Maya Forstater's appeal skeleton

[Mollyollydolly]

Saw this on twitter and thought it deserved a thread to itself.

As Jason Braler (employment lawyer) says on twitter "It's more a thesis than a traditional skeleton, but it certainly drives home the points from every conceivable angle.
It may also be the only ever EAT skeleton to have 4 references to Orwell"

hiyamaya.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/forstater-eat-claimant-skeleton-argument-plus-low-res-pages-1-50.pdf

It's a protected belief that gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married. It will upset some people, but it's protected.

Yes. But should you be able to say to someone at work: ‘homosexuality is a sin and I’m not going to recognise your married status. I don’t care if you have a certificate two people of the same sex cannot be properly married. I will continue to refer to you as single/ unmarried because that is what you are in the eyes of god’’?

Should there be any consequences to saying that?

@JackieLavertysWeirdVoice

About the judge, Justice Choudhury.

Is that Sir Akhlaq Ur-Rahman Choudhury, President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal? Or is there another Mr Justice Choudhury in the Employment Appeal Tribunal circuit?

He is.

Sex Matters
@SexMattersOrg
Introducing the President of the Employment Appeals Tribunal, Mr Justice Choudhury, who will be hearing the Forstater Appeal today and tomorrow.

Akhlaq Choudhury QC was a barrister specialising in commercial, employment, procurement, information and public law. He was appointed a Deputy High Court judge in 2016 and a High Court judge in 2017.

@Anovaneway

It's a protected belief that gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married. It will upset some people, but it's protected.

Yes. But should you be able to say to someone at work: ‘homosexuality is a sin and I’m not going to recognise your married status. I don’t care if you have a certificate two people of the same sex cannot be properly married. I will continue to refer to you as single/ unmarried because that is what you are in the eyes of god’’?

Should there be any consequences to saying that?

Who in the name of God would actually say that? At work or anywhere else? All these hyperbolic situations are just nonsense, really. They prove nothing because they don't happen, allowed or not.

That is an impressive and frighteningly accurate comment RoyalCorgi, definitely needs to be saved for future use and reference.

Thank you @yourhairiswinterfire. I feel quite comforted by that.

@Anovaneway

It's a protected belief that gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married. It will upset some people, but it's protected.

Yes. But should you be able to say to someone at work: ‘homosexuality is a sin and I’m not going to recognise your married status. I don’t care if you have a certificate two people of the same sex cannot be properly married. I will continue to refer to you as single/ unmarried because that is what you are in the eyes of god’’?

Should there be any consequences to saying that?

You shouldn’t be allowed to say that and you’re not allowed to say that without consequences. Maya never harassed any trans colleagues or made derogatory remarks about them. This is solely because people were upset about her views on social media. Similarly, if someone has certain religious beliefs about homosexuality, unless they discriminate against a colleague, their colleague has no grounds for complaint simply because they find out about the beliefs.

But should you be able to say to someone at work:

MF wasn't saying stuff at work. She was stating her opinion on SM. People are quite at liberty to tweet that they don't believe in gay marriage.

@Mrsorganmorgan

I have an inherited blood disease that only women get. No man ever gets it, ever.

Surely that's transphobic of you?

I have no idea what 'recognising someone's married status' would entail by a random colleague. They're not the ones deciding whether the couple can be next of kin, financial responsibilities etc?
So I can't see what any actual consequences would be other than to be consistently mistaken when calling them single?

What’s the timing of the likely judgement in relation to Ann Sinott’s case and will what the EHRC’s intervention this week have any bearing on that?
It seems houses of cards may be tottering v precariously.

One worry I have it that it seemed from the live tweets yesterday that in a previous case the judge had (wrongly according to EHRC lawyer and our QC) bundled belief with its manifestation. Lots of the evidence today from JR was about manifestation and it could be that the judge makes the same choice again

There seems to be an inability these days to separate holding beliefs and how you treat others. It is possible to not believe that trans women are women (and I’d wager that about 90% of the TRA mob secretly don’t believe what they are spouting) and still treat trans people with dignity and respect. Same as it is possible to believe that non-believers will go to hell but still treat people with respect, regardless of their beliefs.
People need to understand that there will always be a diversity of beliefs and that this is not a bad thing. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you doesn’t mean they hate you or want you dead or want to deny your existence. You can’t force people to change their minds. The best you will get is people pretending to think a certain way due to fear.

@Anovaneway

It's a protected belief that gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married. It will upset some people, but it's protected.

Yes. But should you be able to say to someone at work: ‘homosexuality is a sin and I’m not going to recognise your married status. I don’t care if you have a certificate two people of the same sex cannot be properly married. I will continue to refer to you as single/ unmarried because that is what you are in the eyes of god’’?

Should there be any consequences to saying that?

The consequences of saying that would be that people in your office would think you were an obnoxious twat. IF you did that. I can't personally imagine that anyone would, because it is a twattish thing to do.

However, the point of issue here is that someone might discover that you'd once liked a tweet saying that marriage is sanctified by God between a man and a woman or something, and then reporting you to HR and attempting to hound you out of your job because it shows you don't agree with gay marriage.

Ive spoken to Maya quite a while ago before her case and there were actually a number of transsexual people who offered her support and made submission to the courts.

The way this story has been spun has been absolutely disgraceful. Same thing as with JK Rowling. I have never seen a single transphobic thing from either of them and the people that say there is are simply a bunch of either misguided or vindictive trouble makers.

But should you be able to say to someone at work: ‘homosexuality is a sin and I’m not going to recognise your married status. I don’t care if you have a certificate two people of the same sex cannot be properly married. I will continue to refer to you as single/ unmarried because that is what you are in the eyes of god’’?

I think it depends, in the law. If you are being asked as part of your job to - for instance - write a statement saying that you do believe they are married in the eyes of God, then yes, you absolutely would be allowed to say this. Because your statement of your beliefs would be relevant, and you would not be obliged to go against them and say something you don’t believe.

Are you allowed to walk up to a colleague and say that for no reason? No.

MF wasn't saying stuff at work.

I didn’t say she was. I was asking if someone should be able to say that as an expression of their protected belief.

And you are certainly allowed to say it outside work. Although a man was just arrested for doing so.

All these hyperbolic situations are just nonsense, really. They prove nothing because they don't happen, allowed or not.

These random hyperbolic situations are getting more and more nonsensical.

It's the idea that safe spaces have to be created for a particular group of people where they feel there's absolutely no possibility of encountering anything they might object to.

Does anyone else get this level of consideration? Is it actually healthy to make people believe they're exposed to terrible risk if such space spaces are not created for them?

I didn’t say she was. I was asking if someone should be able to say that as an expression of their protected belief.

Why is it relevant to Maya's case, when it isn't what she did?

Who in the name of God would actually say that? At work or anywhere else?

Could be as simple as refusing to use the tittle Mrs if that was what they wanted.

Perhaps we should wait for the judgement and start a new thread then, as this one is filling up and still being posted on by people who can't understand what this is about yet don't want to read the literature telling them what this is about.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

I didn’t say she was. I was asking if someone should be able to say that as an expression of their protected belief.

Why is it relevant to Maya's case, when it isn't what she did?

Because we have to derail into ridiculous hyperbolic situations whenever possible in order to paint Maya and all those who hold GC beliefs as the devil incarnate.

@Anovaneway

Who in the name of God would actually say that? At work or anywhere else?

Could be as simple as refusing to use the tittle Mrs if that was what they wanted.

Poor example - unmarried people can and often do use Mrs as their title.