[Northern Ireland] Gay workers get legal protection

Victor

Gay workers get legal protection
07/12/03 00:00
By Kieron Wood

Discrimination by employers on the grounds of sexual orientation became illegal in the North last week.

The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations apply to all workers, including the police and members of the armed forces. The North already has legislation outlawing discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, religious belief, political opinion and disability.

The new regulations, which apply to employees and contract workers who work wholly or partly in the North, forbid direct or indirect discrimination, harassment or victimisation.

Benefits such as insurance or private healthcare, which are provided to opposite sex unmarried partners must be provided to same sex partners from now on. Benefits that specify "married" partners or "spouse" do not have to be extended to cover unmarried partners.

The regulations permit discrimination based on sexual orientation for the purposes of organised religion.

Any organisation relying on this provision has to establish that the requirement is necessary to comply with religious doctrine or to avoid conflicting with the strongly-held religious convictions of a significant number of the religion's followers.

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) says that individuals can bring a complaint even if the discrimination is based on incorrect assumptions about their sexual orientation. Discrimination is illegal whether intentional or not.

Employees who harass colleagues may be personally liable and may be ordered to pay compensation, in addition to any compensation that the employer may be ordered to pay.

The commission says harassment can cover physical conduct, such as an assault, but can include "jokes, banter, insults, innuendos, nicknames, teasing, name calling or songs". It can also take the form of graffiti, posters, pictures, e-mails, condescending behaviour or unfair criticism of a person's work performance.

ECNI says that in very limited circumstances, an employer may treat people differently if it is a genuine occupational requirement for the job holder to be of a particular sexual orientation - such as a part-time counsellor for an organisation promoting gay rights.

In the Republic, it has been illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation since 2000.

One more reason for the DUP to hate Papists

Annasopra

I think this response is just brilliant:

http://www.nistudents.org/sections/top_story_flag/000372.php

Gay Anti Discrimination Law blocked by Churches
17 November 2003


Student leaders believe that the exemption may be contrary to Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act, which contains specific regulations for Designated Public Bodies to have regard to the need to promote good relations between designated categories of people.

Ben Archibald, Convenor of NUS-USI said:

"We should all be very concerned about the proposal to include an exception for the purposes of allowing an organisation the right to discriminate; government currently seeks to impose a rule whereby one’s sexual orientation may be lawfully used as a means to prevent employment if the employer is a religious institution. Put simply, the law will allow a religious organisation to determine that a potential position of employment must be filled by a heterosexual person.
The basis for the proposed regulation is argument and lobbying from the churches in Northern Ireland, who have cited Christian Scripture as their rationale for this discrimination."

Commenting further, the Convenor added:
"Whilst we fully support and promote the right of religious institutions to exist, and encourage the free following of conscience, NUS-USI believes that a person’s sexual orientation should never be “a genuine and determining occupational requirement” for religious institutions, unless they are also so scrupulous in their following of doctrines as to refuse to employ anyone who has ever had sexual relations outside the confines of marriage (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5), anyone who has ever eaten pork (Leviticus11:7), anyone who is divorced (Mark 10:1-12; Matt, 19:9), anyone who has ever committed adultery (Leviticus 20:10), any woman who has had sexual intercourse during the seven days of the menstrual period (Lev. 18:19), long haired men (l Corinthians 11:14) or anyone who wears clothing woven of two kinds of material (Leviticus 19:19). Indeed if the law wishes to take into account biblical considerations, why not just put homosexuals to death, rather than merely deny them a job (Leviticus 20:13)?"

Ben's comments are not intended to be in any way facetious, however NUS-USI does not believe that there are ethical, moral or legal grounds to deny a person employment purely on the basis of being gay or bisexual or perceived to be gay or bisexual. This proposal has particular relevance for Northern Ireland where religious institutions have a stronger presence in education, youth work and health.

Ben Archibald asked:
"In education, does a person’s sexual orientation impact on the way in which they teach Mathematics, Geography, Business studies, English? Is a heterosexual Chemistry teacher better than a gay Chemistry teacher? Even teachers of religious education may hold views and live lifestyles contrary to the churches’ teaching. Will educational establishments now have the right to sack administrative staff or caretakers whom they believe to not be heterosexual enough?"

NUS-USI believes many questions would have to be asked before the regulation could be implemented here.

As the EU Directive applies to training as well as employment, will teacher training colleges have to vet potential students for sexual orientation? Indeed as churches have said that we should love the sinner but hate the sin, does this mean that this regulation does not apply to a celibate gay person?

The Government department charged with certifying legislation in line with equality rules is the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. They have stated that this regulation does not “lead to regression in relation to the FETO [Fair Employment and Treatment Order] provisions”.

This is an interesting interpretation of fact, since we believe that it contravenes the very essence of the Order, which advocates fair employment and treatment. In addition sexual orientation is one of the nine categories stipulated within Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act (1998), which is a statutory duty on public authorities to ‘promote equality of opportunity’. This applies to all designated public sector authorities which includes both teacher training colleges, the Department of Education, Education & Library Boards, the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools and the Youth Council for Northern Ireland, all of which provide funding and/or support to schools and youth organisations. The proposed regulation, is in our view in direct contravention of Section 75.

The EU Directive itself affords no special position to religious organisations in the context of sexual orientation, age or disability discrimination. There is concern even within the UK government, which introduced this exception to the Directive, that it may not be legal. The Parliamentary Committee, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, ruled that they had doubts about the compatibility of elements of the regulation with the Directive and recommended that it should be brought to the attention of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Given its clear incompatibility with Section 75 we believe that the proposal should be rejected or that it should be subject to a judicial review.