High Court Battle - pronouns

‘Is it compelling speech if you change your name in marriage and go from being Ms. to Mrs. and I refuse because I personally don’t believe in marriage and think it’s a patriarchal institution?’

It might be. I go by Mrs but person calling me “Ms” isn’t insulting me because they believe “Mrs” is a patriarchal norm and don’t want to use it to address women. I’d have to live with it.

‘But what if it was a convert to Islam who was using a new Muslim name but whose old name still appears on a file, and a Christian doctor refused to call them by their new name because they don’t accept conversion and don’t believe Islam is a valid religion? Is that compelled speech?’

A name isn’t representative of any belief system. You can call yourself Peter Pan and it doesn’t mean the person using your name believes in fairies. Calling a male “she” is participation in a belief system. Pronouns are not owned. They reflect the perception of the speaker.

So if you are not allowed to manifest your religion at work, where does that leave all the people who refuse to issue MAP and perform/ take part in abortions?

Well I work in mental health now and we absolutely ARE compelled to call people Napolean when we have to call boys she and girls he

would you call Muhammad Ali Cassius Clay because it’s compelling speech for him to “force” people to recognize his chosen name?

No, because that's his name. Individuals may change their name or title for many reasons. He's the same person whether he's called Cassius or Muhammad. Or indeed Jim or Susie or any other name.

But pronouns aren't individual, they're just part of the grammar of our language. Language only works as far as we all agree on the meanings of words. It would break down if enough people redefined enough words and convinced/ forced enough other people to use their inventions.

If people invent new pronouns for themselves and insist that other people use them, that's compelled speech. Same if they use other-sex pronouns for themselves and insist that other people use them, despite not believing that they are the other sex -- that' compelled speech too.

This is exactly it. Why must we be forced to collude with people's fantasies? Where is our right to speak the truth as we see it?

But what if it was a convert to Islam who was using a new Muslim name but whose old name still appears on a file, and a Christian doctor refused to call them by their new name because they don’t accept conversion and don’t believe Islam is a valid religion? Is that compelled speech?

I don’t really get the compelled speech argument with pronouns. I understand the argument that people make that they don’t like the ideology behind pronouns, but saying using them compels speech is an argument I, personally, don’t find compelling. For example, would you call Muhammad Ali Cassius Clay because it’s compelling speech for him to “force” people to recognize his chosen name? Is it compelling speech if you change your name in marriage and go from being Ms. to Mrs. and I refuse because I personally don’t believe in marriage and think it’s a patriarchal institution? Why aren’t those examples the same? Genuinely trying to understand this part of the argument.

Christian concern have published the judgementbas a pdf. You can find it if you google "Christian concern mackereth" but I can't link for some reason.

They accepted that Christianity was protected (obvs) but mackereth's specific beliefs were not protected. They did not reach grainger v, possibly iv (I'm a bit too tired to read properly)!. I'm not sure if buef in genesis itself fails the test, or his application of that bit if the bible. So that's quite different to forstater.

Anyway its worth a read but long.

On Ashers - it went to the European Court of human rights and ashers won there too.
It's probably quite different to mckereth. The bakers did not want to express a belief that was against their own. They were willing to bake the cake & provide materials for the customer to ice it themselves, but they did not want to support making gay marriage legal themselves. It was a political slogan in cake form, not a wedding cake. If they had refused to sell a cake for a gay wedding they would have lost (I think!).

I haven't looked into the detail of mckereth enough, but if his working method would make it, in practice, unpleasant/difficult etc for a client with the pc of gener reassignment, then the employer might be right to prioritise that & it doesn't really sound like the forstater case. Is the judgement published?

I think it is good to take it to the supreme court though. These are new social mores and it should all be tested.

Jewel1968 · I don't understand how it links to religion? Am I missing something? I had expected the argument to be around science.

Forcing non-believers of any ideology/religion to utter words arising from that ideology is considered compelled speech. An example would be requiring non-Muslims to say "Peace Be Upon Him" when referring to Mohammed . Christians are free to believe and preach that Jesus is the one true God but non-Christians are not required to affirm that belief.

Oh thanks I didn't know they appeared it. Yes I thought the case was weird too, glad it worked out.

‘However, if one is in the business of writing down other people's words for them one does not have a right to pick and choose which belief groups one chooses to accept work from.’

Yes, there is that, and I don’t think, actually, that they did do this. For example, if they had refused business from a gay couple full stop, I would agree that they should lose the claim. But it was actually the words themselves that constituted compelled speech.

Maybe they could have used speech marks or something.

In which case ignore my last post!

No-one is forced to express ideas that are in conflict with their faith.

However, if one is in the business of writing down other people's words for them one does not have a right to pick and choose which belief groups one chooses to accept work from.

If all of their cakes had standard messages then no court would have demanded that they custom make specific messages for people who wanted them. Had they just used standard words and sold cakes with "on your wedding day" or "happy birthday" then they would have never had to do what they did not want to do.

"A Christian doctor"
Erm, a medical doctor is probably the more relevant qualification for them to mention.

Not that he was sacked (he quit). Again that makes it different to Forstater. But Forstater may or may not have been employed under the auspices of the Equality Act, so again she may fail at the hurdle.

No matter. The belief is protected and eventually, either employers will have to find compromises, or the public will demand a legal change, because this can’t go on forever.

Then we get the ‘of course the belief is protected but the manifestation of the belief isn’t, therefore you can’t manifest it at all!’ crew.

No. The judgments to date (rightly) mean the protection of the belief does not automatically protect the manifestation of the belief, so whether or not your actions were protected needs to be decided on the basis of whether the actions undermined the rights of others, and to what extent.

So it might be that if Mackereth had said, at work, to a patient, ‘Please be aware that I am gender critical’ but had avoided using preferred pronouns (ie using a name instead), the outcome would have been different.

It is not the case that manifestation of GC belief at work is a sacking offence.

Hopefully Mackereth will also win in the SC. I don’t think transgender patients should be forced to see him, and they should be offered an alternative assessor if there is another person available, but the fact is they haven’t changed sex, and his right not to believe otherwise is protected.

Yes they did. They lost at the earlier stage but won in the Supreme Court www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2017-0020.html

‘So are they saying no religious person can work with the public? Thats nuts.’

Unless they are prepared to say things they don’t believe, that is the implication, yes. So that seems unsound to me.

I'm prity sure the Christian bakers won their case.

So are they saying no religious person can work with the public? Thats nuts.

‘Isn't this like that cake shop thing in Ireland? The Christian owners were found to be in the wrong.’

A decision I still think is bizarre. I have no issue with people’s sexuality but I don’t believe anyone has a right to make other people express ideas that conflict with their faith.

Got a few TRAs saying “There we go! Forstater will lose because you’re not allowed to misgender at work!”

1. Forstater didn’t misgender anyone
2. There were no trans people at work
3. Forstater is willing to use preferred pronouns

I still think accommodation should have been made for Mackereth’s beliefs (he could have used first names for his clients rather than “Sir/Madam”, or patients requiring sex-incongruent pronouns could have been allocated to someone else.

But the two cases are very different on the facts.