Friday, November 03, 2006

THE UNHINGED KINGDOM AGAIN: TRULY DEMENTED LOCAL GOVERNMENT PC

A council has warned staff against using the phrase 'political correctness' at work because it might offend people. A booklet outlining 'equality' policy to council workers claims using the term at work can be damaging and even linked it to the Ku Klux Klan. The bizarre publication also orders staff not to use words like 'policeman', 'fireman' and 'chairman', suggesting they are classic examples of 'exclusionary language.' While the word 'ethnic' is also outlawed for being not 'appropriately descriptive.'

The 44-page training book called 'Equality Essentials' has been used for staff training courses at Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire. The publication outlines forms of damaging behaviour in the workplace and rates them on a five-level scale. The authors claim that moving things around on someone else's desk is as serious as punching or kicking them. And workers are instructed to come up with 10 things they can do every day to make colleagues feel better.

Tory MP for Shipley Phillip Davies, a patron of the Campaign Against Political Correctness, branded the pamphlet 'extreme and patronising.' 'How much is it costing to produce all this garbage?' he said. 'The policy is full of either the blindingly obvious or utterly ridiculous nonsense.'

A section of the 'PC booklet is devoted to denouncing the use of the words 'political correctness'. It states:'Political correctness is often used to describe what some of us think are unnecessary changes which don't really bother anyone. 'The term political correctness was coined in 1988 by John O'Sullivan III, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He was making an after dinner speech complaining about how Black Americans were being allowed to take the jobs traditionally reserved for the white majority because of a wave of political correctness. 'Since then the phrase political correctness has almost universally been used to decry changes which aim to prevent offensive behaviour.' It goes on to say because this takes the form of 'blaming the victim, denying peoples experience or expressing the view of a popular majority,' using the phrase can represent a 'physical attack.'

The authority's new Tory leader Robert Light blamed his political opponents and said the booklet was no longer being used by council staff. 'We don't think it is relevant to use this booklet. We are trying to achieve the situation where the council has a more professional, modern approach. Diversity is still an issue for us but we will be taking a common sense approach rather than being part of the PC culture. 'Kirklees Council has had the title of most PC Council in Yorkshire and we are determined to change that view.'

Mr Light added:'References to the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Germany are really extreme to use in a training guide even as a reference, it's very bizarre. 'I find it more unbelievable that they complain about the use of the word ethnic when it is the term that Government bodies, think-tanks and local leaders all use. It's very off the wall.' Kirklees Council employs more than 18,000 people and has a budget of more than 470 million pounds.

Source



PERSECUTED SCOTTISH FIREMEN GET HELP

The songwriter behind one of the most famous gay anthems has promised o50,000 to a group of firemen disciplined for refusing to hand out leaflets at a Gay Pride march. The Rev George Hargreaves, a former music mogul who is now a Pentecostal minister, still earns an estimated o10,000 a month in royalties from the 1985 pop song So Macho. The single was recorded by Sinitta, with an even camper B-side called Cruisin', and became an instant hit in gay clubs across Britain, thanks to its catchy disco tune and cheesy lyrics, which included the line: "He's gotta be big and strong, enough to turn me on."

More than 20 years later, its proceeds are to be used to help to fund a legal appeal by nine officers from Strathclyde Fire and Rescue who were punished for refusing to attend a gay parade. Mr Hargreaves, who believes that homosexuality is a sin, said he believed that the human rights of the firefighters were violated after they refused to attend a Pride Scotia event in Glasgow in June. The officers at the Cowcaddens station, led by watch manager Brian Herbert, claimed that they acted on moral grounds when they disobeyed an order to hand out fire safety literature at an event billed as a "gay, bisexual and transgender festival". They said that they also feared that they would be kissed by excited revellers.

Their stand was supported by the Fire Brigades Union, but the officers were sent written warnings and ordered to attend "diversity training" courses. Mr Herbert, who is just two years from retirement, was demoted to crew manager, resulting in a salary loss of 5,000 pounds per year.

At an internal hearing in Glasgow yesterday the firemen appealed against the punishments, arguing that they were entitled to object on grounds of conscience and that the public relations exercise was not a core part of their duties. The result is expected to be made public later this week. The men are likely to take the case to court if they are not exonerated formally. Their stance has attracted condemnation from gay rights groups, but was supported by the Roman Catholic Church, which said that obeying one's own conscience was "a higher duty than that of obeying orders".

Mr Hargreaves says that he owes his life to a firefighter who rescued him from a house fire when he was a boy. He is now pastor of the Hephzibah Christian Centre in Hackney, East London. He has homes in London and Scotland and plans to stand for Scottish Parliament next May. In an election broadcast on behalf of his party, the Christian Party, he said: "Consider the influence of minority interests, such as the homosexual lobby, on all aspects of society, simply because they've made their presence felt. The ancient city of Sodom could have been saved if only righteous people could be found." Last night he said: "I am not homophobic. In my music days I had many friends who were heterosexual playboys and many who were gay playboys. As we say in the Church, we love the sinner, whilst hating the sin."

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An affirmative action appointment comes unglued in Australia

Note: In Australia, it is customary to refer to someone with even a small amount of black ancestry as an "Aboriginal" -- mainly because of the various special benefits that attracts from governments -- such as appointing people lacking in judicial temperament to the magistracy



The company director strip-searched and jailed for contempt of court by the nation's highest profile Aboriginal magistrate, Pat O'Shane, is seeking damages for wrongful imprisonment. Paul Makucha says while he welcomes Ms O'Shane's referral to the NSW Judicial Commission's conduct division, it had come "too late" and that he had still not received an apology for the incident.

Ms O'Shane, the first Aboriginal barrister in Australia and a former head of the NSW Aboriginal Affairs Department who in 1998 was named one of Australia's 100 National Living Treasures, now risks being removed from office after senior members of the NSW judiciary referred her to the disciplinary tribunal. The state's top judges moved against Ms O'Shane, who was appointed a NSW magistrate in 1986, after she clashed with Mr Makucha in a civil case, jailed him for contempt, heard part of the case in his absence and then ruled for the other side. Mr Makucha, 60, was strip-searched, photographed and imprisoned for a day after being cited for contempt in July 2004. "They stripped me, made me lift my scrotum and bend over so they could examine my rectum and made me stand naked in a designated place," Mr Makucha told The Australian last night. He had been imprisoned from 11am to 4pm and was then given 35 minutes to raise bail of $500 to avoid spending a weekend in jail.

In November last year, the NSW Court of Appeal overturned Ms O'Shane's judgment and found that she had denied Mr Makucha procedural fairness and had made "wholly unreasonable" interpretations of his intentions. The court said Mr Makucha had behaved badly, "but it was hardly contempt in the face of the court". "The magistrate's behaviour ... when the defendant was unrepresented was quite inappropriate," the Court of Appeal judges said. "The exercise by the magistrate of a little tact from the beginning of the defendant's conduct to which she took exception would have gone a long way."

Mr Makucha said the inquiry into Ms O'Shane's conduct was excellent news but it was far too late. He had complained about Ms O'Shane to state Attorney-General Bob Debus in 2004, soon after the incident had taken place. The Judicial Commission includes the head of Ms O'Shane's own court, Chief Magistrate Graeme Henson. An adverse finding would need to be tabled in state parliament and could trigger a vote by both houses - the only constitutional way of removing judicial officers.

However, Mr Henson last night declined to discuss Ms O'Shane's future or to reveal whether he was present at the meeting of the commission that convened the inquiry. The affair is set to become a test case for reforms to disciplinary proceedings involving NSW judges. Ms O'Shane's conduct will be investigated by a three-member panel known as a conduct division that will be made up of serving or retired judges. While most of the commission's proceedings are conducted in secret, the reforms require the conduct division to consider whether it's in the public interest for the matter to be resolved publicly.

Mr Makucha has been a frequent litigant and has clashed with the bench before. In 2003, while representing himself, he was frequently found to have breached the rules of evidence to the extent that magistrate Gail Madgwick threatened to call the sheriffs. He was in court at the time after taking out 10 apprehended violence orders against neighbours at the Toaster apartment building at Circular Quay. Mr Machuka had found a strange car in his parking spot at the building that he thought represented a terrorist threat.

Mr Debus refused to comment on the affair yesterday. This is the latest in a series of incidents involving Ms O'Shane. In October last year, she threw out a case of offensive behaviour against a 27-year-old drunk who told police "youse are f...ed", arguing she was "not sure there is such a thing as a community standard any more". In 2001, Ms O'Shane survived an earlier complaint to the commission for saying some women invented stories against men in rape and domestic violence cases. In 2000, she survived another complaint and later described the commission, headed by NSW Chief Justice Jim Spigelman, as a "kangaroo court".

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