Mar 292010
 

This is frakkin’ stupid:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/03/28/13383781-cp.html

Earle, who’s been a stand-up comic for more than two decades, was the volunteer master of ceremonies at amateur night at a Vancouver restaurant in May 2007.

Lorna Pardy and her same-sex partner had moved to seats near the stage after the patio closed. Pardy’s lawyer says as they spoke with the waitress they were bombarded by a series of gay slurs courtesy of Earle.

“When you heckle me and you’ve been disrespectful through the whole show, I come from the George Carlin school of dealing with a heckler,” he said in an interview. “So yeah, I shoved it down their throat and that’s what you do.”

Pardy’s complaint says Earle’s actions violate Section 8 of the B.C. Human Rights Code. The code says a person must not, without a bona fide and reasonable justification, discriminate against a person or class of persons regarding any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public.

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal is expected to hear the case through Thursday.

Pardy is seeking damages in the neighbourhood of $20,000.

Asked if he regrets what he said to Pardy, the comic answered he’s more careful now that he knows there’s “an incentive program for hecklers.”

“My joke now is that when somebody heckles me out of the darkness, I peer through the lights and ask, ‘I’m sorry sir, before I respond to you, can you tell me if you are part of a protected group?’ “

Ye gods.

 Posted by at 2:37 pm

  5 Responses to “No humor, please, we’re Canadian”

  1. The code says a person must not, without a bona fide and reasonable justification, discriminate against a person or class of persons regarding any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public.

    Said “bona fide and reasonable justification” to be determined by the government, of course. How else can we protect the poor, abused minorities?

    I swear, this is getting beyond ridiculous. Between incidents like this and the constant cries of “racism” w.r.t. the Tea Partiers, I am getting close to my breaking point with “protected groups.” Bad enough to be accused of thinking things that never even entered your head, but to hear it over… and over… and over… when you KNOW it isn’t true…. I just hope I don’t snap at someone.

  2. Snap? Why not? They claim we snap at them.

    I admit that I didn’t have some of the prejudices I have now, ten years ago. But ten years ago I hadn’t spent seven years in university being told that I was evil for being male and that there were those who deserved my respect because they were incompetent.

    My response to all of this is to recognize that anyone who needs “protecting” is uncertain of their choice(s) or they are aware they can’t cope without help.

  3. “But ten years ago I hadn’t spent seven years in university being told that I was evil for being male and that there were those who deserved my respect because they were incompetent.”

    I hear you. I’m an aerospace engineer, like Scott (though not as far along, career-wise), which means that in any given group of <10 people, likelier than not I am the only woman. As for incompetents… there was this one guy on my senior design team who was deaf. I respected him for getting through aero… until I actually had to work with him, and found that the only reason he’d gotten through was because he leaned on others to do his work for him. He practically copied my programming homework for a while until I found non-inflammatory ways to refrain from sharing my work with him. I also had to proofread some of his writing once, and it was so terrible that I was forced to simply say, flat out, “I’m sorry to be this blunt, but this work is awful.” He claimed that he “couldn’t help it, because he was deaf” and that I shoudn’t “hurt his feelings.” I swear the only reason I didn’t slap him was because I was too shocked that someone would actually dare say such a thing as though it was a valid reason for incompetence…. gah.

    He works for Raytheon now, and they’ll probably never be able to fire him because in addition to his disability he is also a minority (middle east descent). I can only hope that those around him have figured out what an idiot he is and gotten him away from anything potentially lethal-causing.

  4. The sundry Canada “human rights” commissions and tribunals are an international disgrace. They’d be funny if they weren’t so deadly and dogmatically serious. This comedian’s case doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Two words: Ezra Levant. Those who haven’t heard of him might start here, which is the first of many segments of Ezra’s “interrogation” before an HRC bureaucrat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVJTHIvqw8

  5. “You may start your interrogation now”

    Three cheers for Ezra Levant!

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