This is a tough issue for me to take a clear stance on. I'm in two minds because equality and fairness for everyone are core beliefs of mine, but I am also gay and don’t enjoy being discriminated against because of it. This confuses things as equality is a two-way street. Not allowing gay partners to sleep together is just as unfair as forcing someone to allow them to. I’ll try to rationalise my thoughts.
It is an unfortunate piece of evolutionary baggage that we humans are discriminatory. We coalesce in to groups that share our looks and our beliefs and attempt to exclude those who do not, out of fear. In the course of history the Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ has meant that the largest and most powerful of those groups tended to extinguish the smaller and weaker. As our minds have expanded we have come to realise that despite our differences we are equal, and that the diversity that comes with difference is a positive aspect of society.
We do, however, retain that irrational fear of those who are different. It still bubbles under the surface in our emotions and our instincts. In recent times those who seek power have consciously abused our nature to create arbitrary belief systems or establish groups that discriminate in an often violent and hateful manner, and there is no reason to suggest that people will not continue to do so. The mob does not take much to be rallied, even if it is nowadays rallied by the Daily Mail rather than a warlord or religious mystic.
In a free society discrimination would be possible. However, it would quickly be frowned upon, and the opportunities to discriminate would be very few in number. In theory, one could just require people to make their discriminations public – after all, they shouldn’t be ashamed of them if they believe in them.
Practically speaking in reference to this case, a requirement for the hotel to state clearly at all interfaces with the public that it discriminates towards unmarried couples, and as such all gay couples, would suffice. In my discrimination-free society people would be unhappy with such a hotel. They would protest against them. They’d shout from the rooftops how unfair they are being and how sad a position it is for them to take. Unfortunately, the beliefs held by the couple who run the hotel are quite common in our real society. A large number of people have been indoctrinated by hundreds of years of religious oppression to think that homosexuality is ‘a bit wrong’ and it will take hundreds of years of tolerance and understanding to undo it. Once the irrational belief is not commonplace, the concept of such a belief becomes abhorrent, something like the sign approach outlined above would work, and nobody need be unfairly treated.
To allow casual discrimination now, when as a society we still cannot trust ourselves to think straight, opens the doors to the potential abuse of society by those who would attempt to use it for their own gain; we must therefore not allow casual discrimination. The effect of this is that we have to be unfair towards those who want to discriminate, by not allowing them to.
In the case of this hotel, we must not allow them to prevent partnered couples who are gay from sleeping together if they allow partnered couples who are straight to sleep together. It might not be fair at this stage, but it is for the good of society, and it paves the way for a fair future.
It is an unfortunate piece of evolutionary baggage that we humans are discriminatory. We coalesce in to groups that share our looks and our beliefs and attempt to exclude those who do not, out of fear. In the course of history the Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ has meant that the largest and most powerful of those groups tended to extinguish the smaller and weaker. As our minds have expanded we have come to realise that despite our differences we are equal, and that the diversity that comes with difference is a positive aspect of society.
We do, however, retain that irrational fear of those who are different. It still bubbles under the surface in our emotions and our instincts. In recent times those who seek power have consciously abused our nature to create arbitrary belief systems or establish groups that discriminate in an often violent and hateful manner, and there is no reason to suggest that people will not continue to do so. The mob does not take much to be rallied, even if it is nowadays rallied by the Daily Mail rather than a warlord or religious mystic.
In a free society discrimination would be possible. However, it would quickly be frowned upon, and the opportunities to discriminate would be very few in number. In theory, one could just require people to make their discriminations public – after all, they shouldn’t be ashamed of them if they believe in them.
Practically speaking in reference to this case, a requirement for the hotel to state clearly at all interfaces with the public that it discriminates towards unmarried couples, and as such all gay couples, would suffice. In my discrimination-free society people would be unhappy with such a hotel. They would protest against them. They’d shout from the rooftops how unfair they are being and how sad a position it is for them to take. Unfortunately, the beliefs held by the couple who run the hotel are quite common in our real society. A large number of people have been indoctrinated by hundreds of years of religious oppression to think that homosexuality is ‘a bit wrong’ and it will take hundreds of years of tolerance and understanding to undo it. Once the irrational belief is not commonplace, the concept of such a belief becomes abhorrent, something like the sign approach outlined above would work, and nobody need be unfairly treated.
To allow casual discrimination now, when as a society we still cannot trust ourselves to think straight, opens the doors to the potential abuse of society by those who would attempt to use it for their own gain; we must therefore not allow casual discrimination. The effect of this is that we have to be unfair towards those who want to discriminate, by not allowing them to.
In the case of this hotel, we must not allow them to prevent partnered couples who are gay from sleeping together if they allow partnered couples who are straight to sleep together. It might not be fair at this stage, but it is for the good of society, and it paves the way for a fair future.
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, we certainly were, and I certain did.
