Too bad I don’t teach in Tennessee. I could fail all my straight students simply because they’re straight.  Sounds like fun.

I really hope that Surti turns out to be Muslim—it would be funny watching those Freeper morons try to justify supporting an Islamic fundamentalist who’s so opposed to core American values.

Also, if Surti is a Muslim, it’ll be interesting to see if the Arte Hotel serves alcohol at the bar—I hear Muslim culture is “not very tolerant” to the drinking lifestyle. Similarly, if he’s Hindu I wonder if a guest could order up a room service burger—I hear Hindu culture is “not very tolerant” of the beef-eating lifestyle.

Or maybe, as is often the case, religion is not so much the issue as is a benighted tribal culture.

Would a Christian bookstore owner now be required to hire a flamboyant homosexual because it’s PC?

That one always cracks me up.  Why would a gay person who has to pay rent, phone bills, cable bills, car insurance and so on want to work at a Christian book store where he is not likely to make more than $7.00 per hour?  What do they think, gays take shitty, low paying jobs out of sheer spite?

What planet does that guy live on?

Uranus. Duh.

Uranus. Duh.

I’m telling Mom.

I hope that all the tough guys who insist that nursing is for women die on a battlefield somewhere after refusing help because the combat nurse* doesn’t have a vulva.

*Yeah, yeah.  They go by “medic” but they still aren’t doctors which makes them nurses in my book.  And being “just” nurses isn’t something I’ll ever say, since they probably go through more training today than most doctors did 50 years ago.

Re: Bonus. If all such ‘bonuses’ operated in this fashion, we would all be getting punched in the kidney by Lennox Lewis in addition to our normal paycheck.

My mind boggles. I knew hair dressers, interior decorators, and musical theater performers get stereotyped as gay, but now social workers, nurses, and HR directors are typical gay jobs? It’s going to come down to “everyone but me is gay” in their universes, isn’t it?

Surti is a gujarati name.

“I really hope that Surti turns out to be Muslim”

I would count on it since from my exp as well from relatives who live in Tenn that most hotel owners are from Pakistan or the Middle East. It’s considered a social step up from running the 7-11.

I don’t hope he turns out to be Muslim.  I don’t really care what he is, but I really don’t want any more Muslim-bashing in this world where many Middle-Easterners and Asians are already misunderstood enough.

I work at a prison and have recently had the misfortune to meet an asshole who shot a turbaned man after 9/11.  The man was a Sikh, which made the asshole an idiot as well, but I really don’t care if he killed a real Muslim: the hatred was wrong, the act was cowardly, and the asshole was an idiot.  Please don’t add to the stupid, people.  Even if this hotel manager was a former Muslim who became a Christian and then became an atheist and then became a player of roleplaying games in his mom’s basement, his actions are deplorable enough no matter what group he comes from.

“Also, if Surti is a Muslim, it’ll be interesting to see if the Arte Hotel serves alcohol at the bar—I hear Muslim culture is “not very tolerant” to the drinking lifestyle. “

They do in the US if they want to make money. Several Muslim countries actually have areas that legally serve alcohol to either tourists or to their own citizens with no foreigners. Saudi Arabia has a few islands that serve alcohol to rich Saudis who come to them to vacation.

Don’t care anymore. Don’t care about any victimology. Tired of activists. Hate Berkeley. Lost all sense of syzygy.

Do you think this could be spun into a “plus one” sex discrimination case?  Hill was fired for being in romantic relationships with men or being attracted to men; if he’d been a woman who had romantic relationships with men or was attracted to men, he wouldn’t have been fired.

what exactly is a “homeosexual”?  Is that like a gay person who’s into homeopathic remedies?

Hehe, sounds like a Steve Allen bit.  “Excuse me, Mr Average American, but do you think homeopathics should be allowed to teach in schools?”

Too bad I don’t teach in Tennessee. I could fail all my straight students simply because they’re straight.

The Freepers don’t think sexual orientation should be protected, so you would be giving them their wish.

‘I don’t give a damn. They can sue me. I will not have any of ‘the gay leadership role’ in my hotel.’ And that’s a quote.” 
——-
The article transcribed this wrong. If you listen closely, Hill said “not have any of ‘the gay’ IN A leadership role in my hotel. I think it changes the sentence a bit.

* * *

As for the Human Relations, Social Workers, and Nurses, the problem is because they *gasp* /care/ about people. Those are people oriented professions, and to the freepers that’s ‘feminine’. Because it’s masculine to be an asshole.

Freepers are basically the shitpiles of humanity. This hotel owner clearly needs to be removed to a freeper haven so he can dilly-dally with his loving brethren.  Freepers should be able to give him what he needs. Heaven knows the rest of us don’t need these living piles of walking shit around.

The rest of us (straight and gay) who aren’t concerned about some one else’s bedroom habits will be far better off when freepers (most of whom are probably closeted anyway) are relegated to the “nothing important to see here, move along” status they so richly deserve.

It may not violate state law but it certainly does violate federal law enforced by EEOC.  The problem is that, under Bush, EEOC caseload is so high they may not get to it for half a year or more.  But eventually, this seems a clear cut violation and will eventually cause Mr. Surti to regret his frank admission of why he fired Mr. Hill.

Um…what exactly is a “homeosexual”?  Is that like a gay person who’s into homeopathic remedies?

It’s someone who’s able to maintain their equilibrium while in the sack…

The rest of us (straight and gay) who aren’t concerned about some one else’s bedroom habits will be far better off when freepers (most of whom are probably closeted anyway) are relegated to the “nothing important to see here, move along” status they so richly deserve.

Well, grant them some credit - gays are responsible for some serious atrocities after all.

(There must be some way to slip that into the Freeper forums…)

Oddly but not 100% surprisingly, Surti seems to be a donor (not a huge donor, but in the thousands of dollars) to the tennessee democratic party.

Freepers have a nasty habit of oversimplifying complex issues.  Then, when someone throws a grey example into their black and white world (for example, asking if we can fire people for being straight), they’re forced to stick to their one-way-or-the-other viewpoint (yes, since we can fire people for being gay!), exposing their views and beliefs as laughable and naive.  That being said, I’m still drawn to their comments the same way my thumbs are drawn to bubble wrap.

Speaking of naive, from all the “we do not discriminate based on age, gender, race or sexual orientation” disclaimers I’ve seen on job applications, I’d always assumed we had a sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws.  Are there states that do?  I’ve also never understood why normal people (that’s excluding freepers, in case you wondered) couldn’t see the obvious black civil rights connections to the discrimination gays are facing today.

Would a Christian bookstore owner now be required to hire a flamboyant homosexual

I know I’m ALWAYS seeing those flamboyant homosexuals lining up around the block to get jobs at Christian bookstores. Yup. Right down the street from all the gay couples clamoring to be married at Evangelical Christian churches.

Eyeroll.

I don’t hope he turns out to be Muslim.  I don’t really care what he is, but I really don’t want any more Muslim-bashing in this world where many Middle-Easterners and Asians are already misunderstood enough.

I agree with this and everything you wrote, and while I do consider Muslims to be among the (tragically) trendiest oppressed class in America, that still doesn’t incline me to give a pass to religious-based misogny and homophobia.

I don’t care if someone is a Muslim or Christian - if they act like this asshole or other misogynist and/or homophobic assholes, they deserve criticism.  And if their asshole behavior is rooted in their religious belief system, that belief system deserves to be called out.  My sense of expressing sensitivity towards those of varying faiths (I’m an agnostic recovering Catholic), particularly faiths that have been largely oppressed here, ends where their hatred begins.

It may not violate state law but it certainly does violate federal law enforced by EEOC.

Show me? From http://www.eeoc.gov/abouteeo/overview_practices.html

Discriminatory practices under these laws also include:

*  employment decisions based on stereotypes or assumptions about the abilities, traits, or performance of individuals of a certain sex, race, age, religion, or ethnic group, or individuals with disabilities ...

Note: Many states and municipalities also have enacted protections against discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation, status as a parent, marital status and political affiliation. For information, please contact the EEOC District Office nearest you.

Looks like EEOC deals with sexual orientation only where local laws allow.

Since when was anyone, much less “millions of people,” fired for NOT being gay? Had that been happened, we would likely already have ENDA protection for sexual orientation.

I don’t hope he turns out to be Muslim.  I don’t really care what he is, but I really don’t want any more Muslim-bashing in this world where many Middle-Easterners and Asians are already misunderstood enough.

If you’ll re-read what I wrote, you’ll note that I hope he turns out to be Muslim so these Freeper morons end up defending him. If you think their comments on gays are bad, you should read the ones they make about people with Surti’s skin colour whether they’re bigoted arseholes like him or not (and indeed, whether they’re Muslim or not).

Otherwise, what DTG says: minorities and underdogs don’t get free passes from me for misogynistic, homophobic, and other bigoted behaviours, especially when those behaviours are culturally and/or religiously institutionalised.

Even if the employer’s motivation was that Mr Hill is gay, if he has a reasonable documentation of a job-performance issue, the employer can win on that.

Part of the “problem” for Surti was that Hill was the Director of Human Resources to begin with. That means Hill already knew every BS trick and bogus excuse that corporate HR uses to build a case against each and every employee pending the day the employer might want to fire them. So he knew the game, and as manager of HR he was perfectly positioned to cover himself accordingly.

Even so, it seems insane for Surti to come right out and say he’s firing Hill because he’s gay. He deserves the lawsuit he’s about to lose.

You know, almost 20 years after thet fact, people STILL ask me why I left Tennessee.

Hoping the Freepers will be embarrassed by the homobigot being a Muslim is only wishing for cognitive dissonance from the already mentally impaired: not helpful in the long term, as it only redirects the bad behavior rather than fixes it.  I understand the longing for shadenfreude, but replacing hatred for gays with hatred for Muslims isn’t a good thing.  And that’s true even in the cases where some Muslims actually deserve the hate.

Hoping the Freepers will be embarrassed by the homobigot being a Muslim is only wishing for cognitive dissonance from the already mentally impaired: not helpful in the long term, as it only redirects the bad behavior rather than fixes it.

The Freeper’s mindset is not going to be fixed no matter what we say—they’ll still be just as homophobic and anti-Muslim in the long term. In the short term, however, watching them try to twist their way out of the bramble of internal contradictions that is their hateful worldview is lots of fun. So it’s not about replacing the Freeper hatred for gays with their hatred for fundamentalist Muslims, but forcing them into a corner where they have to reconcile those two bigotries. That’s one of the ways we demonstrate how intellectually bankrupt their arguments are.

What about the millions of men who have been fired for not being “gay?”

Hey, thanks! The next time I’m fired, I have a ready-made excuse.

“How did Mr Hill’s sexual orientation become known?”

Based on the video, I would assume that it is because people met him.

Less flippantly, it sounds as though the hotel until recently was a Holiday Inn, and that the employee handbook specifically covered non-discrimination based on sexual orientation. Given that he was the HR director, why would he have any reason to hide his orientation?

Surti is not going to lose the lawsuit.

A possible, but unlikely, outcome, is that either the state or the federal courts will rule that sexual orientation is a protected class, which would have the effect of invalidating all sorts of things, like the
laws preventing marriage equality. Tennessee? Not going to happen.

Even if it did, it wouldn’t be retroactive.

And if their asshole behavior is rooted in their religious belief system, that belief system deserves to be called out.

Right on. Not all belief systems are created equal.

I don’t want anyone to be the victim of violence or widespread social rejection because of their religious beliefs. And as a liberal I’m hardwired to root for the underdog. But I draw the line at fighting for the rights of Muslims (or Mormons, orthodox Jews, or fundamentalist Christians, or whoever) to treat women and gays with such putrid disrespect. We can be polite dance around the issue and blame individual members of Islam (or Christianity, etc.) for their bigotry. I’m tired of polite. I’m ready to start pointing fingers at the backwards, mentally-debilitating, patriarchal belief structures that induce this kind of behavior.

(And I’m not trying to pick on only a handful of religions. I think they’re all wrong and an impediment to critical thinking and equality.)

This is a great gimmick for all kinds of discrimination - Don’t want to hire a black man? “He’s gay, I can tell.” Want to fire a woman? “Lesbian - can’t have one of them working for us.” They deny that they are gay? Well, they would.

Legally….

I don’t know about the EEOC stuff, but in my state, in a case called Berube v. Fashion Place Mall employee handbooks and company instruction manuals on employee relations create an implied contract.  I think there is a case.  One could always also ask whether the gentleman who was fired was informed before he accepted employment that the company would not allow gays to work for them or whether it was in the advertisement for the position.

Magis:

I don’t know about the EEOC stuff, but in my state, in a case called Berube v. Fashion Place Mall employee handbooks and company instruction manuals on employee relations create an implied contract.

I can’t imagine how this wouldn’t be the case. What’s the point of having an employee handbook in the first place if it isn’t an implied contract?

I can’t imagine how this wouldn’t be the case. What’s the point of having an employee handbook in the first place if it isn’t an implied contract?

More often than not in the HR Culture they’re very one-sided contracts, similar to software EULAs. Then there’s the additional legal question of whether Surti took on the terms of such an implied contract with an existing employee when he bought the hotel.

No, you shouldn’t have the right to fire someone because of their hair color or tattoos or because they engage in perfectly legal behavior off hours.

If you think their sexual orientation or hair color or religious tattoos or dress shows poorly upon your business?  You’re being a bigot with the excuse that other people are bigoted.

Berube v. Fashion Place Mall

I think that may actually explain a lot more than Magis even meant it to.

Crissa - I agree with you on the sexual orientation issue, but crazy colored hair and tattoos are an entirely different matter. In a lot of settings, tats or purple hair is unprofessional, unacceptable, and the employer has every right to ban them.  It has nothing to do with bigotry, but about professionalism.

Usually when you make a radical change to written employment conditions without notice the courts take some cognizance of the fact. But this is tennessee, so who knows.

“Sexual orientation shouldn’t be protected”

What do these morons think DOMA is? Boggles the mind.

It becomes an implied contract if it says “If you do A, you get B” or if it promises that there will be no discrimination. 

An example of the first is when x number of days of vacation are promised for y number of years service.  Thus, it would not be legal to give on ten-year employee six days per year when every other one gets ten.  However, some people played fast and loose with the promises in their handbook and got burned (in the instant case).

To make a statement in the handbook, or in the job ads, that your company does not discriminate is legally binding.  If Tennessee is a right-to-work state (as mine is) he could have fired him and gotten away with it if he’d kept his yap shut about why.  He doesn’t sound like a very good HR person or he would have known better.  The old saying is “You can fire them for any reason but not the wrong reason.”

Tangentally, if the handbook promised not to discriminate against gays he might have had a right to benefits for any permanent partner he had (depending on how it was worded).

This is a great gimmick for all kinds of discrimination - Don’t want to hire a black man? “He’s gay, I can tell.” Want to fire a woman? “Lesbian - can’t have one of them working for us.” They deny that they are gay? Well, they would.

Mmmm. Very interesting point.

I say, GOOD FOR HIM!  I think it was great that the owner took a stand against it.  I don’t want my customers thinking I’m ok with people living a homosexual lifestyle.  Homosexuality is wrong, plan and simple, and people shouldn’t have to be forced into faking like they think it’s ok.  If I found out one of my employees was living another immoral lifestyle like prostitution, I would want to fire them too.  If you want to do wrong, then do wrong, but don’t think I’m going to call it right just because you don’t want to feel like it’s wrong.  Homosexuality is a sin and people need to absorb that into their brains if they actually think differently.  Maybe next time he won’t go showing off his immoral sexual preference at the next job he gets.

Jack = parody?

Jack = parody?

Probably not. Probably just a run-of-the-mill jebofascist.

Ignoring the troll a space or two above me, I will throw in my 2 cents that glancing at its case law, Tennessee’s enforcement of employment manuals/handbooks is case-specific and depends on exactly how the manual is worded, issued, etc, as to whether it’s part of a binding employment contract.  Hill, being a trained HR professional, has obviously filed with everyone whom he can file, so I’m sure he will get some remedy.
My guess is that this is a non-national, locally owned deal (article really doesn’t say other than “it’s not a Holiday Inn”), the hotel might not have had the airtight legal drafting that goes into a big company’s manual, and maybe Hill will win on a simple wrongful discharge claim based on the manual.  (In fact, b/c it says “they don’t discriminate” and Sulti obviously did leads me to believe they probably didn’t write it that well).  I’d judge that outcome to be much more likely than TN deciding—or having to NOT decide—that sexual orientation is protected under state constitutional equality or employment-based claims.

Jack = parody?

Jack = asshole.

” The owner, Mr. Surti, comes from a culture that is not very tolerant to the gay lifestyle,” added assistant general manager Leonard Stoddard “

mhmmmz , we as in north american socity come from a culture that is not very tolerant to the gay lifestyle. But then again it is much easier to alienzie an american and then blame their ethnic/religious background wooo =)

he is an asshole regardless of all else, how is this legal ...blame your stupid justice system then .

it always throws me when i see a “Jack” on the intratubes acting like a not-gay-man. because my best friend in school was a gay guy names Jack. i have never met a Jack who wasn’t gay…

Right on. Not all belief systems are created equal.

Exactly!

When it’s to my benefit, it’s “freedom” and when it doesn’t serve my agenda, it’s “crap”.

“When it’s to my benefit, it’s “freedom” and when it doesn’t serve my agenda, it’s “crap”.”

Thank you “Dodge Ram”!

Everybody has a belief system, whether it’s structured or based on their own personal “knowledge”/experience.  If someone wants me to believe something because that’s how they believe, how can they ever definite themselves as “liberal”.

If you are a Christian, you believe homosexuality is a sin.  That’s nothing new.  And the religion is not going to change because some people want to just go ahead and life immorally anyway.  That doesn’t make Christians evil, closet cases, homophobic, etc.  And I’m not going to stop being a Christian because some people want to be gay.

Ok, I’ll feed the troll.

Christians believe a LOT of things are sins. Rarely, if ever, do they fire people for them.

You can only, ONLY, excuse this decision to fire a homosexual, if you also demand that the owner file anyone working for him who actively overeats, smokes, drinks to excess, cheats on his/her spouse, has ever been divorced, subscribes to a different religion (or non-religion) than Christianity, and a host of other things.

You should also DEMAND that the owner close the business on Sundays (even though he’ll lose money) because he’s not keeping the Sabbath holy. (Really, he should close on Saturday and Sunday, just to be safe.) And, you know, that’s an offense punishable by death.

More people should really learn the difference between a Christian and a Jew, but as you have displayed you ignorance already with name calling and such, I can already see you are not knowledgeable to understand…so anywho…

...if I’m a Christian, running MY business, then, yes, I would want to fire someone who actively overeats ON THE JOB, smokes ON THE JOB, drinks to excess ON THE JOB, cheats on his/her spouse ON THE JOB, has ever been divorced ON THE JOB, subscribes to a different religion (or non-religion) than Christianity ON THE JOB, or makes all these things known ON THE JOB.  I wouldn’t want any persons immoral lifestyle interfering with MY business.

HOWEVER, I would have no problem with hiring a homosexual that keeps their sin in the closet where it belongs.

Jack, either you’re a good troll or a bad Christian, encouraging hypocrisy like that.

By the way, I doubt this man was “a homosexual on the job” any more than a person would be “a divorced person on the job”. People KNOW he’s homosexual. People KNOW she’s divorced. And that both are unapologetic about it.

In fact, the unapologetic divorcee is WORSE because they remarry unsuspecting, good Christians, forcing them to accidentally commit adultery. Jesus said so.

No hypocrisy at all.  If you don’t want an immoral lifestyle involved in your business, you shouldn’t have to.  As stated above, people with crazy colored hair can be fired, no problem, but not someone who says, “I’m going to live immorally and you’re going to like it!”  Please!

And while NO sin is WORSE, remarrying after divorce (not the divorce itself actually) for which there was no adultery involved IS against scripture.  Jesus did say so.

Elephant Lady,

It matters what happens off the job.

A business may not do well with the queer image. Let’s all remember that in most every referendum, the voters did not buy into what liberals are selling so it’s not a big stretch to think that it might affect the business.

On the other hand, there are businesses that need the queer image to make it. Everyone wants a their hairdresser and interior decorator to be a flaming queer. It helps their business.

I think the point is…it matters, regardless of how you may believe it shouldn’t.

I don’t think it’s fair to call Jack a “troll.” True, Jack probably knew that most of the people who read his/her post would find it offensive, but I don’t think the *purpose* of it was to offend others - just to express his/her own opinion.

That being said, Jack’s post was certainly impolite in many ways. Baldly stating that “homosexuality is wrong, plain and simple” knowing how likely it is that homosexual people will be *reading* what you just wrote is plainly- and simply - rude. You could have made your point -“people shouldn’t be forced into faking that they think something is OK” - without saying that.

When in Rome, etc.

P.S. comparing homosexuality to prostitution is NOT going to win you any points. Seriously, what were you thinking?

As stated above, people with crazy colored hair can be fired, no problem

Because that’s a professionalism issue. Whereas there is no question of professionalism involved here. David Hill was not fired for unprofessional public displays of affection with a partner of the same sex, he was fired for his orientation.

And while NO sin is WORSE, remarrying after divorce (not the divorce itself actually) for which there was no adultery involved IS against scripture.  Jesus did say so.

So it would be OK to fire a straight person who remarried after divorce, or who married a divorced person? (The latter would be fornication, of course.)

A business may not do well with the queer image. Let’s all remember that in most every referendum, the voters did not buy into what liberals are selling so it’s not a big stretch to think that it might affect the business.

What about, say, black people? There are plenty of racists. Hiring a black person might put a dent in business from racist people. Do you just not support employment non-discrimination at all?

We, as a society have decided that it’s not in our best interests to discriminate against blacks. No such consensus has emerged for homosexuals.

We, as a society have decided that it’s not in our best interests to discriminate against blacks. No such consensus has emerged for homosexuals.

Er, no, actually. We decided that black people, as individuals, had the right to freedom from discrimination. And so should gay people.