[Draft] Banning Discrimination in Religious Organisations

[Separatist Peoples]

"If your god's gift requires blind acceptance of invidious discrimination, then we are all better off without those 'gifts'."

"Your grace, it isn't blind, and you aren't required to receive these sacraments. That you don't believe is absolutely your prerogative. That we retain the power to discern whether or not someone understands them enough to receive them is a wholly different matter."

"Your god's gift does not tolerate doctrinal disagreement, but requires instead a lock-step ideological acceptance, enforced with the threat of eternal torture in the hereinafter and social ostracization in the immediacy. If that was not enough, you categorically threaten those incompatible with your beliefs with a similar punishment. Society is better off by far without your organization's malice."

[Divine Unity]

"Your god's gift does not tolerate doctrinal disagreement, but requires instead a lock-step ideological acceptance, enforced with the threat of eternal torture in the hereinafter and social ostracization in the immediacy. If that was not enough, you categorically threaten those incompatible with your beliefs with a similar punishment. Society is better off by far without your organization's malice."

"Your grace, in the past you may have had a stronger basis for at least part of your claim. However, the church does not have the power to condemn to hell, and though it is doctrine that there is a hell (in the sense that it is possible to choose to reject God even after death when met face-to-face), it is not doctrine that there absolutely must be anyone in that state of existence.

Likewise, those who do not share in our beliefs out of ignorance are not condemned by a spiteful God who wishes to see sinners perish."

[United Massachusetts]

"Your grace, it isn't blind, and you aren't required to receive these sacraments. That you don't believe is absolutely your prerogative. That we retain the power to discern whether or not someone understands them enough to receive them is a wholly different matter."

"Your god's gift does not tolerate doctrinal disagreement, but requires instead a lock-step ideological acceptance, enforced with the threat of eternal torture in the hereinafter and social ostracization in the immediacy. If that was not enough, you categorically threaten those incompatible with your beliefs with a similar punishment. Society is better off by far without your organization's malice."

"The beauties of tolerance, my friends."

[Tinfect]

"The beauties of tolerance, my friends."

"The Imperium is glad to see that your delegation has realized that belief systems predicated on the eternal, extralegal punishment of individuals based on the arbitrary whims of a non-existent entity is foundationally intolerant."

[Kowani]

"Your god's gift does not tolerate doctrinal disagreement, but requires instead a lock-step ideological acceptance, enforced with the threat of eternal torture in the hereinafter and social ostracization in the immediacy. If that was not enough, you categorically threaten those incompatible with your beliefs with a similar punishment. Society is better off by far without your organization's malice."

"The beauties of tolerance, my friends."

“Tolerance is not inherently virtuous, ambassador, nor is it always desirable.” “There comes a time where the belief system of an individual becomes a threat to the collective.”

[Divine Unity]

“Tolerance is not inherently virtuous, ambassador, nor is it always desirable.” “There comes a time where the belief system of an individual becomes a threat to the collective.”

“We agree. It’s why we oppose this proposal.”

[Kenmoria]

(OOC: There was a question earlier about whether a ‘number of fingers’ was an innate category to an individual. It’s a lot more ambiguous than gender or race, but it is certain that anyone who doesn’t have fingers as a result of a disability or birth defect would be protected by this proposal. It could be argued that someone who has lost fingers in an accident might not be, but that’s a fairly rare case.)

[Separatist Peoples]

"Your god's gift does not tolerate doctrinal disagreement, but requires instead a lock-step ideological acceptance, enforced with the threat of eternal torture in the hereinafter and social ostracization in the immediacy. If that was not enough, you categorically threaten those incompatible with your beliefs with a similar punishment. Society is better off by far without your organization's malice."

"The beauties of tolerance, my friends."

"Ambassador, I am not a tolerant man. I do not suffer fools. Even if your remark was remotely accurate, I must remind you of the old adage about stones and glass houses. Your holy book preaches many things. Rare is tolerance among them."

[Old Hope]

Mandates that no religious organisation may deny, restrict, have a different set of criteria for, or delay the giving of a right, power, permission or service to a person based on their innate belonging to a reductive category

Ambassador, there is no need for the word "reductive". Every category is reductive.

[Kenmoria]

Mandates that no religious organisation may deny, restrict, have a different set of criteria for, or delay the giving of a right, power, permission or service to a person based on their innate belonging to a reductive category

Ambassador, there is no need for the word "reductive". Every category is reductive.

“Although it is not true that all categories are reductive, this is a good idea. It is better to merely restrict any category based in innate conditions to be banned, rather than requiring that these are overly simplistic categories.”

[Divine Unity]

"Ambassador, I am not a tolerant man. I do not suffer fools. Even if your remark was remotely accurate, I must remind you of the old adage about stones and glass houses. Your holy book preaches many things. Rare is tolerance among them."

"Your grace, surely we all can do better than attempting to justify our faults by pointing out faults we perceive in others. After all, another old adage says that 'an eye for an eye renders the whole world blind'.
Many holy books preach many things, and people deserve better than arrogant generalisations of their understanding of tolerance."

[Maowi]

(OOC: Real life being annoyingly busy right now, I don't really have time to work on this at the moment so I'm setting it aside temporarily. By all means keep debating if you want, I'll trawl through everything when I get back )

[Maowi]

“I’ve changed my mind again, and think that ‘representing’ would be a better word than ‘being’ in the second preambulatory clause.”

'Having given the matter due consideration, perhaps "advancing" would be the best fit for this context - what do you think?'

(OOC: There was a question earlier about whether a ‘number of fingers’ was an innate category to an individual. It’s a lot more ambiguous than gender or race, but it is certain that anyone who doesn’t have fingers as a result of a disability or birth defect would be protected by this proposal. It could be argued that someone who has lost fingers in an accident might not be, but that’s a fairly rare case.)

OOC: The below could possibly help with this...

Ambassador, there is no need for the word "reductive". Every category is reductive.

“Although it is not true that all categories are reductive, this is a good idea. It is better to merely restrict any category based in innate conditions to be banned, rather than requiring that these are overly simplistic categories.”

'I've been thinking about replacing that wording; I was trying to be consistent with GAR #35 but because of the context it may be better to scratch that and approach it differently. Just as an idea, would you agree with changing the proposal to read as below?

Mandates that no religious organisation may deny, restrict, have a different set of criteria for, or delay the giving of a right, power, permission or service to a person based on a characteristic of theirs over which they have no control;

'The wording could of course be modified, but would the general idea work?'

[Old Hope]

“I’ve changed my mind again, and think that ‘representing’ would be a better word than ‘being’ in the second preambulatory clause.”

'Having given the matter due consideration, perhaps "advancing" would be the best fit for this context - what do you think?'

(OOC: There was a question earlier about whether a ‘number of fingers’ was an innate category to an individual. It’s a lot more ambiguous than gender or race, but it is certain that anyone who doesn’t have fingers as a result of a disability or birth defect would be protected by this proposal. It could be argued that someone who has lost fingers in an accident might not be, but that’s a fairly rare case.)

OOC: The below could possibly help with this...

“Although it is not true that all categories are reductive, this is a good idea. It is better to merely restrict any category based in innate conditions to be banned, rather than requiring that these are overly simplistic categories.”

'I've been thinking about replacing that wording; I was trying to be consistent with GAR #35 but because of the context it may be better to scratch that and approach it differently. Just as an idea, would you agree with changing the proposal to read as below?

Mandates that no religious organisation may deny, restrict, have a different set of criteria for, or delay the giving of a right, power, permission or service to a person based on a characteristic of theirs over which they have no control;

'The wording could of course be modified, but would the general idea work?'

At first glance it looks restricted, and we like restricted in this context. However, an unhealable transmittable disease can be a characteristic, yet it is definitely a sensible cause for giving different services(due to the dangerousness of the person).

[Kenmoria]

“I’ve changed my mind again, and think that ‘representing’ would be a better word than ‘being’ in the second preambulatory clause.”

'Having given the matter due consideration, perhaps "advancing" would be the best fit for this context - what do you think?'

“Yes, that will be perfect.”

Mandates that no religious organisation may deny, restrict, have a different set of criteria for, or delay the giving of a right, power, permission or service to a person based on a characteristic of theirs over which they have no control;

'The wording could of course be modified, but would the general idea work?'

“That will deal with the majority of cases. It doesn’t cover religion, since that is a choice, but you could easily alter the final clause to fix that.”

[Bears Armed]

'I've been thinking about replacing that wording; I was trying to be consistent with GAR #35 but because of the context it may be better to scratch that and approach it differently. Just as an idea, would you agree with changing the proposal to read as below?

Mandates that no religious organisation may deny, restrict, have a different set of criteria for, or delay the giving of a right, power, permission or service to a person based on a characteristic of theirs over which they have no control;

'The wording could of course be modified, but would the general idea work?'

OOC
Actually, even given the high probability of a GenSec ruling that reducing the scope of GAR#35’s “essential practical purposes” exemptions is allowed, I think that this wording would still be illegal for Contradiction of that resolution. Reducing member nations’ right to define “essential practical purposes” in general is one thing, but explicitly banning the one situation which that resolution actually gives for an allowed use of the exemption is something else altogether: Member nations are explicitly recognised as having the right to allow discrimination on the basis of sex when staffing shelters for battered women, and some religious organisations might well be responsible for operating such shelters, so…

___________________________________________________

And why should the argument on which this proposal's restriction are based be applied only to ‘religious’ organisations, anyway? What if [for example] a political organisation wishes to practice a discriminatory hiring policy? For example, what if a 'Women’s Rights Party' wants to insist that all of its officials must be women? Mightn't that policy cause "psychological harm" to some men who wanted to apply for those posts? Targeting only religious groups is discriminatory in itself...

[Kenmoria]

OOC
Actually, even given the high probability of a GenSec ruling that reducing the scope of GAR#35’s “essential practical purposes” exemptions is allowed, I think that this wording would still be illegal for Contradiction of that resolution. Reducing member nations’ right to define “essential practical purposes” in general is one thing, but explicitly banning the one situation which that resolution actually gives for an allowed use of the exemption is something else altogether: Member nations are explicitly recognised as having the right to allow discrimination on the basis of sex when staffing shelters for battered women, and some religious organisations might well be responsible for operating such shelters, so…

(OOC: I don’t read it that way. GA #035 is banning discrimination, and doesn’t ban discrimination for a compelling practical purpose, such as women’s only shelters. It doesn’t necessarily mandates that the WA permits discrimination for compelling purposes, including shelters; it merely says that this scenario isn’t covered by the legislation. It would be different if the resolution said that discrimination for a purpose is explicitly protected, but all it has is an exception to a mandate.)

[Dontriptia]

1

[Separatist Peoples]

In the unlikely event that this resolution is passed, our Nation will immediately act to implement it and make discrimination by religious organizations illegal in our nation.... punishable by a fine of one dollar.

"Excellent point. The author could add a clause requiring nations to correct all discriminatory acts and mete out punishments reasonably calculated, in good faith, to coerce compliance. Then nations could use equitable powers to tailor punishments to actually work. Your diligence and attention to detail is to be commended, ambassador. You have helped us close an important loophole."

[Phydios]

In the unlikely event that this resolution is passed, our Nation will immediately act to implement it and make discrimination by religious organizations illegal in our nation.... punishable by a fine of one dollar.

"Excellent point. The author could add a clause requiring nations to correct all discriminatory acts and mete out punishments reasonably calculated, in good faith, to coerce compliance. Then nations could use equitable powers to tailor punishments to actually work. Your diligence and attention to detail is to be commended, ambassador. You have helped us close an important loophole."

"Would this not duplicate the Administrative Compliance Act?"

[Kenmoria]

"Excellent point. The author could add a clause requiring nations to correct all discriminatory acts and mete out punishments reasonably calculated, in good faith, to coerce compliance. Then nations could use equitable powers to tailor punishments to actually work. Your diligence and attention to detail is to be commended, ambassador. You have helped us close an important loophole."

"Would this not duplicate the Administrative Compliance Act?"

“The ACA targets fines towards member nations for WA noncompliance, not fines towards businesses for noncompliance with member nations, who are themselves compliant.”

[Maowi]

In the unlikely event that this resolution is passed, our Nation will immediately act to implement it and make discrimination by religious organizations illegal in our nation.... punishable by a fine of one dollar.

"Excellent point. The author could add a clause requiring nations to correct all discriminatory acts and mete out punishments reasonably calculated, in good faith, to coerce compliance. Then nations could use equitable powers to tailor punishments to actually work. Your diligence and attention to detail is to be commended, ambassador. You have helped us close an important loophole."

'Something to that end will be added in the next draft, and I too would like to thank Dontriptia's delegation for helping us improve this proposal. I also admire their modesty in attempting to alter our records regarding their extremely helpful interjection. Ambassador, would you like to be credited as co-author, if you are able to overcome your humility?'

[Separatist Peoples]

"Excellent point. The author could add a clause requiring nations to correct all discriminatory acts and mete out punishments reasonably calculated, in good faith, to coerce compliance. Then nations could use equitable powers to tailor punishments to actually work. Your diligence and attention to detail is to be commended, ambassador. You have helped us close an important loophole."

"Would this not duplicate the Administrative Compliance Act?"

"The Kenmorian delegation said it before we could gather our thoughts. Probably best to assume that, as author, I'm probably not suggesting a violation of the ACA."