I happen to think it's just as bad to harrass, intimidate, mock, humiliate and insult a healthy young white male Christian as it is to harrass, intimidate, mock, humiliate and insult an elderly, ill Jewish lesbian midget. If the law says otherwise equality under the law is a sick joke.
Then you'll be glad to hear there are no laws that state otherwise. The laws in question refer to types of characteristic (race, religion, gender etc.) rather than specific examples (black, Jewish, female). Confusion sometimes occurs because some examples of these characteristics traditionally incur much more discrimination than others so there can be a (legitimate) imbalance of outcome.
In 2006 I was fired by an employer. Though their method was bad, the reason despicable and the individuals rotten to the core I knew my only small hope for revenge was to seek the stolen wages (which I got eventually) and file a discrimination complaint. The religion in question was Christianity because the premise of the position made it impossible to do the job without breaking the ninth commandment. A Jew could have done the same but I couldn't because I'm Christian. The claim was dismissed, I assume because there are too many Christians. At present I wish to file a real lawsuit and the lawyer told me to define harassment. That's how I started my reply and I thought it might be a good thread here.
Based on your description, you've made a different common error regarding discrimination laws. An act or policy which coincidentally causes you conflict due to a relevant characteristic isn't automatically discrimination on the grounds of that characteristic. Illegal discrimination has to be intentional (or at least grossly negligent). For example, a job that requires a driving licence isn't discriminatory against the partially sighted on grounds of disability, even though they (typically) can't get a driving licence because of that. The fact remains that legally actual discrimination against Christians is no different to discrimination against those of any other faith. The number of adherents or the proportion of cases don't alter that in any way. If you can establish active discrimination because you're Christian, you should be able to win a case. The other difficulty would be establishing that the requirement of the job in context actually breached a fundamental principle of your faith. I assume you're referring to "bearing false witness" but I'm struggling to imagine a legal business practice that would really fall foul of that. You shouldn't need to assume why your case was dismissed, you would be told. If your lawyer is now asking you to define harassment, it would suggest you're accusing the employer of more than simply having working practices you have a religious objection to. This is a perfectly good topic for a thread but your OP demonstrates a major reason for that, in that there remains a massive amount of misunderstanding, misinformation and lies about the subject area.
Well, a lot of good christian business owners I know expect their employees to to use deceptive business tactics. If its something that is intrinsic to the business operating, like sales or legal work or advertising etc. Calling it lying would be more honest, but business law makes accommodations that makes it hard to make a legal case of it. For anyone, not respecting their racial or ethnic vulnerability. So using the 9th commandment as religious grounds for being discriminated against would put so many small business owners out of business that it would never be considered a valid complaint.
Sorry for confusing you. The event in 2006 was brought up in the second post because it ruined my life sufficiently to make the job that is now literally attempting to cause my death to look like a good job to take in 2008. At the latter place relevant to post number one I was mocked for my religion, mocked for bodily flaws, tortured deliberately by those aware of medical difficulties and bullied daily by several persons aware they were aggravating intense emotional stress and that I, because of my religious and philosophical beliefs (and was scared to death of some of them) could not retaliate beyond grumbling. The management is among the bullies, though some of the torment they inflicted on me claimed multiple victims.
It's may be just as bad for that person. But if you attack someone not because you have a issue with them, but because of the group they represent... there are two victims. That person and our society. If you poke someone in the arm or if you poke them in the eye, it's a different crime. When you choose to hit someone in a more vulnerable place, you demonstrate greater malice and greater intent to harm. Same goes when you choose to hit a society by targeting not a person, but a kind of person. A kind of person that represents a more vulnerable part of that society. Some of our laws are there to protect people. They should protect us all equally. Others laws exist to protect our society. They should take into consideration that some assaults on society are more malicious or destructive. And our response against a more damaging blow should be more substantial.
You do not understand what equality under the law means. It means under the law, your access to justice is equal to your wealth and ability to hire an expensive lawyer.
The so-called equality under the law is a farce, as economics shatter it every time. Either the individual can out spend the state, garnering huge advantages in court, or the state out spends the individual garnering huge advantages in sentencing. It's rarely just a matter of lawyers, but expert witnesses that can testify and the state possesses numerous expert witnesses whereas the individual must pay a lot of money to counter them...
Because equality isn't really about equality but special rights and set-asides for favored groups referred to as "protected classes." If you're not a member of a protected class, then it's probably OK to harass or discriminate.
law also says that you have the right to say anything you wished without being persecuted for it. Everyone has this right equally
Depends on the intent of the law and of the criminal. If the intent of the law is to protect the community from those trying to divide it and the intent of the criminal is to create fear or division in a community, what message the crime sends and where it impacts the community matters. It can be worse to stab someone in the heart than in the foot. It can be worse to write a death threat than a love note. The message matters. The vulnerability of where a blow lands matters. Both are part of the intent and effect of the crime.
my complaint with the commission against discrimination was simply dismissed on the grounds i could have asked for accomodation, but since the successif the company was dependent on the deception even if it was carefully reworded to avoid a lie an individual permitted to say something more honest would inevitably be fired for failure to meet quotas. my firing was for apologizing for waking a lady up at 8 am using an unauthorized script. i only got mad when the 3-day suspension i didn't object to became termination without notice and they never answered my calls for an explanation.
As per the relevant law I’m sure and as would be applied regardless of your religion. None of which has anything to do with religion, let alone any specific religion. It seems to me like you have a bad time of it, been stuck in some poor jobs (I suspect in a poor industry) and have been mistreated in various ways. You have my sympathy for all of that and I very much hope you’re in a better position today. Regardless, the basis of your OP was wrong and nothing you reported as having experienced justifies or validates it.
My present situation has never been worse. My new job is fun but I might be fired for any of several reasons or just leave at the end of the temp assignment. My last employer is stilltrying to kill me. My harrassment there included religion, philosophy, medical problems, confessed mental illness and working habits. Speaking my mind of course always gets me in trouble. The lawyer said I had to prove I was in one of the protected categories. I wrote the above and emailed it along with my long list of categories that make me a bigger minority than any of those protected classes. The OP deals only with right and wrong. If you can do something bad to one person but not to another under law, there is no equality.
If an ex/b]-employer is harassing you, that’s a criminal matter. I hate to say this but have you considered that if you have such major issues with two subsequent employers (who both presumably have other employees without these difficulties), at least some of the problem could be on your side? Even where there are real problems with what both employees do, how you choose to respond and react to them is a significant factor in how things pan out. I still very much hope you can find solutions to improve your situation and move on to better things. You either misunderstood or you need a better lawyer. Discrimination laws are based on the intent and actions of the offender. The victim doesn’t even need to be in that actual target group if the offender thinks they are (e.g. if I sacked Bob because I think he is gay it would be discrimination even if Bob was actually straight). It also means that even if you’re in a minority group, if that wasn’t a motive (or can’t be proven as a motive) in the discrimination, it isn’t relevant (as in the classic lie that you can’t sack a minority person for incompetence). Your personal experiences aside, where you are (and where I am), that is not the case in the law. Different types of people are discriminated to greater or lesser extent but the letter of the law treats us all equally – that’s the whole point.
No, not really. Libel, slander, defamation, and speech which advocates imminent lawless action - all of it is prohibited despite the 1stA. Neither does everything have speech rights equally, at least not in Australia with the Racial Discrimination Act - then again, we have no explicit right to free speech.
That depends on what your definition of 'persecution' is, and what kind of entity is doing it. Your bridge club can treat you pretty damn badly because they do not like what you said on your facebook page and your wife can divorce you and your employer may even fire you.
To have right by law and to get right by law too are 2 total different issues ... above the courts and judges who are the law in practice is only one: the good God! (depending on what religion people believe if they are at all religious).
Seems tome that you agree with the premise that equality under the law is a joke, since Ed Formisano is not the only lawyer who would not take the case/ Remember, though I was unhappy with the deception at the 2006 job my cause of termination was not for being honest but because my apology to the old lady was unauthorized. My contempt for the man responsible (Arnie Larson) grew to towering levels because my suspension became termination and his influence got the discrimination charge dropped. Also tht firing was related to another terrible thing done to me through the supposed "justice system" that included libel and theft by a protected class of professional criminals (the police). Since all the bad things that happened to me since 2006 would not have happened except for that employer reacting as he did, including the desperate circumstances that made me take the job that has now left me destitute and physically compromised, that remains the root of my problems. Still this thread was never meant to be a court case for which of these individuals should be executed, imprisoned, terminated,discredited, shunned, fined, reprimanded or acquitted, it's about the laws that isolate one group of citizens as protected from certain types of mistreatment on the grounds that others just as mistreated can take the mistreatment better.
You’re wrong. I’ve said clearly, several times, that the law is equal (in the context you’re referring to at least). Legally speaking, discrimination against Christians is exactly the same as discrimination against followers of any other religion. What individuals do in the real world may well not be fair or equal (otherwise we wouldn’t need the laws in the first place). There are countless reasons a lawyer might not take a case though and most of them would have nothing to do with equality. I’ve no interest in getting in to the details of your personal cases. You’re invested in your narrative and without an independent source of information anything I added in any direction would be validation of that. I’d still respectfully recommend you try to take a step back and calmly review things from the outside to see if there is anything in your actions or reactions that could have compounded situations and that you could do better to improve future ones. OK. A good start would be to identify actual laws you believe do that. Not in general terms, I mean actual references to legislation.
EdFormisano said I had to prove I'm in a protected class. White men are not protected any more, because they were favored by most laws and practices just 50 years ago. I want to sue for age discrimination, but that started before I turned 50 and only applies to getting promotions. Just one promotion one step higher would have prevented all the abuses of the last few years. At some point they became justified in not promoting me, but that was for reasons that would not have been reasons if they'd moved me up one step at 49 or even 52. My mental illness was a gift to the employer, as were my Christian values most of the time. My philosophy of hard work and utilitarianism made me enemies among the lazy and those who at some point were not included in the greatest number I was aiming to please. Still it was the low wages that hurt me most as I was never able to shake my loan sharks, and the lack of sick days, coupled with my devotion to duty forced me to report for work on a day I should have stayed home, allowing a conspiracy of bullies and other enemies to create a situation that doomed me to termination. Unable to succeed by the most direct route, they had to resort to libel, most recently in a hearing for which I discovered perjury is not illegal, The stress of my situation on the job, compounded by circumstances outside the job that they ignored, might have killed me in the line of duty. The things they've done since approach the limits of their legal rights and also might result in grievious even lethal harm. I'm straight, and I lived in daily fear that even that might get me in trouble in the diverse work situation. I'm married, causing more potential problems. I'm bald, a problem not covered by any law, but one that results in constant discrimination. My teeth are crooked, a problem related to childhood near poverty (too poor for braces). I sweat a lot. That has caused me problems often, sometimes endangering employment elsewhere, but no law protects people with overactive glands. I have digestive problems that make me a mockery everywhere and even great wealth couldn't cure that completely. It's a great disqualifier. The age discrimination lawsuit can only be a class-action suit lasting years. Others will need to join me and we still might lose, but a harrassment lawsuit will be only a personal crusade and my personality will win me no supporters. Since the harrassment came from 20 people in small doses instead of one bully (though 2 of the bullies had managers afraid of them too) that lawsuit is also a mess and of course I can't afford a lawyer and never will be able to. If I die from the stress of loan sharks or freeze to death homeless this winter I won't win a lawsuit settled years from now.
I told why you I'm not getting in to your personal case. If that's all you want to discuss, I'll have to leave you with my best wishes.
There was never any need to itemize the terrible things people have done to me or anyone else. The question is greater. Obviously people did and continue to discriminate against, underpay, insult and offend persons in large but distinct classes and it's rea;lly hard on the mean disgusting bullies in this world to know that they suddenly could face severe consequences by calling large categories of people by their category's worst stereotype, yet if those laws force them into attacking the few remaining people in none of the registered categories, the life of those persons become of all men most miserable and with no legal recourse.
