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British Christian printer refuses to make business cards for trans customer... both accused of discrimination

RT
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 21:02 UTC

A transgender-diversity consultant was left "gobsmacked" after a devout Christian printer turned down her order for business cards, saying he did not want to promote a cause that might harm fellow believers

Joanne Lockwood sought the promotional material for her firm SEE Change Happen, which offers companies advice on equality, diversity and inclusion, the Times reports.

Nigel Williams, a married father of three based in Southampton, refused to take the contract because it would "make pressure worse" on Christians who he believes are being forced to accept transgender people in society.

He wrote to her in an email: "The new model of diversity is used (or misused) to marginalize (or indeed discriminate against) Christians in their workplaces and other parts of society if they do not subscribe to it.

"Although I am quite sure you have no intention of marginalizing Christians it would weigh heavily upon me if through my own work I was to make pressure worse for fellow Christians."

Campaign group Christian Institute jumped to his defense.

"It is a fundamental tenet of free speech and freedom of belief that people should not be forced to help promote causes flatly contrary to their own deeply held views," the group said in a statement.

Lockwood, 52, who has been living as a transgender woman since January, told the Times she was "gobsmacked" by the response.

"I was not expecting a lecture. I disbelieved this could happen in 2017. I have been distraught and cried and my wife consoled me," she said.

"I think a point of principle is at stake. He wanted to make a point to me deliberately for his own motives. I have been the victim of some discrimination."

Christian Institute also backed a staunch Christian family in Northern Ireland last year who refused to make a cake in their bakery for a same-sex wedding.

A human rights barrister who advised on the "gay cake" case said at the time that if the baker lost, Muslim printers could be forced to produce cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Court of Appeal upheld a ruling in October 2016 which found that Ashers Bakery in Co Antrim had discriminated against the gay couple.

Comment: The printer's response was both measured and reasonable. Is his the only print shop available in Southampton?

Reader Comments

sbc · 2017-10-16T21:54:51Z

I would be willing to bet a year's income the transgender consultant picked a devout christian business to single out for this job when there many other printing shops he could have gone to.

Good Optics · 2017-10-16T22:01:07Z

sbc Ooooohhhh, oh my, Pronoun Purgatory rears its head . . .

sbc · 2017-10-17T01:52:40Z

Good Optics yeah i dont play the preferred gender pronoun game.

normally a human that

1. refuses to accept reality,

2. pretends they are an entity that they aren't

3. cuts off their genitalia on purpose

4. demands the rest of the world gives into their delusional fantasies

5. would force someone to do something they don't want to do to uphold their fake reality

is normally called what they are, mentally ill. I did not call the transgender man "the surgically altered, bigoted, mentally ill man whom refuses to live in reality" so really i think it is a win win for said man.

Oh and merryf F---in Christmas too. Screw happy holidays. Sensitive people, sheesh.

Good Optics · 2017-10-17T07:33:15Z

sbc While that's funny in its own way, and kudos for saying, " I did not call the transgender man the surgically altered, bigoted, mentally ill man whom refuses to live in reality" you don't have the situation screwed on quite right, and nothing I might say will convince you otherwise.

Went there, did that a few weeks/months/years back around here

So, sparing us both, I'll simply repeat that unless you have direct experience with 'physical sex dysphoria' (it isn't 'gender' dysphoria) you simply cannot know, and therefore simply cannot accurately comment on, the dilemma; and it is a dilemma.

Finally for the moment, and as to 'sensitive' people: given what I know about the difficulty, the cost, the lifelong discomfort/anguish that finding one's self in a rough riding Ford pickup rather than the Fiat convertible that so much better suits one's sense and sensibilities bring into one's existence I am happy to accord a person transitioning or transitioned the measure of real respect they've earned by being brave enough, determined enough to be in the world they way they truly feel themselves to be.

Would that we all worked that hard and paid such cost to be who we are.

Good Optics · 2017-10-17T01:16:41Z

"I think a point of principle is at stake. He wanted to make a point to me deliberately for his own motives. I have been the victim of some discrimination."

Yes,certainly there's a 'point of principle', vis: as long as no one's slagging anyone, others are entitled to hold opinions different from yours.

So, solution: Agree to disagree, then shut up about it and have your work done elsewhere.

That's a whole lot less drama than making a federal case of it, and hon' you have more than enough on your plate, you don't need the drama . . .

sbc · 2017-10-17T02:01:13Z

Good Optics Unless you are a transgender drama queen that picks a christian to try and force to do something they have a moral issue with.

This line says it all

"I think a point of principle is at stake. He wanted to make a point to me deliberately for his own motives. I have been the victim of some discrimination."

I am fairly sure this is EXACTLY what the transgender person was doing. Think of all the points they could make in their paid lectures if they could say they were even able to get a devout christian to print their transgender inclusion cards.

We are all currently watching the decline of human civilization into a non society of weak peoples who cannot possibly overcome ANY sort of diversity or hardship.

Good Optics · 2017-10-17T07:12:53Z

sbc Genuinely TG people have lived valued lives in every society and every time and culture throughout recorded history. Fact, do the research.

In the past and in societies rather more advanced than decaying western 'culture' they have -- as a matter of course -- been accorded a real measure of respect for being uniquely able to perceive 'both sides of the coin', so to say. Fact, do the research.

While we of course have today those who go quietly about their difficult transitions to more comfortable but still only best-compromise lives and do their best to simply assimilate, there are, for reasons beyond me, those who shriek that society ought to be better, ought to universally accommodate them and do so in the face of the discouraging fact that western society is not better, while at the same time failing to see themselves as walking cog' dis' generators amoung those staring at the world between 'binary blinders'.

This is amateurish, for want of a better word.

So, as said in the title here, he'd do well to lighten up on his Christian rigidity and she'd do well to get a grip and realize that she ain't gonna loosen up western rigidity by howling in its face about its blinkered, binary ossification; much less going home and crying about it.

Sam CL · 2017-10-17T03:38:12Z

Why didn't this guy take his business to a Muslim printer?

And, why does this self-mutilated guy who calls himself Joanne and identifies himself as a female have a wife?

All this perversion and corruption of humanity is so sickening. It's disturbing and distressing to normal people. Yet we're not allowed to be upset or affronted. Why not?

Like McAuliffe, 'Let's Go Brandon' is part of Team Blue: WHaT MaKeS JoE RuN...BY WILLIAMBANZAI7 [Link]

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British Christian printer refuses to make business cards for trans customer... both accused of discrimination

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