A Christian who was demoted in his job for a comment he wrote on Facebook about gay marriage has won a breach of contract action against his employers.
Whilst I personally abhor the sentiments I’m inclined to agree with the ruling in that a person should be able to express their own opinion to their own social circle, and that you shouldn’t be able to demote someone from their job for doing so. As I discussed in one of my very first posts earlier this year, the tension between wanting freedom of speech, and wanting to stop people from saying offensive stuff is complex and perhaps inherently un-resolvable.
But in his statement following the ruling the individual in question asked the following question:
“Does the Prime Minister want to create a society where people like me, people who believe in traditional marriage, are treated as outcasts?”
So that would be as opposed to the society where people are treated as outcasts because they are gay and want to get married? You’re ok with that are you?
One of the things by which I am constantly confounded is the naked hypocrisy of this kind of position. How can someone seriously expect to say that they want to right to infringe the rights of others?
I made this point briefly in a post a couple of weeks ago.
I remember how at primary school when someone had done something bad to someone else the teacher would normally employ the “how would you like it if someone did that to you?” line of questioning, and it was broadly effective. Occasionally you would get a stubborn little twerp who would defiantly say “I’d be ok with it!” as if this was somehow a clever answer and the teacher would say “Oh. Right then. Carry on spitting in Jonny’s hair.” But for the most part this would result in a contrite 7 year old mumbling “I wouldn’t like it Miss” and then whispering their apology without making eye-contact. Granted they probably didn’t mean it, but then my recollection of social dynamics at that age was that if you were a boy you’d be back playing football together in the playground by lunchtime, and if you were a girl you would have changed who your best friend was 19 times by lunchtime and have forgotten who you were meant to hate anyway.
Clearly the chap whose won his case recognises that being an outcast is a Bad Thing, and is aghast at the notion of being outcast from society himself. So does he think that preventing 2 people who love each other, who happen to be of the same sex, from getting married doesn’t constitute being treated as outcasts? Or is he happy that it does constitute being treated as an outcast, but that doesn’t matter because their feelings aren’t worthy of being considered.
Interestingly the comment he’d made on Facebook which sparked the issue in the first place was that marriage between 2 people of the same sex was “an equality too far.” So you can include Gay people a bit, but they have to stay Outcast to some extent. Otherwise I suppose they would be like normal people, and you can’t have that!