If at first you don’t succeed, reinterpret the law!
In 2003 a leader of a Swedish gay rights group, Susanna Gustafsson, decided to “have a pash” with her girlfriend in a Stockholm restaurant. The restaurant owner asked them to leave.
The next day she reported the incident to the police and the restaurant owner was brought before the courts. He defended himself successfully on the grounds that he wasn’t discriminating, but would also have asked a pashing heterosexual couple to leave. The court decided there was no evidence to prove otherwise.
Now the big guns were brought in. A gay rights ombudsman (“HomO”) sued the restaurant owner on Susanna’s behalf. But again the court decided there was no evidence to convict.
So Susanna appealed. This time the court decided to “reinterpret” the law. It now decided that because Ms Gustafsson felt discriminated against, it was up to the restaurant owner to prove his innocence! He lost the case and is required to pay 50,000 kronor to Susanna Gustafsson.
I suppose there are two disturbing aspects of the case. The first is the legal one, in which laws can be suddenly “reinterpreted” in order to secure the “right” result and in which you can be assumed to be guilty if someone feels you have discriminated against them.
The second is that the case makes it more difficult for individuals to uphold traditional standards in their own private businesses. Basically, you now have to accept very overt displays of homosexuality or be heavily fined. The older understanding, in which there was a broad tolerance for homosexuals on the basis that the homosexuality itself was toned down in public, may not be the way of the future.
Fitting for the subject.
Posted by Braveheart on Wed, 27 Apr 2005 15:42 | #
In Belgium the judges even don’t have to reinterpret the law. There simply already is reverse proof of innocence in cases of suspected “discrimination”. But traditionally Justice normally won’t do anything. Only the lawyers of the notorious “Centre for Equal Opportunities” have the (financial) means to possibly start the “right” procedure that forces the Judiciary to start a criminal investigation.
I am no lawyer myself, but as far as I have understood, if they claim to have undergone harm, an “investigating judge” MUST be indicated. Only to say, that if they really have it in for you, they can make it tough for you too. This is no coincidence.
And the following I can’t prove, but I suppose they will only stir themselves if there is political “added value” in the case, also because their board is politically composed.
Flanders,