Out-Law.com is reporting a fascinating decision from the Court of Appeal. The ruling extends harassment legislation to situations where someone is teased for being something they clearly are not. The case revolved around the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003. Lord Sedley stated: "The calculated insult to his dignity, which depended not at all on his actual sexuality, and the consequently intolerable working environment were sufficient to bring his case both within Regulation 5 and within the 1976 Directive. The incessant mockery ('banter' trivialises it) created a degrading and hostile working environment, and it did so on grounds of sexual orientation.
"It can be properly said that the fact that the appellant is not gay, and that his tormentors know it, has just as much to do with sexual orientation – his own, as it happens – as if he were gay," said the ruling. "If, as is common ground, tormenting a man who is believed to be gay but is not amounts to unlawful harassment, the distance from there to tormenting a man who is being treated as if he were gay when he is not is barely perceptible."
The full case judgment of English v Thomas Sanderson Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 1421 can be read here.
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
You Don't Have to be Gay to Receive Homophobic Abuse
Posted by Law & Sexuality on 19:39 in Employment europe Homophobia Law | Comments : 0
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