Delicious LiveJournal Links for 4-30-2010

[andrewducker]

• UK has higher early death rate than many rich nations
  (tags: healthcare uk)
• The Fax Machine Timeline, an illustration of technological change.
  (tags: technology comic funny office)
• FiveThirtyEight: UK Seats Projection: Tories 299, Labour 199, LibDems 120
  I could live with that.
  (tags: politics uk)
• US to stop vetoing Security Council resolutions on Israel if it keeps building settlements
  (tags: israel usa palestine)
• The woman from Bigot-gate refuses to sell out to The Sun.
  (tags: politics uk media)
• Belgian lawmakers legislate women's clothing
  (tags: islam belgium clothing)
• New news on "Campfire" - the game which puts you on the wrong side in an 80s slasher movie.
  (tags: gaming horror)
• Worst press release EVER
  (tags: babies EpicFail)
• Labour caught breaking (or at least severely bending) the rules on postal votes
  (tags: election elections fraud labour politics uk)
• A life with leprosy
  (tags: leprosy disease society usa)
• The Scanner Photography Project
  Taking "long-exposure" photographs with a scanner.
  (tags: photography digital technology hacking camera scanner)
• Relationship counsellor who refused to counsel gay couples loses appeal
  And a good thing too.
  (tags: christianity bigotry relationships laws uk)

Comments

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

http://www.thekitchen.ikea.co.uk/domestic-policy/election.html

[g]

[andrewducker]

That's great!

[anef.livejournal.com]

That is brilliant.

[broin.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Thanks!

[robhu.livejournal.com]

With respect to the relationship counsellor, what concerns me is that it is illegal to change the terms of someones employment contract without their agreement, but that is essentially what happened here - his whole job description changed when the law changed, something that would not ordinarily be allowed.

Now I know that many people who read this comment will think that homosexual relationships are the same in almost all or all ways as heterosexual ones. That may or may not be the case, that's not my point, my point is that for some people it's not the case, and it puts people like this in a really hard situation.

It'd be easy to push buttons of he's being oppressed or the gay people he wouldn't counsel are being oppressed, but what I'd propose is something less confrontational. Our society is full of people with different views about morality and so on, views which conflict, and we all have to live and work together. It seems to me that it would have been ideal for Christian counsellors to have been allowed to not work with gay couples on personal moral grounds (in the same way that doctors do not have to do things they object to morally, like abortions), in cases where no one would actually be disadvantaged by doing so. So in places where there were multiple counsellors most of whom would have no problem with counselling gay couples, have them takeover those future cases. Such an exemption would only apply to people currently employed, anyone new joining would not have that exemption, so it closely mirrors the situation with changing the terms of someone's contract (you can't, but you can have a different contract for new people).

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Now I know that many people who read this comment will think that homosexual relationships are the same in almost all or all ways as heterosexual ones. That may or may not be the case, that's not my point.

Unfortunately, though, if (like me) a person does think that, your point does become completely irrelivent. For your argument to be valid we have to take it as a given that his job description changed. It didn't.

Let's take another example of the type you're citing here. If you bought a home to let it out in 2000, you didn't have to have a fire alarm wired into the mains of your house.

A few years later, HMO legislation came in whereby all homes being let to more than two people had to have mains wired fire alarms. Then, more recently still, superceding European legislation meant that now all let homes must have mains fire alarms.

Would it be okay for landlords and agents from before this legislation came in to say, "Actually, no, I'm not going to comply to this because I started letting this flat out before that was the law"?

Let's take a more closely relevant example. Post 1967, was it okay for a registrar to refuse to legally marry interracial couples in the US? They really believed it was wrong, and by your definition it's a change to their terms of employment.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Given [Bad username or site: wildeabandon' / @ livejournal.com]'s comment I see now that there was no change during his term of employment, so I agree that the type of defence I argued for above can't be used in this case, but the argument itself is valid in cases where it applies.

Unfortunately, though, if (like me) a person does think that, your point does become completely irrelivent. For your argument to be valid we have to take it as a given that his job description changed. It didn't.
Aren't these two separate points? In this case if his job description didn't change then yes I agree, this argument doesn't apply here, but if someone does think that homosexual relationships are the same in all ways then that doesn't invalidate my argument because my argument has nothing to do with whether such relationships really are equivalent or not.

I don't think your analogy about fire alarms is equivalent, employment terms and moral principles are clearly a different sort of thing, and this is already accepted to be the case as it is illegal to change someone's terms of employment without their consent.

With respect to your example of interracial marriage, if the registrar honestly thought that marrying interracial couples was an immoral thing to do, and that registrar could be accommodated without any effect on any interracial couples that wanted to get married then yes I think they should have been accomodated. My argument is not based on whether I think the action in question (gay sex therapy, interracial marriage, etc) is moral or not, it's about trying to do achieve the overall aims (that the government has decided) while avoiding throwing people out of their jobs and causing them to act in what they consider to be immoral ways.

[nameandnature]

Your biting of the bullet on interracial marriage seems pretty remarkable to me, especially given your earlier explosion at my attempt to make a similar comparison. In any case, you're out of luck as far as UK law is concerned. Such an argument was explicitly rejected by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (and the rejection was later upheld by the courts) in the other case you may be thinking of (Lillian Ladele, the registrar who refused to perform civil partnerships):

106. Moreover, it is submitted that if the claimant were right, it could lead to situations which almost everyone would find wholly unacceptable. For example, a racist who objected to performing mixed race marriages or Jewish marriages would have to be accommodated in similar circumstances. (Apparently there are some Christian churches in America which advocate white supremacism and anti-semitism).

and later

117. Fundamental changes in social attitudes, particularly with respect to sexual orientation, are happening very fast and for some - and not only those with religious objections - they are genuinely perplexing. In that context there seems to us to be some virtue in taking a pragmatic line if it is lawful. oweve,[sic.] However, whether the council may have been entitled to avoid bringing this matter to a head by not designating the claimant, in our view they were not obliged to do so. We think they were entitled not to agree to make an exception for the claimant. They were not required to connive in what they perceived to be unacceptable discriminatory behaviour by relieving the claimant of these duties. They were entitled to adopt as an objective an unambiguous commitment to the non-discriminatory provision of services by all staff who in the normal course of events, would be required to carry out those services. It would necessarily undermine that objective to make an exception for the claimant. Accordingly, their refusal to accommodate the religious belief of the claimant did not in our judgment involve unlawful indirect discrimination.

I think the "connive" here is well chosen: why should the council feel obliged to help either racists or those who discriminate against gays?

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

See paragraphs 3 & 4 of the judgement. He signed up to the organisation's equal opportunities policy when he signed his employment contract.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, that makes it very clear that he was dealing in bad faith and lying to them.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right. I think on that basis his defence falls down.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

New news on "Campfire" - the game which puts you on the wrong side in an 80s slasher movie.

Do you remember Killer Net?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Net

It was one of Paul Bettany's earliest roles.

[andrewducker]

Never saw Killer Net. Was it any good?

I have seen Man Bites Dog, which is one of the more brilliant and black things I've seen.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

It wasn't bad. Wasn't great either. I did watch it when it repeated though so I must've enjoyed it.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

"It seems that a religious bar to office has been created, whereby a Christian who wishes to act on their Christian beliefs on marriage will no longer be able to work in a great number of environments."

And quite right. If a political vegetarian took a job at Gregg's and was then sacked for refusing to make or serve meat pasties to the public would they have a leg to stand on through discrimination laws?

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Good analogy. Nobody's forcing you to work with meat, but then don't get a job working with meat.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

A bit like this joke:

'Political correctness gone mad!

I'm advertising for a new job at my company and so in the advert I politely put "Muslims and Jews need not apply." Muslims are generally cool about it, Jews don't care - it's just those fuckers from the council who are round straight away threatening me with a court summons for active racial discimination. Stupid, dopey bastards. I'm a pork butcher.'

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Campfire isn't the first game to do that. I remember playing the Friday 13th game on the Spectrum in the 80's. Of course in 16-bit colour, it wasn't quite as realistic.

[andrewducker]

That's not 16-bit colour - that's 16 colours!

Probably still terrifying at the time, of course :->

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Nice to see the US growing a pair when it comes to Israel.

Not sure how I feel about Belgium. I felt I supported this, but now it's here, I'm thinking, sure, it's a symbol of oppression, but ban the symbol and the oppression remains.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

And how is telling people what they can and cannot wear, not actual oppression?

I think Islam is a mysoginistic, archaic relic of a medieval society, but freedom of expression should trump that easily.

[andrewducker]

Well, exactly.

[in-thy-bounty.livejournal.com]

It says 'Campfire is scheduled for release October 2009'

Anyone know if it actually got released?

[kynn.livejournal.com]

yeah, i was wondering the same thing, since the story was from 2007

[heron61.livejournal.com]

FiveThirtyEight: UK Seats Projection: Tories 299, Labour 199, LibDems 120
I could live with that

I know the Tories aren't as insane as the US Republican party, but they are still the party of Margaret Thatcher. How is having them with more than 45% of the vote and well more of the vote than either other major party a remotely good thing?

[andrewducker]

I didn't expect the Lib Dems to win - and I can live with a situation that puts a Lib/Lab coalition in front of the Tories. It's not anywhere near ideal, but it's better than an outright Tory victory.