that you shouldn't open a hotel if you only want straight married couples to stay in it?

[JoanofArgos]

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/14/christian-couple-barred-gay-couple-shut-hotel

Horrid old bigots, say I.

It IS applied to all, the law is the same for everyone.

And what exact evidence would you like of the practices in a small b&b that I was in about 14 years ago? Pass me over your portable time machine and we'll go have a gander will we?

yawn yawn yawn

NOTE TO ALL NEWCOMERS TO THREAD:

The concept of "gay only" hotels has already been discussed. It has been agreed that they may market themselves as gay only, but in practice (including according to personal experiences of some posters) they do not generally exclude straight people in practice. Therefore any double standard you are thinking of commenting on, in the manner of one discovering a nugget of Pure Bigot Gold, is in fact another chunk of that pesky pyrite you keep dredging up.

Ithankyou.

Love your way with words, Elephants

TSH - if you want to go and stay in a gay hotel and you get turned away, then you are well within your rights to prosecute for discrimination. Quite simple, off you go to Blackpool

Well, what would you call the views of someone who doesn't think gay people should be given the exact same treatment as straight people, then? And by the exact same, I mean...

• the same rights under the law
• the right to behave in exactly the same way as gay people - holding hands, being loving in public, etc, without it being construed as 'too in your face' in a way that it never is with straight people
• the right to celebrate their lifestyle no longer being illegal, marginalised, hated on - whatever - by way of Gay Pride, the way straight people have their own festivals and carnvivas with nary a raised eyebrow
• the rigt to live their lives as people, as opposed to being defined by who they have sex with - again - in a way that straight people never are (why that Christian couple has to focus on what they do naked in the bedroom over every single other million facets of thier lives beggars belief).

What term would you use to describe these people's views, if bigoted is apparently so unpalatable?

Am I being spectacularly thick, or is there nothing inherently left wing about being for gay rights, as several people have implied? I thought being left wing was more about society looking after those who don't have the ability or resources to care for themselves. IIRC there are more gay MPs on the Conservative benches than any other party, and presumably they are both for gay rights and Not Left Wing.

Are they a logical impossibility then?

EAM - venn diagram? Left wingers are more likely to be pro- gay right because they're less likely to be hypocritical judgmental bigoted homophobes?

Yes, no idea why the two seem to be mutually exclusive to some...

I'd agree the right are more likely to be bigoted homophobes, but the left definitely out do them in the judgmental hypocrite stakes.

Getting involved in people's taxes = nanny state

getting involved in people's bedrooms = respect for family values

and I'm lmfao at 'hand wringing' do people really still say this?

Because they are using Leftie as an insult as well as gay?

ShreikingHarpy you seem a little confused. Nobody asserted any empirical evidence, so I'm not sure where you are getting that from, and the rest of the sentence doesn't follow from the first.

Bigot is a clearly defined term and does not have anything to do with left-wing rhetoric. People who want equal rights for all does not make them some kind of loonie leftie, it makes them normal people.

And 14 years may be a long time, but if you think anything changes in Blackpool, you don't know Blackpool!

There is nothing left-wing about what has happened here; the fact is this: civil partnerships are equal to married partnerships in law, therefore, to discriminate against them is illegal.
I am not left-wing when it comes to people's love lives. As far as I am concerned other proposals regarding people's love lives proposed by the left are genuinely loony -a classic example being cohabitee rights. Sorry, but unless the couple (gay or straight) have signed the 'we wish to be seen as a legal/financial couple' document of marriage, the state should keep its nose out of their love lives.

Civil partnerships are quite right wing if anything, for they ARE a genuine case of the state not giving two hoots about people's sex lives. As long as two people can legally form a civil partnership and are doing so of their own free will, nobody cares if they have sex or not.

PMSL at Elephant's "nugget of Pure Bigot Gold".

If you are opening your home as a business concern then you are bound by law on lots of agendas. Discrimination is one of them, shame that people had to go to court to make this known.

If you are opening your home as a business concern then you are bound by law on lots of agendas. Discrimination is one of them, shame that people had to go to court to make this known.

Does it really? How can you know this?

Its been defined upthread, but again just for you.
"bigot: One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. First recorded in 1538, from the French, usage meaning a superstitious hyprocrite"

PLease let us know how the hotel owners are not bigots?

Like I said, clearly you don't know Blackpool!

OR, maybe it's just that all the bigots are right wing?

I am a lesbian in my forties. I have been turned away from B&B's with my partner when it was perfectly legal to do this. I ahve also booked into small hotels and B&B's and being treated very obviously poorly in comparison to straight couples. Just as it used to be perfectly legal to sack people because they were gay.

That is why gay hotels and B&B's were largely set up. You know you are not going to be turned away when you turn up with your girlfriend or treated badly. It has only been illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality for a very short time. And it used to be very difficult, particularly in rural areas, to find places that were welcoming of gay people.

However it is now illegal for gay B&B's and hotels to turn away straight people or treat them badly because they are straight. Any place doing this is breaking the law and leaving themselves open to being sued.

Some posters seem to be saying that it should be perfectly fine to discriminate against people who are gay. If you say, as some people here do, that this couple should be able to turn away people who are gay then you are saying that it is fine to discriminate against gay people.

If laws to prevent age discrimination are brought it, it will be illegal for people to turn away people on grounds of age e.g. saga, 18-30's holidays, etc. I'm not sure what I think about this, but of course the big difference between age and sexuality is that we are all young and grow older and your age is constantly changing unlike your sexuality.

In terms of flaunting sexuality - many gay people including myself don't like naked or nearly naked men parading at prides. Just because someone who is gay behaves a certain way please don't think that all gay people approve of that behaviour. But if flaunting sexuality means not hiding who you are then I think you are very wrong.

I have lived with my partner for 18 years. Imagine your life if you were married but never mentioned that you were married or even going out with someone. So when you are at work and people asked what you did at the weekend you mumble something vague. When you buy a bed or sofa together you make sure not to talk to the salesperson in a way that can possibly make them think you are "together".

It makes life incredibly difficult! And lots of people have lived like this afariad they will be sacked or treated badly if they reveal they are gay. None of this is about snogging over the breakfast table, but simply about being an ordinary human being.