Dealing with homophobic remarks.

Yorkie1

Edwardia wrote: »

If the person on the receiving end of it is distressed, or if you witness it and are distressed then yes it can be reported to the police. There is a difference between 'hate incident' and 'hate crime' and I'm not really sure what that is.

An incident will be classified as a hate crime if it is perceived by the victim or anyone else as being motivated by hostility towards someone based on one (or more) of the hate crime elements.

It will be prosecuted / sentenced as a hate crime if there is evidence which can be brought to the court as evidence.

supermassive

Guest101 wrote: »

I could say:
" i dont agree with you're make believe God, i think your religion is a sham"

Actually im pretty sure i could say that second line you wrote too. (not saying i would)

I think you'll find any law which relates to causing offence is a grey area.


It’s simple really.



Being offended is a personal thing. I’m not offended byswearing. Someone else might be.

This makes it a grey area.

I am offended by religion being shouted into my face. Othersmight not.

So my rational response might be to say, ‘Stick your religionwhere is sun doesn’t shine you tit’. Since swearing does not offend me, thiswould be fine. However, someone else might see this as offensive.



Yes I’m playing devil’s advocate. Normally I’m out with mykids, and simply say no thanks and move along. But the principal or any freecountry, is the freedom to formulate opinion and express it. Just because it isdisagreeable to another, does not make it a crime.



Sexuality, religion, race, gender – it’s not who people are.It’s just aspects of their life. In reality very small aspects.



Just because someone is black doesn’t mean they are poor ora criminal.

Just because someone is Muslim doesn’t mean they are goingto cut my head off.

And just because someone is a man, doesn’t mean they arapist (unlike Lancashire constabulary tried to make out with this years Christmascampaign)



We have the freedom to discuss and comment on these things.If someone is offended, then that person is free to say so. They are also freeto leave the conversation. Any rational or normal person would apologise forcausing offence too.

Right. So regardless of the intention of the person being offensive, it's the fault of the offended party for being offended? :rotfl:

So if I were to say something along the lines of wishing your parents would be sexually abused to the point of causing horrific physical and mental harm, it's YOUR fault that you're offended, and not something I simply shouldn't have said as a rational empathetic human being? :T Get out of jail free card then.

Even better, what if I were to go to a place where you should feel totally at ease and make a big deal about the size and shape of your nose.. then get everyone else to pay attention to it and laugh at you. Then for the rest of the night, at this place where you should be relaxed, everyone's talking about you behind your back and it eventually continues to the point where nobody speaks about anything but that and your nose becomes an icon of mockery.

But it's your fault for being offended, big nose.

You're completely wrong. Yes, if things are misinterpreted and people get offended when no offence was intended, then that's a problem with overly sensitive people. However, if there's literally no other way in which it could be taken, then the problem lies with the person behaving like a caveman.

Guest101

supermassive wrote: »

Right. So regardless of the intention of the person being offensive, it's the fault of the offended party for being offended? :rotfl:

So if I were to say something along the lines of wishing your parents would be sexually abused to the point of causing horrific physical and mental harm, it's YOUR fault that you're offended, and not something I simply shouldn't have said as a rational empathetic human being? :T Get out of jail free card then.

Even better, what if I were to go to a place where you should feel totally at ease and make a big deal about the size and shape of your nose.. then get everyone else to pay attention to it and laugh at you. Then for the rest of the night, at this place where you should be relaxed, everyone's talking about you behind your back and it eventually continues to the point where nobody speaks about anything but that and your nose becomes an icon of mockery.

But it's your fault for being offended, big nose.

You're completely wrong. Yes, if things are misinterpreted and people get offended when no offence was intended, then that's a problem with overly sensitive people. However, if there's literally no other way in which it could be taken, then the problem lies with the person behaving like a caveman.

You've twisted what I said and you know you have.

There's a difference between harassing someone with offensive comments, and making negative comments.

Ofcourse a person chooses to find something offensive. That's the very nature, we aren't all the same, so find different things offensive.

Edwardia

If someone says to someone else you're a fricking pervy pansy shirtlifter, within my earshot I, as someone LGBT would find that offensive because it's a derogatory comment about the community I'm a member of.

If a straight bloke said it to another straight bloke, maybe neither of them would be offended but that doesn't mean it's not derogatory.

Top_Girl

It doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, bi or anything else. Being slapped on the !!!! is sexual assault if the person being slapped considers it to be so.

Similarly, bring interrogated about your sexuality is inappropriate; was the same person asking everyone in the vicinity about their sexual orientation? Discriminatory.

I'm fully qualified as a single hetero woman to give this advice as its just common sense.

I'd definitely take it further OP, even if you only lodge a complaint, for fear of recurrence.