On a similar-ish vein, what would happen if a devout Roman Catholic doctor were presented with a patient who sought advice about birth control? It may seem like a "pie in the sky" example, but if you're paid a salary to perform job duties, it seems a bit churlish to start picking and choosing which job duties you're going to have issue with and which ones you're not going to do because you feel "uncomfortable" with. It makes me throw up in my mouth a little when I have to bite my tongue and deal with members of the public who wear fur in my place of work, but I just have to get on with it (though I do my best to get in disapproving looks as much as I can). If someone can't handle diversity in the workplace, maybe they should think about finding employment elsewhere. There are plenty of employers who in this day and age are still intolerant, maybe she'd be happier working for one of them.

LOL @ thumperlyn's homophobic cow pic

__________________

*Huggy Ragnarsson Is My Co-Pilot*

"coming up on kittyradio, an erotic thriller featuring Shannon Tweed..."

This happened to me, the doctor in question told me I'd have to make an appointment with another doctor (or at least I think that was the case, they told me they weren't comfortable discussing it with me and I had to see another doctor in the practice). Its a little annoying, but its their choice. I used to work in a doctors surgery and sometimes we would have patients who would refuse to see the doctor when they found out he was male. Its not an ideal situation in either case, but I don't think its right to force people do something they are uncomfortable with just because the majority of people think its right, or even because its the law.

I mean in your example, with the fur, its a bit like the difference between you tolerating people who wear fur whilst doing other things versus you being told as part of your job to skin the animals for people to wear as fur. I think if someone won't sell stamps in the post office to someone who is gay, that is a very different situation to someone who doesn't want to marry them as part of their job.

You're probably referring to me, but I said nothing about "tolerance", which I find to be an overrated notion. You don't tolerate things which are stupid and damaging to others. I don't think the abortion comparison is apt, because it's not like officiating these same-sex weddings are a matter of life and death, which those are. A Muslim bartender who refuses to serve alcohol and expects to keep his job is nearer the mark, for me. (incidentally, if it was a non-christian who had brought this case and won, everybody would be screaming "PC GONE MAD1! but that's neither here nor there")

Like I said before with the divorcees thing, which she almost certainly has no similar objection to, this is clearly just about homophobia, rather than devout faith. She's picking and choosing her "sins", which she's free to do in her personal life, but as a civil servant she can GTFO.

This is interesting to me. What is the difference? Why should anybody's belief in some book be any consideration in anything? Also, for what it's worth, these aren't even "marriages", so this woman hasn't even got that leg to stand on.

i cannot be bothered to read the rest of the thread so sorry if someone said this already but:

christianity is traditionally not down with many things.
the holy bible contains zillions of rules including how to dress and kill animals you want to eat etc.
most of those very religious homophobic christians have no idea about all those rules and do not care for them (if they did they'd eat kosher stuff, like jews and walk around with scarves on their heads to name just 2 examples)
what gives them or the roman catholic church or anybody else the right to decide that they can forget avbout all those rules in the bible BUT the one that sodomy is sinful (okay, they stick to some other rules too i hope, but i think you get what i mean?)

i am in no way attacking you by the way, jocelyn, i know you're not homophobic.
i just quoted your post because you mentioned something that has been making me mad for years. i simply do not think it is right to mask closed-mindedness as religious belief.

oh, and i just read diablo's post and i have to agree. especially about the "does she marry divorced people" thing.

okay, those were my 2 cents.

wow, i was picturing an old white lady for some reason:

edit: n/m. found.

so one online article i found on this topic had this picture next to it, no caption:



look. it's lesbians.

well ben, that was before i found out she was a blk baptist bitch from the block :d. meaning now she's allowed to do whatever she wants.

anyways. idk guys. i'm kind've with user Insomnia on this one.
i think if she was a jew or a muslim or those red dot pujabanese ones it'd be more "understandable" & nobody would say a thing about it. but since she's all gospel glorii, jeezus jeezus about it people think she's just being a bitch about it. when it comes down to it, this is just another article attempting to portray how evil & ruthless christianity is & how chic it is to be "open-minded" & "tolerant" to things that go against the "norm". which only fuels discrimination even more & makes the intolerant even more intolerant.

basically, legally she bent the rules a little, but morally she's justifiable. i'm glad she won the case. because it was just as much of a personal issue as much as it was a legal issue. but of course, people are only looking at one half of the story. if the media is doing anything at all they're only demonizing her as tbe typical bible belt monster, not a martyred saint.

it's the courts fault for even setting up this catastrophe. but they're british so it all cancels out.

__________________
hollywood would be jealous.

I dont think I've ever agreed with you before.

first time for everything I guess.

__________________
getting tired of the collective orgasm at the public declaration of the word "change"

Dr. Nathanson

Why does one have to be more important than the other? Surely there is room in our lives/ideologies to honor the rights of both homosexuals and the religious?

Certainly, I have no interest in replacing a prejudice against one group with prejudice against another.

__________________

that was kinda what i was getting at... the media wants us to decide... Channel 4 news did a segment on it.. although i dont believe in choosing in this issue as to whats more important im looking at it from a personal level and just believe it was wrong... fair enough

Wasn't particularly towards you, just a general thing of "we approve of gay rights, so we will be tolerant to them and so should everyone else, and we won't be tolerant if they don't. I personally think binge drinking is stupid and damaging to others, but I am not going to call you a fucking retard in the street for chosing to do it.

A Muslim bartender isn't a fair comparison because bar tending is and always has been about selling alcohol, and there is nothing else really to it. But this woman has been at that job 16 years- and only 13 years after she started did gay civil ceremonies become legal. Whilst its not life or death, to us, in her mind gay people are going to hell. I imagine as a Christian she doesn't want that and would consider it pretty morally reprensible if she did anything to aid that conclusion. Obviously we think she is in the wrong because there is no such thing as hell, but if she thinks they are going to suffer for all eternity and she doesn't want to be part of that- can we blame her?

That is why it is different from selling stamps. Most faiths have a clause by which you sort of leave other faiths to it (tolerance wise). Thus selling stamps- part of leaving them to it. Marrying them- being involved. And to be honest, we all know its marriage in everything but name, which is why I imagine she has the issue.

giggles, this is the same attitude that my lil .gif up there makes fun of
i hope you're a footsoldier defending all that's good in the WAR ON CHRISTMAS too

america is probably a beacon of open-mindedness, but here a non-christian expecting special rights would be told to hit the road in no uncertain terms.

that's the ideal in theory, but how is that possible when one group "disagrees" with even the very existence of the other? and what the two groups want is completely incompatible. you only have to look at how the religious lobby has opposed every single piece of legislation relating to gay rights as evidence of that. (for the record, in the uk, there are a whole load of exceptions to equality legislation and they are almost all to the the religious. how far do we have to bend over backwards for these people before the legislation becomes watered down so much that it becomes meaningless? to me it's no coincidence their ~religious freedom~ means restrictions placed on others)

anyway, idk, i just don't think the religious should expect to have the legal right to discriminate when they're running a STATE-RUN facility. that is the key thing here for me. surely the point of them is that any citizen can use them and expect equal treatment? public servants are paid to uphold the law and not just the bits they agree with. if they find it so hard to do, they shouldn't be in the job. it's bizarre i even have to say that tbh.

also, it needs to be remembered that it's believers who have the problem with gays here, not the other way around. well, except for me. i'd send them all to Heaven myself given the choice.

See, to me, this actually seems to be an argument for sacking the woman. If she, like you, kept her disapproving views to herself and did her job, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I see your point about her being an accomplice to this great sin, but I really can't say that this should be induldged by the British taxpayer.

Islington is the third-most popular local authority for civil partnerships in the country, it's not like she was in Hickstown where this was less likely to come up. And it's been three years now, she would have known it was coming. If she felt so strongly about her "faith", she would have resigned, it's only a job after all, not so important as her ~faith~, OBVIOUSLY. (like i said, i believe she wouldn't even have performed civil weddings if she was that devout, but whatever). I agree she shouldn't have to be part of something sinful if she doesn't want to be. But that hasn't really got anything to do with anyone but her; those beliefs are personal and the state shouldn't yield to them at the expense of other citizens, for me.

to be honest, what faiths think is completely irrelevant to me. they have no place in law whatsoever. citing "homosexuality is an abomination" from a millenia-old book when refusing to officiate a same-sex wedding is no more justifiable than telling a gay to get out of shop because the owner finds homosexuals icky.