the gay community is not a minority under Human Rights legislation

A recent comment on the blog by Jordan Carter questioned my assertion that gay people are not a minority under the Human Rights Act. I would never deny that there are fewer gay people than straight people in New Zealand, which, I guess in Jordan's books make gay people a minority.

But under the Human Rights Act, gay people - and transgender people - are not classed under the Act as a minority, despite the addition of sexual orientation as a prohibited form of discrimination, along with marital status and family status. In fact transgender people are not even included in the prohibited form of sexual orientation discrimination - yet. The Bill Of Rights includes ethnic, religious or linguistic under minorities - but not a "homosexual minority".

All are classed as individuals,- just as straight people are - under "sexual orientation". Some people need reminding that you cannot discriminate against a person because they are heterosexual either - and this is the sole reason straight couples are included under the Civil Union Bill. So Jordan and others who are saying that we need civil unions to give a minority group equal rights under Human Rights Legislation is downright dishonest. If the gay community was included as a "minority", with ethnic groups under our BORA, the only reason we would need sexual orientation as a prohibited form of discrimination is so that heterosexual people would not be discriminated against.

It is clear that the "minority" line has been sold to Ashraf Choudhary who has said, as his reasoning to support the legislation:

"If the law allows one minority group in our society to be discriminated against then all minorities are vulnerable."

"I note that Britain's two Muslim MPs, Mohammad Sarwar and Khalid Mahmood, and two other MPs of Indian origin also voted in favour of civil union legislation in the United Kingdom for the same reasons."

But he obviously didn't know it wasn't civil union legislation.The civil partnerships bill in the UK is for gay couples only, as they do not have this sexual orientation provision under their Human Rights legislation enforcing them to include straight couples. Canada and Vermont, OTOH, do. UK partnerships must also not be oficiated in religious premises.

Under the prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Human Rights Act, not even an ethnic group - such as Muslims - is referred to as a minority. I am willing to bet that Choudhary has not even read the Human Rights Act, so he obviously wouldn’t know if gay people are classed as a minority. He is a list puppet for Labour.