Painful Lesson Learned - Painfully

At risk of being identified as homophobic people who find gay 'marriage' a strikingly peculiar and off-putting prospect, and must keep their perceptions about the absurdity of 'marriage' between two people of like gender to themselves. Similarly, the absolutely ludicrous practise of one of the pair referring to the other as their 'wife', or their 'husband', or their 'spouse' seems like self-mockery, at the very least, if it weren't for the fact that these identity nomenclatures are taken quite seriously.

And so, when someone like me who has never, ever had a wish to discriminate against someone whose sexual orientation is not the same as mine, looks askance at the action of two men in lodging a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal over their failed attempt to book at a Grand Forks, B.C. bed-and-breakfast, feels this to be an unsupportable action, it's clear I risk being labelled homophobic. So be it. But calling it so doesn't make it so.

The overt and societally nasty discrimination against homosexuals that prevailed within society decades ago was despicable. The harm that was visited upon gays, upon the transgendered, whose sexual orientation so infuriated 'straights' was sheer criminality. That in Canada the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was altered to reflect and recognize the rights of gays to be equal with those of all other Canadians under the law was an advance that was past due.

But there will always remain those within any society who will insist on practising their own very special brand of discrimination. It is human nature to focus on those who are in some way different than what is considered the prevailing norm. A gradual and welcome shift away from that discriminatory focus by de-legitimizing it within the social contract usually just leaves the hard-core haters.

And those hard-core racists or discriminators will hide behind their particular brand of religion, or ideology, or just secularly-obnoxious bigotry irrespective of legally enshrined protections and society's turn toward understanding and acceptance, in any event. But people are entitled to their beliefs. And they are most certainly entitled to make decisions about who they will welcome into their homes or their private businesses.

When it comes to intolerance, the outspoken portion of the gay community is not much of an improvement over those who have in the past, and who continue in their own way, to discriminate against them. Their flamboyant insistence on being noticed, that their overt differences be celebrated through attendance at Gay Pride parades, simply identifies too many of the gay community as juvenile.

Most heterosexuals prefer to keep their sex practises to themselves. Sexual relations are a private matter, not to be flaunted and exhibited for the direct purpose of bringing notice. And certainly not for one group to directly challenge another by public exhibitionism. For many people to witness two men passionately embracing is an embarrassment they could live without. And many will not applaud the raunchy, sexually-explicit antics of gays during Gay Pride.

And when Les and Susan Molnar, past owners of Riverbed Bed and Breakfast recoiled in distaste when they were asked to facilitate a stay-over at their B&B for Shaun Eadie and Brian Thomas, who attempted to book a single-bed bedroom at the B&B, it was their right to do so. Messrs. Eadie and Thomas were understandably offended at the rebuff, but ours is a free society.

They had the option of looking elsewhere for accommodation. And the owners of the B&B exercised their privilege and entitlement in a free society to decide whom they would allow into their home, to use the facilities that they operated for private gain out of that home. To drag this couple through a human rights tribunal is vindictively petty and unnecessary and serves no purpose other than to salve hurt feelings.

Because of the umbrage they took, and their determination to force a couple who claim their religion supported their refusal to welcome a gay couple to their establishment, in asserting that their human rights have been violated, they have violated the human rights of others. It does work both ways, something that appears to have escaped their notice.

This couple, the Molnars, who operated the B&B establishment, had invested in extensive renovations of their business. In the follow-up of the lodging of the human rights complaint by Shaun Eadie and Brian Thomas, Les and Susan Molnar decided to leave the business of welcoming people into their home to others.