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Indulging personal prejudices
• JOHN McPartlin’s letter (August 1) outlining the terms of the Employment Equality Regulations 2003 refers to unfair or unequal treatment of workers on the grounds of belief or sexuality.
What is at issue here is the validity and genuineness of Lillian Ladele’s accusations of religious discrimination.
For religious discrimination to be unfair or unequal it must directly affect the person concerned adversely.
If, for example, a worker whose genuinely held religious belief was that the sabbath is holy and must be devoted to the worship of God, refused to work on Sundays and was fired, that would be religious discrimination. The refusal to work on Sunday does not discriminate against anyone else and upholds the right of religious practice universally.
Ms Ladele’s legal, contractual duty to officiate at civil same-sex partnerships is an administrative task. She is not personally exercising her own power and authority and thereby conferring and approving a state of union on the couples. She is not being forced to act against the tenet of her faith with regards to the union of heterosexual couples as the only union acceptable to God.
The power and authority for allowing, creating and legalising same-sex civil partnerships emanates from the will of the people through an Act of Parliament executed by the borough of Islington’s office for registering births, deaths and marriages. She is merely doing as the name of the office implies; she is registering the events for administrative purposes.
She is not being personally discriminated against religiously by being obliged to perform such an administrative task. She is in no way adversely affected by the creation of same-sex civil partnerships.
What Ms Ladele is attempting to do is create an opportunity to indulge her religious prejudices and bias against same-sex couples and, in the process, discriminate unfairly against the fellow workers.
Many types of workers find it distasteful in dealing with specific types of clients, as Mrs Ladele obviously does in serving same-sex couples. Social workers handle innumerable benefits applicants, knowing that a significant number of these people are outright scroungers. These social workers’ belief in the ethics of hard work and Christian responsibility towards others is genuinely held by them.
Many are justifiably offended by serving such members of the public but, regardless of their personal prejudices, carry out their job without demanding exemptions and favours in the workplace thereby discriminating against their fellow social workers.
In John McPartlin’s letter he implies that Ms Ladele should be treated more favourably.
He refers to the other staff members as “resources”. He does not have the courtesy or kindness to refer to them as human resources. Why should other staff’s sensitivities be slighted and ignored? Their feelings of resentment at being less favourably treated than Ms Ladele in demanding to be considered first in the assigning of registration ceremonies is justified.
Not only would they have to perform all the same-sex couple ceremonies no matter how much they approved of such but they would have less chance of performing heterosexual ceremonies.
This constitutes an unequal and unfair discrimination against those staff members occasioned by more favourable treatment of Ms Ladele on false religious grounds.
The borough of Islington is a leader in the provision of equal treatment of all couples, heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian and transvestite.
By allowing staff to opt out of their legal, contractual duty, it would be sending out a conflicting message to those people it wishes to serve. It would be saying that it is willing to give more favourable treatment to staff members with religious prejudice against homosexuals, lesbians and transvestites.
In other words homosexual, lesbian, transvestites, you are still second class.
You are not the equal of heterosexuals. The Employment Equality Regulations 2003 provide legal protection against unfair or unequal treatment on the basis of religious belief or sexuality to workers.
This is not an instrument by which a worker should be allowed to indulge religious prejudice by discriminating against the other workers through demanding more favourable treatment in the performance of the worker’s job. That is to introduce conflict deliberately into the workplace. Ms Ladele has created an unhappy, divisive, discriminatory, prejudicial atmosphere at her place of work.
If she genuinely does not want to carry out her legal, contractual duty on behalf of same-sex couples, she should either transfer to another council department or seek employment elsewhere.
Other workers are not obliged to accommodate their lives to suit the needs of others religious beliefs.
SHEILA MOBERLY
Packington Street, N1
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