What legal protections? (58)

FAIL analogy, in many regards. In particular,

1/ being white doesn't carry any legally recognised privileges.

2/ discrimination on the basis of race is explicitly illegal

3/ skin colour is not a belief, a lifestyle, or a philosophy

4/ the complainent is arguing (to continue the analogy) that because some employees aren't fired for using the upstairs loo, they were entitled to use the upstairs cafeteria.

So yes, of course the scenario you describe is discriminatory, however that doesn't stop it from being a straw-man argument.

And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Edited 18 Aug 11, 12:32 PM by Attitude_Adjuster

Which was the point I was making earlier about the use of equality law in my earlier post. I think more people are worried against the equality bandwagon than they are about the indignation bandwagon. Not many people seem to want BDSM to be on the list of "protected" groups. They just want to be left alone.

As for specific examples, I'll defer to others (like Jane, Tanos and emark) with more knowledge of individual cases that fit your qualifications. (By the way, is there a web link to a comprehensive list of such cases?)

Genuine question: does the image of BDSM need to be improved in order for the government etc. to stay out of people's bedrooms? If so, how is this accomplished, and does is fit in with any of Jane's examples of action?

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

That being the case an unfair dismissed case would I win because ordained Jedi am I.

If the midwife changed jobs and becomes an electrical engineer working close to very high voltage switch gear would she still insist on wearing her metal collar?

I am still not clear as to why her dom did not tell her to take it off. I would have thought she would have been sent home on the 1st refusal and the disciplinary would have kicked in when she reappeared on subsequent shifts with the collar.

Indeed - that's why I said both, separately. Fights you win are always good, fights you lose with dignity and moral highground can also be good. As per @Ianneil says above, it really beggars belief how this situation arose in the first place.

No. Its partly about being right, and mainly about being able to communicate why you are right in a manner other people can hear, understand and empathise with.

One of the ways of achieving that is to highlight cases where the injustice is obvious, and fairly acknowledging where it isn't. In this case, had she just followed her employers request, her greivance would have been extremely minor, but by making an issue of it she lost her job (big greivance!). Most people looking at this will see that her loss was largely self inflicted (I'm going by the reports on the boards, there may obviously be more to it). Even within this community, people are asking 'did some idiot dom get her into this pickle?', so what hope for a judge and wider society?

No... I don't think it does. As a group we are fairly spread across demographics, politics, etc. there is nothing visible to separate our identity from the rest of society. Even the club/much going fraternity is a small proportion of people who BDSM. We generally conduct ourselves well on boards like these, and agree on a reasonable set of ethics that most vanilla folk would understand the rationale behind. Kink is far more widely accepted than most (?) people on here would suggest...

When it comes to individuals championing the cause, I think more caution is needed. There are some very good advocates amongst us, and also some who aren't - indeed most have strengths and weaknesses. We do need to take care that the public perception doesn't become focussed on individuals/cases who/that aren't really representative - I can see some examples of this in other domains where people acquire 'household name' status whilst being quite estranged from the people they claim affinity with.

I actually like a lot of Jane's writing, however I reserve the right to say that I think this one is misguided.

And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Edited 18 Aug 11, 3:59 PM by Attitude_Adjuster

The key issue is that saying "Activity X is banned" but letting group A get away with doing it while punishing group B for doing it is just as discriminatory as saying "Group A are allowed to do activity X, but Group B aren't"

I will come up with one then, sorry tried to avoid getting more involved in this.

I worked in the health care sector recently (third time in my life) and I have a collar and an engagement ring. I was not allowed to wear either. The reason for the collar is more interesting than the reason for the ring, that one is simple, dirt gets into it and can spread infection.

The collar, a patient can grab it, bad if a chain (though it will likely snap) worse if a collar that won't. Not to mention hoists and the like, if something won't give then it presents a real danger to the person, especially if you deal with violent people. Its more than simply infection control.

Slightly different than cloth which will easily come off if needed.

You can tear cloth off, you can undo/snap chains but an unlockable collar you can't. Often you work in twos for dangerous people, so someone else would be there to assist, of course ideally no one should be wearing anything around their necks but there are degrees and I am surprised that you can't see a collar being more dangerous.

This is really what is actually good about this particular case, and the line of argument that it is following. Equality legislation has created privileged groups of people who get extra rights and/or protections, and I agree that can create resentment and a form of inequality in itself. However the argument that is central to this case (the collar is a huge red herring) is that there shouldn't just be a few narrowly defined groups that get protection but that much wider groups of people should be protected from discrimination. It is not about calling BDSM a 'belief' as such, it is more about saying that people should not be unreasonably discriminated against for their opinions and choices. Extending anti-discrimination legislation to make any unreasonable discrimination over things that are not relevant to your job unlawful.

This is at a very early stage, but it seems to be the inevitable direction the law will head in, and every chance that can be taken to push it further seems to me to be a good thing. I am very pleased to see it being argued in the context of the freedom of adults to choose their sexual lifestyle.

The collar issue is a red herring, but as I understood the original article the point that would have been made if the lifestyle choice issue had been won was that other people were apparently allowed to continue wearing their jewellery because of their beliefs. I'd agree that if there was a blanket ban on not wearing jewellery, imposed for a valid reason, that was enforced against everyone, then you would (rightly) have no hope of claiming you should be allowed to wear a collar. However if there was a ban on jewellery, but people who claimed it was against their religion to take their jewellery off were allowed to ignore it, then I think it would be perfectly valid to argue that someone for whom a collar was an equally deep and meaningful symbol in their own personal belief system or lifestyle choice should equally be allowed to wear that.

I don't think it is ok. Of course it is not. However, I can see the viewpoint that the area is grey now and drawing attention may lead to legislation which is worse than it is now. I don't agree, though. I'm for fighting.

The problem is the shades of grey. There are too many activities, too many variations, too many types of "consensual violence". It would be a nightmare to regulate and prosecute/not prosecute.

it seems to me that the government interferes in quite a lot of areas and "regulates" quite a bit of life in general. Having been quite active in certain activism areas which concerned individual freedom/rights but non bdsm related, I saw first hand how the government uses quite a lot of strategies to "coerce" people to conform. They don't give a fig about human rights. Well, maybe a fig. But not a bushel.

The above is the route I would go down. It has characteristics of both a religion and a cultural belief system. There is absolutely no difference between a D/s relationship and a marriage, handfasting, or common law marriage, except the existence of "play", which could be compared to sex, or meditation, or cultural rituals. Could it be that it is the terminology which we find acceptable (consentual slavery, consensual non-consent), but is beyond the conception of some vanillas, and, frankly, quite frightening.

So. My vote is fight - belief system.

Good luck, Jane

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