Quote:Were they the same people defending Folau? I don't know, and I never said they were. What I am interested in though is where were the people who are standing up for Folau now on freedom of speech grounds when this attack on someone's freedom was happening. People like you FD. If you think its so terrible for someone's job to be threatened for exercising their freedom of speech, where were you when all these liberal politicians were calling for Yasminn's contract with the ABC to be terminated - just for that single tweet?
I'm not sure if getting her fired was even on the radar here back then. The ANZAC tweet had nothing to do with religion, and Yassmin gave plenty of good, legal reasons for the ABC to fire her. At the end of the day, they did not.
Quote:Also, I'll take a punt and guess that neither Abetz or Barnaby Joyce (among all the others in the article calling for Yasminn's head) will be saying its ok for RA to terminate Folau's contract. What do you reckon?
You would pass the first test of showing they are the same people, but the situations are still not the same. Yassmin was not fired for her religious views. She was not even fired. She ran away.
Quote:To be fair, FD disagreed with my view that muslims holding up a placard saying "behead those who insult the Prophet" should be charged for incitement, and defended their right to do so. So credit where credit's due. On the other hand, I've always felt that such platitudes prove to be rather convenient when it comes to lumping in all the mainstream teachings of Islam with the ideology of the extremists: since its a bit difficult to call for beheading placards to be banned, but not the Quran itself - if your modus operandi is that they are both identical.
They are not identical. One is a book. The other is a placard with the condensed message. But you will run into big trouble if you want to ban the placard but not the book.
Quote:Ultimately, the problem with this, and all the other tired debates including Yasmmin etc, is that it has been completely engulfed in the same old tired partisan culture war. And the reality is, any attempts to separate it from the culture war - whether its FD's "its only about freedom" side, or the opposing "its only about contract law" side
I did not claim it is only about freedom. I am saying that freedom trumps the employer's interest in micromanaging the personal life of their employees. It is only the homofascists that try to pretend there is only one issue here, with various forms of "he was not sacked for his religious view, he was sacked for homophobia, contract terms etc".
Quote:And it will never matter much what the contract actually says.
That's what the law says. If your contracts violates employment, it does not matter what it says.
Quote:So its simply futile to try and claim, as many have, that this is only an issue of contract law. Yet at the same time, RA's actions can easily be justified on contract law grounds - as despite what FD has tried to claim, the specificity of the tweet (ie lumping gays in with undesirables like liars and thieves), combined with the specificity of the contract clause (thou shalt treat people with dignity and respect - including specifically regarding sexual orientation) - means that RA are on solid legal grounds.
Again, I have never argued this was relevant legally.