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[tinyjo]

This, about the Sexual Orientation Regulations, made me really sad. All the examples the opponents of the bill gave, like hoteliers liable to prosecution for refusing a double room to a gay couple, were things that I thought "But that's what I would want to happen!". I think I may be a lefty pinko liberal.

On the other hand, this, about a new random radio station launching in Oxford, sounds quite interesting

Comments

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

All the examples the opponents of the bill gave ... were things that I thought "But that's what I would want to happen!"

It would be delightful if people were so pleasant to each other that they would be happy to overlook their own biases, though I fail to see how forcing the appearance of such pleasantry will actually promote the real thing.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

It rarely changes the opinions of the current generation but it can have an effect on the next.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

But surely, not always for the better? - cf the rise of the BNP, on the back of governmental promotion of race equality/multiculturalism, which they would read as force, causing them to want to kick against it even harder, iyswim.

I can't understand why an hotelier would refuse the money to be made from a double room let to a gay couple; but then, a) would they actually want to stay somewhere where the welcome was so unwelcoming? and b) it'll be the hotelier who loses out on revenue - especially given how fast bad reviews travel on the web these days.

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

> would they actually want to stay somewhere where the welcome was so unwelcoming?

Sure -- in fact, in the past, there was often little choice. The satisfactions it provides are to do with visibility, promoting tolerance and forcing change. After all, the registry office wasn't a very welcoming place for gay couples up till recently, but this year there's been a stampede in that direction.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't want to stay somewhere unwelcoming, but if my choices are:

rule out numerous vacations and chances to visit people because no hotel will put me up

or

deal with some people being mildly rude or disapproving, but get to enjoy my life

then yes, I might stay somewhere that didn't want me.

In fact, I travel places where people don't want me all the time. I'm legally blind, and I tend to make people uncomfortable. Just walking about and living my life I often make drivers highly uncomfortable. They see the cane and panic, often doing stupid things. Just yesterday, I was waiting at a light to cross, not even off of the sidewalk, when a car stopped at a green, waited, it turned yellow, then red, then I crossed. I wish the driver hadn't done that, but there wasn't much I could do. I crossed properly with the light.

Someday I will have a wheelchair. I'll be one of the most difficult combinations for people to wrap their heads around or know how to deal with - a blind female in a wheelchair. There will be places more okay with that and less okay with that, but really, I don't expect anywhere will ~want~ me. But I don't want to let that keep me from living where I want to live or let that keep me from going places. I'm sorry that my existence makes others uncomfortable, even when they wouldn't need to act any differently because of me, but I'd rather they learn to deal than I constantly limit my options to cater to their discomfort. I'd have to seriously warp my life and give up on so many things people take for granted to do that, and I would imagine the same is true of a homosexual couple. And why should they?

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

The adjustment of attitudes over one or more generations is an interesting point. Do you think that the use of legal force to achieve that adjustment is more effective (presumably quicker) than social pressure without the legal force?

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

I think that it's often quicker although it can also be more painful during the transitional period; it's a case of balancing up those things.

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Thanks.
Do you think there is any difference between this matter and freedom of association? For example, most people would probably agree that it is up to a homeowner to decide who they would invite to their home to stay or for a dinner party, and who they would not. Why should this freedom not be allowed if money changes hands for the bed or the food?

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

As I mentioned in the other thread, I feel that they've implicitly agreed to cede that freedom by freely advertising the bed or food with no provisos.

Actually, forcing people who want to not have gay couples in their hotels to state it up front would also be interesting because I think there's a lot more closet homophobia, as it were, than overt. If they had to be public about it, would they actually do it, or would they put up and shut up?

I don't think this is actually the stance of the proposed legislation but I'm finding it hard at this point to get at the details of exactly what that is in the welter of claim and counter claim in the media :(

[jinty]

I've seen a leaflet for a Japanese chain of budget hotels which explicitely state upfront that they will not rent a room with a double bed to two men (though there is no such restriction on two women wanting to rent that room).

[applez.livejournal.com]

Actually, I quite like the idea that a discriminatory hotelier would be forced to explicitly state those values up front.

Sadly, this might only replicate the 'members only' club mentality/solution that prevailed in times before.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I think the difference is that one simply means some people lose social opportunities and the other creates a society that actively cripples many people for being different.

I was told this story a long time ago in Hebrew School... it may or may not be a Bible story or some tradition passed on in commentary. I have no idea of its truth value, nor do I really care, because it has a lot of power as a story. I think the context I was given was why God punished and/or destroyed these people.

There was a town that would let any people come to it that wanted to. And if the people asked for help, the people would give them money, but they'd give them special marked coins that meant they were outsiders. None of the people would take that money to give them food or shelter. None of the people would give them food or shelter out of charity or kindness. As a result, people would travel to the town, not realizing that they had no ability to again basic resources like water and food, and the visiters would die. One day a child of that town took pity on a child who was with someone traveling and brought the foreign child a jug of water. The local child was punished by being stripped, tied to a tree, covered in honey, and left to be devoured alive by ants. I think it's the latter part that helped me vividly remember the story. This was the final straw, and God destroyed these people, because they were inhospitable, which is a very, very grave sin. Plus their conspiracy of not being willing to trade with outsiders, plus their lack of openness about it, was tantamount to murder.

If you allow systematic prejudice, you will get regions where people in certain minorities cannot acquire necessities. You will get regions that simply won't assist some people. And then you create nightmare scenarios. It may suck to not get invited over to dinner, but you're not being denied the ability to buy groceries or gas so you can leave town.

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Apologies for the delay in replying, but notifications are playing up. I think that the point you raise with this tale is addressed here (http://knirirr.livejournal.com/255520.html).

[applez.livejournal.com]

I can't help being amused by this question. I know this question is specifically for this issue and British society in particular, but I think the question was definitively answered by the civil rights movement in the US (and for the US) for a different host of discriminatory 'traditions.' Boycotting played its part in moral suasion (with little larger financial impact, when the market was already profiting from an apartheid system that had traveling bluesmen sleeping in their cars or bus stations, not hotels), but ultimately corrective legislation was required.

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Why do you find it amusing?
When you refer to corrective legislation are do you mean the creation of new laws to restrict and regulate social in ways of which you approve, or the removal of old ones that restrict and regulate them in ways of which you disapprove, or both?

[applez.livejournal.com]

Well, given the choice between legislating a social norm to allow minorities to hire a room at market price from a hotelier like any other customer, or a police state to keep order on a restive population well down the cycle of violence - the decision was clear.

As I said, this was clearly the state of US society at the time.

Incidentally, none too dissimilar extremes played out in the Castro after the Harvey Milk murder trial.

[yalovetz]

This isn't legislating people's personal opinions, it's legislating the provision of goods and services. I don't care what the hotelier's personal biases are so long as I get a comfortable room to stay in for the night.

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

so long as I get a comfortable room to stay in for the night.

Why should a hotelier be forced to give you a room if he doesn't want to?

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Because he advertised available rooms. Similarly I wouldn't want it to be OK for him to refuse a room to a black person or a Hindu and, in fact, it isn't. Why should there be special provision for discrimiating against gays?

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Because he advertised available rooms.

Would it be then be acceptable for him to turn people away if he had advertised rooms subject to conditions (e.g. "vacancies, but only if I like the look of you")?

Why should there be special provision for discrimiating against gays?

Why should there be special provision for anyone?

Anyway, I hope you don't mind these questions. I am interested to understand the reasoning behind your (and coalescent's) comments on the BBC article.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Would it be then be acceptable for him to turn people away if he had advertised rooms subject to conditions (e.g. "vacancies, but only if I like the look of you")?

Morally, I'd be more comfortable with that. That way everyone knows where they stand and, for example, I could also choose to deliberately withhold my custom even though I personally would be unlikely to be discriminated against (although you never know - possibly he wouldn't like the look of little perky girls :) ). Legally, I have no idea if you're allowed to do that or not.

Why should there be special provision for anyone?

Well, I'm not sure why they don't just make a law saying if you've advertised a service for money and someone can pay for it you have to provide that service (as long as you're otherwise within the law - so you still wouldn't serve drinks to underage kids). You would think that would be easier but I presume there are practical downsides or something of that nature.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind these questions. I am interested to understand the reasoning behind your (and coalescent's) comments on the BBC article.

That's fair enough. I was wondering what the tone of voice was so it's good to know that it's inquistive :) Going back to my original comments then, my primary reaction was sadness because people still react like this; I find it really upsetting. I agree that legislating to change peoples behaviour is fraught with difficulties but I personally feel that it's worth taking the potential short term pain to help force a change of attitudes in the longer term. That judgement is going to be different depending on your feelings about the underlying issue, and how short you think the short term will be but thats the side I come down on.

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Legally, I have no idea if you're allowed to do that or not.

As far as I am aware there has always been custom/law that providers of services may restrict their use. An example would be a landlord refusing to serve a drunkard or ejecting someone who was causing a disturbance in his pub.
My default assumption is that if goods or services are offered for sale then that is dependent upon the purchaser. Shops sometimes refuse to sell eggs to teenagers on halloween because they think that they might use them to cause a nuisance, and a restaurant might refuse admittance to someone who was not properly dressed even without any sign stating a dress code. So, if I went to a local community centre advertising a room for hire, and asked to hire it for my boxing and knife combat class, then though I would think them small-minded bigots for turning me away I would not think that they should be forced to take my money just because I was the first to apply for the vacant slot.

my primary reaction was sadness because people still react like this;

It is indeed most unfortunate that people do adhere to these strange superstitions.

By the way, I am not getting comment notifications from LJ today, so if I don't reply then it's because I haven't spotted your response.

[yalovetz]

Because selling goods and services (such as hotel services) is a critical component of an economic system. An economic system is a mechanism designed to distribute resources. I want my economic systems to distribute resources as fairly as possible.

It wouldn't be all that problematic if just one person wanted to refuse to sell just me just one item because they didn't like me personally, or had some obscure personal prejudice against me. But when their prejudice is based on widespread prejudices reinforced in and by the rest of society then their refusal to sell me that item becomes part of a larger pattern where lots of people who are like me in certain ways are refused service by many different vendors in many different circumstances and over an extended period of time. This larger pattern constitutes a societal prejudice that has become systemic (as in, embedded in the overall economic system). Legislation like this is a way of trying to remove that large scale prejudice from the economic system we use to distribute goods and services, not necessarily about changing individuals' personal preferences.

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that makes your position clear.
I do, of course, completely disagree with all of what you said, but it is still very interesting to read.

Can you expand on why you disagree?

[jinty]

a bit, at least?