From the BBC:
A key Conservative has been recorded suggesting people who run bed and breakfasts in their homes should have the right to reject homosexual guests. But shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said hotels should not be allowed to discriminate in that way.
There is of course no proper dividing line between b&b and hotel, so his proposal fails at the first hurdle, but it's fine with me, provided always that gay B&B owners are also allowed to reject Christian or Muslim guests, or those belonging to any other homophobic religion.
Perspective
23 minutes ago
22 comments:
He didn't suggest that all people be allowed to reject them. Merely religious ones.
It's actually quite simple, Mark, as I'm sure you know anyway: businesses should be free to advertise the services that they wish to provide. Then the potential customer can make his choice. The problem is created by those who want to oblige people to offer products that they cannot or do not want to sell.
Could a guest house not simply advertise itself as "Christian-owned" to get round this problem? After all, plenty of guest houses advertise themselves as "gay friendly" or "gay owned", for example see here.
I'm not sure - it would have to be more blatant than that, surely? Some Christians wouldn't give a damn, after all...
They could advertise themselves as Australian Philosophers' Boarding House?
Completely agree with Chris. Not only should they be able to refuse homosexuals but heterosexuals and little men from the Planet Zog. It's their loss of custom but what the government has to do with it I can't fathom.
I have a friend, who happens to be female, and we occasionally treat ourselves to a weekend away in a guest house. I'm now wondering if the B & B owners spend their time wondering if we're lesbians ... the thought had never crossed my mind before.
Deedee99, Lucky you're not Lebanese as well?
Leaving aside the parlour pachyderm of 'why is the govt. involved?', any such establishment needs some reciprocity agreements.
When confronted with 'Those whom they would not admit' they make a quick call to a suitable local estab, and say 'sign here, your room is four blocks thataway, two block thisaway.'
Prejudice is bad and refusing some one on those grounds is wrong. What is more wrong is if you have two couples, one couple are gay and the other couple are straight wanting the one room available and you have to choose the gay couple because other wise you will either fall foul of equality law or be called homophobic.
The law was there to make us all less bigoted. So that the signs "No dogs No Irish " would not be seen any more.
But there is prejudice and religious instruction. When the state outlaws religious beliefs it moves into Henry Tudor territory.
Poor ministers. Whatever they say on banning drugs or speed limits or sex education will offend.
They really should learn to say nothing at all.
Those doing business do so in the nexus of laws that make business possible, before which they themselves demand and require to be treated equally. The is the context in which anti-discrimination legislation principally operates, and hotels and transport (public accommodations) are at the heart of it. See History of the USA, Civl Rights. passim.
In the contemporary UK there seems to be no problem (for Grayling or anyone else) with the application of anti-discrimination laws in relation to gay people, where the business is completely a business - for example, a hotel. It is unlawful to treat gay people differently just because they are gay, in providing and charging for goods and services, including hotel rooms. (One should add that this equally applies to specially appointed hotels. Gay-themed hotels seek to attract gay custom -- and might intentionally or otherwise discourage many non-gays by emphasising their gay-friendly aspects -- but may not actually refuse heterosexuals the same services and terms for no reason other than their sexual preference.)
The only question has arisen where there is a supposedly hybrid element to the business - in the case of B&B, where someone offers rooms in their own home, which, it is claimed, is not operated as a hotel per se. It is suggested that such an arrangement remains sufficiently private that laws relating to public busines need not apply. People, it is claimed, are free to apply the same standards to guests as to those whom they would admit to their private homes, even though they then go on to charge them for specifc good and services.
I do not know if such arguments also suggest taxation laws do not apply in the same way either -- and that B&Bs are not obliged to keep records, charge VAT, or pay business taxes on the monies resulting from taking in guests, since it is a private affair in which they receive compensation for sharing their home.
Unfortunately, the business element of the B&B is very substantial - it is not an occasional, informal matter, in which the home is opened as a home, and if the guest pays for beenfits, it is on an ad hoc basis. It is permanent, advertised, organised by tourist and trade groups, and relies on all the state's laws of business in order to operate. Each guest forms a contract with the owner to pay for specific goods and services. If after staying the night someone refused to pay for the room, claiming it was offered out of friendship, how would the B&B operator seek to enforce payment? By insisting at law that it was a business like any other and entitled to recover the charges laid out at the start as the basis of contract.
To remain a genuinely private affair, the B&B owner would need to accept only what payment "guests" felt they wished to make, on a purely voluntary basis, and make clear in advance this was the basis for charging. Then I think it would be fair to be able to choose who he wanted to admit.
"Unfortunately, the business element of the B&B is very substantial - it is not an occasional, informal matter, in which the home is opened as a home, and if the guest pays for beenfits, it is on an ad hoc basis. It is permanent, advertised, organised by tourist and trade groups..."
and so it's everyone else's business to tell them how they must do it, is it?
"...and relies on all the state's laws of business in order to operate."
Er, no. It has no option, like the rest of us, to obey whatever laws government sees fit to dictate, but I would suggest that it needs or 'relies on' very few of them.
So, many of our so called "Libertarian"friends allways
parroting on about freedom of the
individual suddenly jump to the
defence of state interference.
As many of us have known for a long time about the self annointed
disciples of liberty.
Controlled canaries in gilded cages.
Nimrod
What concerns me is that he’s still on the Front Benches after failing to make a full retraction of something that directly contradicts the party leader. This is the unwritten rule, you can’t sit on the front benches and criticise your leader. If you’re caught doing it, then you recant, or your resignation letter is expected.
Is Cameron beholden to the right wing of his party, and *can’t* ask for his resignation?
Cingram said:. and relies on all the state's laws of business in order to operate. Er, no. It has no option, like the rest of us, to obey whatever laws government sees fit to dictate, but I would suggest that it needs or 'relies on' very few of them.
My point is not about the unwelcome and intrusive regulatory and other business laws. I am talking about contract, and body of laws that define it and enforce it. You can't do business without them, and you rely on them. Offering things for sale in shop, repairs in a garage, seats on a bus, and rooms in a B&B rely on them.
Very few people on this blog or anywhere else suggest that there should be no recourse at law if a business operates a colour or ethic based discrimination (no blacks, no Irish). Some do suggest there should be none for discrimination against homosexuals. I have not heard any sensible arguments as to why this should be the case.
Everyone has also ignored Marks splendid idea. Basically, I think most gay people would agree as far as the hybrid or borderline private commercial world is concerned. Gay people in business should be free to discriminate against anyone who is a member of a religious group that is negative towards homosexuality. So no Christians in my nice little perfectly ordinary, everyday, not explicitly gay B&B. Of course, I won't always be able to tell, and I won't be asking. But if it's obvious (clothes, jewelry, luggage, conduct etc) then no rooms for you Jesus-lovers. I can't be bothered to keep Muslims out though - and that is up to me. I don't like them, but it's not worth the trouble. And yes, it is all prejudice. Is that OK with all the people on this blog who want the state to keep out of these matters?
One further thought. Presumably the idea that Christians running B&Bs be allowed to decline to accommodate gay people is based on the special nature of religious belief or faith, as well as of the private home nature of the B&B. People don't seem to have questioned whether this would be at all a reasonable view of the religion concerned. If we were dealing with genuine fundamental tenets of belief, I would possibly have some concern for the individuals. But we are not.
I am not aware that any of the principal Christian denominations teach or suggest that gay people are worthy of disapproval or distaste, or that such a view is correctly based on Christian teaching. Far from it, all have gone to lengths to assert that gay people are no different in God's or Christians' eyes. And the B&B owner could certainly not know, or presume to decide upon the nature of the gay person's relationship with God. So there could be no argument from faith for discrimination against gay individuals. It is astonishing that anyone should suggest that profession of Christian belief, or membership of a Christian church, is adequate reason in itself for not wanting to serve homosexuals, when there is no religious ground for such conduct.
The problem does come with making a bed available to two homosexuals, where they will presumably, probably or possibly engage in sin. The B&B owner does not wish to enable, encourage, endorse, or be in some way party to such sin; or to have their home used for sin. They can properly cite Christian opposition to carnal relations between men, and this is called a sin.
But again, the Christian faith does not suggest that such sin is worse than other sexual sins - such as heterosexual sex outside marriage. In fact homosexual sex ius sinful in part precisely because it is inherently sex outside marriage.
So if the B&B owner wishes to be exempt from anti-discrimination laws on the basis of religious belief, and specifically the concern not to make possible or encourage homosexual sin, then they should be able to show that they take this view of all such possibilities for sexual sin, and not just those affecting gay people. They would need to show in particular that they refuse a room to any couple they have reason to believe is not married; and that they make an effort to identify such people, and have a record of declining their custom. This is not so hard to do, and one would absolutely expect it of anyone with genuinely faith-based reservations about accommodating gay people. But of course it is all humbug, and nobody will be prepared to do this, and the people who get hot under the collar about the freedom to disciminate against gay people would call in the state to enforce the rights of heterosexual fornicators I am quite sure.
My personal view is this.
B&B owned by a Limited Liability Company, not able to discriminate.
B&B owned by sole-trader, able to choose who it contracts with.
@ Charlie B.
Yes, by the 'few' laws that businesses really need to operate, I was referring precisely to the ones you mention, or rather to the role of the state in enforcing contracts once they have freely entered into.
I at least am not on the side of the hoteliers because the clients in question were gay, but because it is up to them who they choose to do business with. Many businesses limit their clients to a certain extent, not always for purely commercial reasons, and no attempt seems to have been made to analyse the more general practice.
'No blacks or Irish' might be an unpleasant thing to see (though you still see it, at least in private ads) but it isn't clear to me why it is a matter for the law to intervene in this, rather than in the many other unpleasant thing we are exposed to every day.
There is a certain tendency to assume that businesses must only be allowed to operate, on sufferance, with very strict constraints and conditions, after they have begged permission from some authority. I wholly disagree with this principle, for a number of reasons, including the fact that people have been selling each other things since long before the sort of government we now accept as natural was ever thought of.
Hmm, what an excellent weapon to close down gay businesses locals don't like... now that everyone has to open their doors to anyone.
Either you patronise them and make their normal business impossible, or, if all else fails, suing for some triviality also tends to work, even if they win, they still go broke from the costs whilst you claim legal aid.
Remember the punk hairdresser who ended up with a closed shop because a hejabi insisted on being a hairdresser and sued her into bankruptcy? With the new rules, a gay bar would have to employ Miss Headscarf as a barmaid too...
Let's just not go there, it's not a good space, this new rule will not help reasonable people get along better or turn bigots into nice folk, but trolls and troublemakers will find all sorts of new business possibilities here.
You are right - it works both ways. There is tolerance or there is not.
If I owned a B&B, I wouldn't knowingly allow a gay couple to sleep under my roof. So what these lefties are saying is that if I refuse to tow the line, I shouldn't be allowed to start a business.
That's thought policing, and is totally illogical. The B&B owners are perfectly within their rights, religious or not. I find homosexuality disgusting - doesn't mean I'd go out and kill or verbally abuse a gay person. The statists need to stop interfering in people's lives.
If anyone disagrees with what I've just said, they really need to seek psychiatric help. My diagnosis is they are suffering from the mental disorder that is modern liberalism.
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