No Right Turn: Sticking it to the bigots

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Sticking it to the bigots

What's the best response to discrimination of the sort which saw two women almost evicted from a cricket game over the weekend for kissing? In DPF's thread on the issue, I'd suggested a "queer snog-in" at the next cricket match at Wellington's Westpac Stadium (whose management have decided that they should enforce a discriminatory policy in order to protect "family values") - and now someone has risen to the occasion. The "Beige Brigade" - a group of cricket fans known for their love of the old 80's NZ Cricket uniform - will be running a "Pash for Cash" competition during the upcoming West Indies tour. Unquestionably crass, but sometimes the best way of dealing with this sort of thing is to make it clear what asses people are being...

13 comments:

Come to Canada, there's none of that crap here. Well, not yet...although we might get a right-winged government soon :(.

Keep up the good work, I think "No Right Turn" is an ingenius way of proclaiming liberalism! :D

http://afterthought.t35.com

Posted by Anonymous : 1/12/2006 03:49:00 PM

Perceived sexual orientation - even though the people involved were in fact straight.

Fortunately jerking the sponsor's chains seems to have had some effect.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 1/12/2006 03:55:00 PM

I should point out that our Human Rights Act bars not just discrimination against people on the basis of age, race, gender, and sexual orientation - but also on the perceptions of having those traits (see s21 (2) (b) (ii)). And in the provision of goods an services, it is a violation of the act to treat someone less favourably by reason of any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination. Which in English means that they can't treat same-sex snogging any different from opposite-sex snogging - either they ban it all, or they allow it all, but they can't allow one and not the other.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 1/12/2006 04:06:00 PM

I didn't see this on telly. Was the security guard an Islander? I work with a lot of Islanders, and generally speaking they are incredibly, fundamentalist bible bashingly conservative on social issues.

Posted by Anonymous : 1/12/2006 04:11:00 PM

The Beige Brigade doesn't have to pay me to pash Dion Nash. I'd do it for free if only to relieve the boredom of having to watch cricket.

Posted by Hans Versluys : 1/13/2006 10:29:00 AM

All this means is that cricket matches aren't family friendly. Because it wasn't about sexual orientation, or even percieved sexual orientation. It was about the male interest in lesbian erotica.

Given that the kiss caused unwanted male attention to other women, all this is, is a victory for men who want to objectify women.

So much for feminism.

Posted by Muerk : 1/13/2006 10:29:00 AM

Muerk: by your standards, the world isn't "family friendly", as it is full of gays, atheists, and people who refuse to live exactly like you do.

Unfortunately, the world isn't going to go away, and you cannot expect everybody to conform to your stunted ideals, so you're either going to have to get used to it, or hide in a hole for the rest of your life.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 1/13/2006 11:39:00 AM

Idiot, I think you need to go back and look at the Act. The Act may outlaw discrimination on percieved sexual orientation but ONLY if that discrimination was alleged by the person being discriminated.

Which in this case it WASNT. Also, the discrimination has to "curently exist" which in this case it doesnt.

So you are wrong. There was no perceived discrimination as per the Act.

So why is the Human Rights Commission interested in this case. It has nothing to do with them as what happened was not a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Posted by Swimming : 1/13/2006 02:06:00 PM

Dave: To the contrary, I think you need to check the act. In particular, you need to understand that s21 (2) is talking about the views of the alleged discriminator - not the person being discriminated against.

I'd also suggest you learn to understand simple boolean logic, particularly "or" statements. There's a truth table here which might help you with this.

The Human Rights Commission has a statutory duty to promote respect for human rights and speak out about discrimination. And that is exactly what it is doing in this case.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 1/13/2006 03:03:00 PM

Idiot:

D'uh. Of course the world isn't family friendly. Hence parents walk their children to school. Don't let them go shopping alone. Or play in the park unsupervised. Get a clue.

You want to know the last time I saw two women kissing - for their own pleasure mind you, not for the leering benefit of the surrounding men - was at the KAOS New Years Eve party.

Was I offended? No. Was I shocked? No. Was it a perfectly appropriate place for open mouth kissing? Yes.

You really have no idea about small children do you Idiot?

Because if you think it's okay for little girls to see women sexually objectify themselves, and little boys to see men leer, then you have just flown past the last 40 years of feminism.

Posted by Muerk : 1/13/2006 04:41:00 PM

The Human Rights Commission think this is discrimination based on sexual orientation - not percieved sexual orientation, as you have stated - because the two women may have been gay, even though they werent. Howzat for logic!

Thats what they told me. Even you don't agree with that. Suffice to say that even if S21 (2) is talking about the views of the alleged discriminator, there has to be a prohibited ground of discrimination for percieved discrimination to align itself in line with S21(2).

Personal choice is not a prohibited ground. Neither is percieved sexual orientation.

This case is about lawful discrimination based on personal choice - two women chose to kiss each other and some didnt like it. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, percieved or otherwise, and nothing to do with the HRA.

Posted by Swimming : 1/13/2006 06:47:00 PM

Of course, someone could make a complaint under the HRA for sexual harassment.

Under the Human Rights Act 1993 (the Act) two types of sexual harassment are prohibited. Number two is:

"Physical behaviour, language or visual material of a sexual nature which is unwelcome or offensive and either repeated or significant enough to have a detrimental effect on the person subjected to it."

The two women were not going to be ejected from the cricket grounds because of their sexual orientation, but because of their disruptive sexual behavior. They engaged in physical behavior of a sexual nature that may have been unwelcome or offensive and caused a detrimental effect on the person subjected to it.

Tut, tut Idiot Savant for enabling sexual harassment.

Posted by Muerk : 1/13/2006 08:10:00 PM

Many years (um...decades ago?)ago, as a varsity student I was watching cricket from the Eden Park 'Stands'. It was a lovely afternoon and everyone there was fairly inebriated. A gorgeous young girl flipped her T-shirt off baring her breasts and the crowd went into hysterical rapture.The drunken roar was so incredibly loud that it briefly stopped the guys in the field who all stared towards the 'Stands' in bewildered confusion(NZ vs. Pakistan if I recall correctly).

She flashed her boobs again ten minutes later, which led to a young lad going up for a closer view. The upshot of this story is that soon there was a drunken punch up between the girl's boyfriend and the guy insisting on a closer look.

Booze and blatantly showing off distracts from the game - plain and simple. Maybe there should be an on-the-spot shrink at the stadium to attend to the needs of these desperate attention-seekers.

Anyhow, sad part of the story was that it was the boyfriend who was dragged off by the boys in blue, leaving the gorgeous boob-barer in a weepy mess of tears.

Moral of the Story: (at least my version of it) blatant and inconsiderate attention-seekers that cause a scene thereby disrupting the game for everyone else - be they hetero, same sex or bloody martians - get what they deserve.

Posted by A Different Drum : 1/17/2006 08:28:00 AM