A New Lillian Ladele

Lillian Ladele may be defeated, but she was never alone. In fact it turns out she wasn’t even alone at Islington Council:

Theresa Davies, a registrar for Islington Council, has claimed she was forced out of her post as registrar because of her religious beliefs against civil partnerships.

Davies, who had worked for Islington Council for 18 years, said she had asked to opt out of performing civil partnerships in 2006.

While her request was being considered, Davies took four months off work due to stress. On her return she was told that she would either be demoted or dismissed.

Instead of leaving the council, Davies chose to take on the offered position of receptionist, which she described as “humiliating”.

Last July, she was put back on the general rota. However, in January this year she failed to turn up to a ceremony she was supposed to be overseeing. Consequently, she was told that unless she presided over civil partnerships she would be demoted from her position.

“I know of other councils that have allowed Christian registrars to carry on by ensuring that colleagues are given civil partnerships,” said Davies. “But I was told this was not Islington’s policy.”

No, we know that Islington Council’s policy was, in the case of Lillian Ladele, to offer different work for the same pay, when she decided that she wanted to breach their policy of providing an equal service for all members of the community, rather than ones that she wanted to pick and choose. Davies may not have liked the ‘humiliating’ new work, but this has already been established not to be discrimination on the grounds of religion. The devoutly religious do not have the right under the law to behave as though they are a special case in who they provide services for. I look forward to her grievance failing equally badly.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – Disaster!

We live in an age where the United States is rapidly embracing gay marriage (take note California State Supreme Court), yet despite Obama’s campaign pledge to abandon the divisive ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy, nothing seems to be happening:

This really is intolerable. If the Obama administration is supposed to be about the rule of law, then it’s an outrage that service people can still be dismissed merely for the fact of their sexual orientation; it’s bigotry.  How can a Commander-in-Chief who is black accept such discrimination under his watch for even a moment? As the report points out on a practical, business side it’s an unthinkable waste of training costs, it’s a waste of precious and vital resources, and is a ludicrous slap in the face to people who have chosen to serve their country, often with distinction. Other countries have had no problems when (in the UK’s case being forced to by the European Court of Human Rights) they have repealed their bans, so why is there still no change in the US?

The Wall Street Journal hints at an Obama long game, suggesting that current DADT legal battles are being waged in the knowledge they’ll be lost, thus eventually providing an overriding legal case with which to then justify the repeal of the gay ban. Others believe Obama could end the ban with a single executive order which he could issue with the stroke of a pen. What’s interesting is the way in which journalist Ana Marie Cox has this week drawn out the difference between what the Pentagon is saying and what the White House is saying, and force the latter into a concrete position. This administration has to stop hedging its bets on gay rights – when opinion polls show the public favours a repeal of the ban and straight service people themselves no longer advocate the ban on the grounds of morale, it has to go and should go now.

(via Towleroad)

A Gay Marriage Movement Arises

Protests are being coordinated across the United States and beyond, legislators in the California State Legislature and the Governator are speaking out against it, the president-elect has said he is against it – wow did the Mormon Church play this attack on the gay community wrong when they swung the tide financially in favour of Proposition 8! In my lifetime I’ve never seen anything like this, apart from the near-riot which resulted from the UK Parliament failing to vote for an equal age of consent in 1994. This really is comparable now to the Stonewall Riots of the late ’60s – an entire movement which now encompasses straight people too, has sprung up and it’s incredible to see.

This is my home town Portland, Oregon’s gay mayor-elect, speaking out against Proposition 8 (the state just voted in an out lesbian as Secretary of State too, how cool is that?):

(all photos via Towleroad apart from where mentioned)

(via Just Out)

Here are some other shots of demonstrations across the country. Firstly New York:

(via starkyld on Flickr)

San Francisco:

See the Mormons for Marriage there? Proof that religious leaders really are not representing their flocks when they promote bigotry and discrimination! Here’s Hawaii, the home state of the president-elect:

The still-president’s home state of Texas:

Prop 8 was on the wrong side of history. I look forward to its being repealed by the California State Supreme Court, or at least passed down to the legislature to modify the constitution to enable it (which they would then almost certainly refuse to do). A country which has voted for change cannot allow this blatant bigotry to succeed. Some say the solution is to wait until 2010 and put a repeal on the ballot, but it’s increasingly clear to me that it cannot wait that long. If the ballot measure is unconstitutional it must be struck down by the state’s highest court, but it’s also highly illogical, not to say immoral, to allow mob rule when it comes to human rights. Forty per cent of people in the UK are against gay adoption – if voters were allowed a referendum on it, they might prevail – that wouldn’t make it right. If this campaign can continue to reach out to straight people and religious communities and encompass all races, then a remarkable and lasting result can be achieved.

Married Elton John Not For Gay Marriage

Sigh. Elton John has spoken out against gay marriage:

“We’re not married. Let’s get that right. We have a civil partnership. What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage. Marriage is going to put a lot of people off, the word marriage.”

“I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership,” John says. “The word ‘marriage,’ I think, puts a lot of people off.

Let me make a correction. He and David are married, and if marriage were uniformally available in the UK to straight and gay people alike, I don’t believe for a moment he’d have rejected one. After all he partook of a straight marriage (bizarre as it was) for years. There’s no doubt in my mind that much of his stance is based on a generational perspective on gay rights, but with Prop 8 he’s on the wrong side of history, particularly with this election having been so steeped in civil rights issues.

I’m also not sure what he means that ‘they went for marriage’. It was the Californian Supreme Court which legalised same-sex marriage, and it was the No on Prop 8 campaign which merely sought to retain the rights which the highest court in the state had already conferred on gay couples.

You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.”

Separate but equal was very much the gay rights perspective of the sixties and seventies, but the current generation simply wants to normalise their lives – ‘tolerance’ simply isn’t enough.

Vote No on Prop 8 for Your Kids!

It’s quite simple really, Californians. Vote No on Proposition 8 on Tuesday because teaching kids that discrimination is ok isn’t ok. It is the only responsible choice – for your kids, and everyone else’s.

No On Prop 8 in the Lead!

Good News.

The struggle over Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex marriage in California, has tightened dramatically in the past month, with opponents holding a slim 49 to 44 percent edge among likely voters, according to a new Field Poll.

“The ‘Yes’ campaign has raised some doubts and moved people over to their side,” said Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director. “A relatively large segment of voters are in conflict over this measure.”

Catholics, who make up nearly a quarter of likely voters, also could make a difference, DiCamillo said. Catholics opposed Prop. 8 by a 48 to 44 percent margin, but that’s down from 55 to 36 percent a month ago.

Minority groups, expected to come out strongly for Democrat Barack Obama on Tuesday, could play a key role in the Prop. 8 vote. Latino voters are split almost evenly, 46 to 48 percent, on the measure, while black voters back the same-sex marriage ban, 49 to 43 percent.

In that case Andrew Sullivan’s demand that Obama speak out prominently and unequivocally against Prop 8 is entirely appropriate and clearly necessary. If the biggest factor which could guarantee Proposition 8’s failure is the turnout of Democrat voters on Tuesday, it is in my mind entirely right to expect the Democratic nominee for president to nail his colours to the wall and swing the vote against Prop 8.

The Right to Marry

To all/any of you Californians out there, it is imperative that you vote ‘NO’ on Proposition 8!

Donate here, whoever you are, wherever you are (if you can), to help ensure marriage equality remains in California from November 5th!

Biden Trounces Palin

Palin fans will bleat otherwise, Tina Fey fans will be disappointed, but by every objective measure Joe Biden beat her in the vice-presidential debate.

CBS:

Forty-six percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed say Democrat Joe Biden won the debate, compared to 21 percent for Republican Sarah Palin. Thirty-three percent said it was a tie.

CNN

Overall, 51 percent of the debate watchers said that Biden did the best job in the debate, while 36 percent gave the nod to Palin.

New York Times

In the end, the debate did not change the essential truth of Ms. Palin’s candidacy: Mr. McCain made a wildly irresponsible choice that shattered the image he created for himself as the honest, seasoned, experienced man of principle and judgment. It was either an act of incredible cynicism or appallingly bad judgment.

Rod Dreher

I thought Palin really suffered by comparison to Biden in discussing foreign policy. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and while she avoided gibbering, I found her reliance on talking points, and accusing Biden of counseling “surrender,” to be more than a little maddening.

And he won by following the same tactics which Obama used to win against McCain – steadfastness in the face of patronising, lying chaos. By remaining calm, by attacking McCain instead of her and daring to answer the questions put to him when Palin didn’t, Biden came across just as we’d hoped – sympathetic, human and someone entirely suitable to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Not so Palin, with her overly folksy manner, jabbering corny nonsense instead of giving genuine replies, even winking at the camera at one point. Where she traded on her being a parent who could understand the worries of ‘hockey moms’ and ‘Joe Six-Pack’, Biden played his trump card:

Roger Ebert’s response:

A very different sort of unanticipated moment took place during the debate. Biden said, “I know what it’s like to be a single parent raising two children.” He did not know if his sons would survive the auto accident that took his wife and daughter. For a moment, he lost his composure. Looking at the moment again here I believe, as I did at the time, that it was genuine emotion, and not stagecraft.

It could not have been anticipated by Palin. The next camera angle was above and behind her. She paused. The silence seemed to anticipate words of sympathy and identification from her. But Biden had ended in a sentence using the word “change,” and her response, reflecting no emotion at all, cued off that word and became a talking point about McCain. This felt to me, at worst, insensitive and callous. At best, that she had not fully heard Biden. In either event, her response troubled me. If a man had responded in that way to such a statement from a women, he would be called a heartless brute.

Nothing happened to change the equation in the opinion polls – Obama continues to surge ahead, despite all the mud which McCain (and now Palin) try to throw at him. Palin spoke to the Republican base, but to noone else, and the polling and reaction since has borne that out. Biden on the other hand spoke on principle, with passion and with humanity and noticeably was talking beyond his base. Yes, he floundered a bit on the same sex marriage question, but did say something very important:

“Do I support granting same-sex benefits? Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.”

As opposed to Palin’s (expanding same-sex benefits to the nation):

“Well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman. And unfortunately that’s sometimes where those steps lead.”

Are identity politics everything? No, of course they aren’t. But I can’t conceive of voting for a ticket which would deny me equality before the law. And I don’t accept that Palin has any advantages of any kind over Obama in terms of experience – it presumes all executive experience is good experience; as we’ve learned with still-president Bush, nothing could be further from the truth. A couple of self-confessed ‘mavericks’ trumping what Obama & Biden have to offer? I don’t think so. Nor do most other people.

Video of the debate can be found here.

Religious Homophobia – Emboldened!

First it was Lillian Ladele, now it’s Graham Cogman, a civil registrar, followed by a (surprise surprise) policeman, both of whom think that as Christians they have special rights which allow them to opt out of the flow of mainstream society, which is increasingly understanding towards diversity and respectful of equality. As my fellow blogger said the other day:

Beliefs are beliefs, they should be respected in as far as they don’t try to limit other people’s freedoms.

Yet policeman Graham Cogman, displaying no hint of irony in ‘coming out’ as a homophobic policeman, is following the same path as Lillian Ladele in trying to morally relativise homophobia within the diversity agenda, in arguing that as a Christian he doesn’t have to support the gay community:

The 49-year churchgoer, who circulated emails to officers quoting the biblical stance on homosexuality being a sin, claims he is being singled out because of his beliefs. The force has responded by saying it will not tolerate any “homophobic behaviour”.

Of course as a policeman you’d think he wouldn’t feel the need to justify his homophobia, yet he is claiming that as the Norfolk Police pursues its diversity agenda he is being ‘victimised’ because he believes gay sex is immoral. I know I’m not alone in getting quite sick to death of this, particularly hearing:

“The blatant support for homosexual rights in Norfolk Police makes being a Christian officer extremely difficult,” he said.

“I am not undertaking this action lightly but I have to make a stand when things become so blatantly biased against me just because I hold a faith.”

A Christian officer eh? No, you’re a police officer you idiot. You don’t get to pick and choose who you get to support and not support because of your religion, you have to serve and respect everyone equally. Of course it’s biased against you if you’re a homophobe because you don’t get to trample on other people’s rights because of your beliefs.

I’ll never in my life be a Christian, but can see full well that, particularly during this period of the Lambeth Conference, there has never been more of a need for Gene Robinson and people like him. These ideas of Cogman’s didn’t come out of the blue – he was taught the idea that gay people are less than straight people, and had it justified because of religion, when that religion preaches nothing of the sort. The Church, particularly because it is an established Church, really has to get its own house in order and start accepting that it can’t continue to preach discrimination and delude people like PC Cogman into an erroneous belief that they can withold equal treatment from the people they work for, not just because of magic and superstition, but because of outright homophobic lies. Homophobia is no less real when ‘justified’ by scripture and religion.

My Response to the Daily HateMail

“A Victory for Britain’s Quiet Majority”

Britain’s acceptance of those from different racial, social or religious backgrounds has long been an attractive aspect of our national character.

But this culture of tolerance has come under pressure from politicians and the courts, who have put the often stridently expressed demands of minorities ahead of the rights of the majority.

No case has so clearly illustrated this as that of Lillian Ladele, the registrar whose Christian beliefs – beliefs incidentally that in the broader sense shaped the DNA of this country – led her to refuse to perform same-sex civil partnerships.

The Mail supports the right to undertake civil partnerships, but not to force others to participate in ceremonies with which they may profoundly disagree.

But Miss Ladele’s bosses at Islington council, always ready to leap to the defence of the gay community, concluded that she was prejudiced, and insisted that she change her mind.

So she took them to an employment tribunal and – to the amazement of all those who have given up on the ability of our legal system to stand up for ordinary Britons – she won.

The tribunal concluded that Miss Ladele had been discriminated against, that the council had allowed the rights of homosexuals to trump her religious beliefs, and that it was utterly wrong.

The battle is far from over. Islington may appeal against the judgment. And we should never underestimate the sheer zeal of the commissars of political correctness to get their way.

I remember the Daily HateMail in the 80s, stirring up hate against ‘loonies’ and the ‘left’, as though standing up for, promoting and funding equality was only something which those with diseased minds would do. This paper has never accepted difference. They have railed incessantly against gay people, asylum seekers, foreigners and others, and in addition to their Nazi-supporting past have run appalling, personal campaigns against politicians such as Ken Livingstone who have had the temerity to stand up to them.

Their claim that the case against Lillian Ladele was a demand by a ‘strident’ minority against the ‘rights’ of the majority is an outright deceit. Noone has suggested for a moment that gay rights should trump those of straight people or even the religious – that would be ridiculous because they are not fundamentally in opposition to one another. However the stridently religious believe that gay people are not equal – Lillian Ladele said she couldn’t fulfil her job description for gay people because of her ‘religious beliefs’. To allow belief as an excuse for enforcing in equality would be as dangerous as it is monstrous. In effect she demanded an opt out from the social norms which we are all now bound by, but against which the Daily HateMail continues to campaign. Her religion is not fundamentally opposed to gay people or homosexuality, whatever hysterical theists like Iris Robinson would have you believe, and to enshrine such an opt out under the law would be to misrepresent even her religion.

The HateMail suggests that this is ‘political correctness’, as if a local council standing up for equality before the law (and Ladele’s job description was bound by at least two laws) were something undesirable. It makes no difference whether or not the council could fulfil its remit to provide civil partnerships without her – the argument was whether or not the stridently religious could get special treatment in employment, treatment which allowed them to discriminate in the world of work, based merely on belief and not on the law which is supposed to apply to the rational majority. That Lillian Ladele has (for now) succeeded is a slap in the face for the real majority, who are not in any way connected to the bigoted, small-minded, xenophobic and hateful DNA of the country which the HateMail thinks it appeals to.

Bigotry is not a ‘right’ held by the majority, whatever else the tabloid would have you believe; Iris Robinson didn’t have this right, nor does Lillian Ladele. Thankfully our thoughts can’t (yet) be controlled, but we do not have the ‘right’ to impose our darker thoughts on those different to us, or those whom we dislike or disapprove of, at least not in the world of work. The law has, in this instance, said that belief trumps the rule of law, that Islington Council was wrong, despite having equality policies which Lillian Ladele was bound by, and laws governing the conduct of her job, to enforce her job description for all, not just some. It’s an outrageous decision, based on a flawed interpretation of the law, and it must be challenged for all our sakes.