When Human Rights Collide

Yet more from the Sex/Religion file. Noticing a trend yet?

[Star Phoenix] A Saskatchewan human rights tribunal has fined a Regina marriage commissioner $2,500 after finding he discriminated against a gay couple when he declined to perform their same-sex ceremony.

“I’m very disappointed in the decision,” Orville Nichols, who has performed nearly 2,000 marriages since 1983, said in an interview Friday. He had referred the couple to another marriage commissioner because his religious beliefs kept him from performing the ceremony.

The rest.

Never Knew Human Rights Was So Specific

And straight people are..?

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against GLBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

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When Human Rights Collide

Deborah Chymyshyn and Tracey Smith booked a hall managed by the Knights of Columbus, a Roman Catholic men’s organization, for their wedding in Vancouver in the fall of 2003. Shortly after, they discovered the Knights were not the same as the Elks as they had originally assumed, when their rental was cancelled and their deposit was returned.

The hall refused to host the celebration of what it had discovered would be a gay marriage. The couple complained that invitations listing the hall’s address for their reception had been mailed and the Knights then paid for a new hall rental and more invitations.

Fast forward:

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has awarded damages to two lesbian women who claim they were discriminated against by a Catholic men’s organization when they booked a hall for their wedding reception in the fall of 2003.

However, the tribunal also ruled Tuesday that the Knights of Columbus could have refused to host the party if it was in a manner contrary to its “core religious beliefs.”

But the tribunal said in its judgment that the Knights did so in a way that affronted the same-sex couple’s dignity, feelings and self-respect and should pay them $1,000 each, as well as reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses to compensate for their injuries.

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