should abhor homosexuality. That does not mean that homosexuality should be a crime - thankfully, we have moved away from such ideas. It is quite feasible for homosexuality to be considered to be sinful but not a crime.

Since our laws are based upon Christian Ethics, the lady, on the basis of her conscience, has every right to object to being forced to officiate in A MARRIAGE between two people of the same sex. To force her to do so is religious discrimination. I am not quite sure of the facts, but I feel sure that her objection was not about 'civil union' (which is just about uniting assets for all intents and purposes), but about the act of MARRIAGE.

MARRIAGE can only take place between a male and a female. Any thought that MARRIAGE can be anything else is totally contrary to our Christian ethic based law. To say otherwise is to accept that a man/woman can MARRY his bank account.

Do you know what is absolutely appalling? That the sodding bishops stayed shtum.

Leg-iron said...

When that registrar was employed, the conditions of her employment did not conflict with her beliefs.

Then the conditions changed.

So I have to be on the side of the registrar not because of religion but because of contract.

Kitler said...

Is anyone really offended by the sand-people burning poppies and ranting about Christmas? I agree its wrong that we are banned from insulting them the way they try to insult us but to be fair, we have sex and booze and ganja and all kinds of entertainment and social stuff and all they have is anger. Let their rulers ban fun and our rulers ban insults and see who has the happiest lives.

opinions powered by SendLove.to