Refusing to hear a case that aims to strike down the country’s “Incitement to Hatred” statute, which adds protections against bias attacks for racial and religious groups, Austria’s Constitutional Court shot down the argument the law is unconstitutional because it fails to protect gays. See, the incitement of violence against gays is totally cool because it lacks “dangerous close-range and long-range effects,” which violence against other demographics, apparently, does not.
The sane Francis
Supposedly, the court ruled LGBT people are not directly affected by the lack of protection and rights. Isn’t that interesting? A lack of discrimination laws against blacks or religious folks, is necessary because they are discriminated against. But, even though gay people are also discriminated against, it’s not necessary to protect them. Yeah.
Seems nothing more than a “you faggots are not equals” decision. They are going to appeal to the EU supreme court so hopefully the decision is reversed for the obvious discrimination it is.
Gunner
@The sane Francis:
Why bring “blacks” into this? The court case took place in Austria where the victims of racism are more likely to be Roma, South Asian, or Turkish/Middle Eastern than “black.”
Instead of striking the law down, wouldn’t it be a better strategy to add protections to the law?
The sane Francis
You’re right about the demographics, Gunner, I was thinking in an Americanized way, but I didn’t “bring” blacks into it in some racist way, I was making a point, that one group is considered requiring protection from discrimination, and one group isn’t, and the same arguments used in Austria are used in this country. It really ultimately doesn’t matter what the race/origin is, Roma, Middle Eastern, Asian, black, white, whatever, race is protected and sexuality isn’t, which is the issue at hand here.
I also agree that it would be better to add sexual orientation (and gender identity) to the statute instead of repealing the entire law. But, how can a law be valid if it’s meant to protect people from discrimination, yet you are working to prevent that protection to a group of people, who are discriminated against? Hopefully all these questions are answered by the EU courts.
SteveC
This from the country which gave us Adolf Hitler and Josef Fritzl.
Schteve
I don’t pretend to know the first thing about Austrian constitutional law, but I find it hard to see how a law can be unconstitutional for extending protections to some but not all groups. Isn’t it better than having no protections at all?
Mike
Austria: Not complacent enough with having “The World’s Scariest Basements.”
jason
Austria sucks. Don’t forget that this part of Europe is what gave birth to Adolf Hitler and far right extremism. I avoid Austria – it’s a hole.
Cam
This is the nation that had a former NAZI SS officer as it’s president as late as 1992. So…you know, bigotry, not really a big shocker there.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Makes you kinda sorta wish one could have some say in the direction of the next earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown crisis……………
Kent M
Don’t forget Arnold Schwarzenegger is from Austria. (Just piling on.)
Mike
@Cam: Don’t forget, that former officer was also a UN Secretary General! 😉
B
No. 7 · jason wrote, “Austria sucks. Don’t forget that this part of Europe is what gave birth to Adolf Hitler and far right extremism. I avoid Austria – it’s a hole.”
It also gave us Mozart and has the world’s most musical national anthem (Austria cheated – they took something that Hayden had written).
BTW, Here’s a picture of what Hitler looked like in his first stay in Austria (later moving to Germany at the age of 3 and back to Austria where he attended Catholic School, sang in the choir, and thought about becoming a priest according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler#Early_years ):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1989-0322-506%2C_Adolf_Hitler%2C_Kinderbild.jpg/170px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1989-0322-506%2C_Adolf_Hitler%2C_Kinderbild.jpg
As a baby, he doesn’t look very threatening. If people only knew. Curiously, there were swastika symbols as part of some decorations at his Catholic school (obviously the symbols had a different meaning at the time, but it must have made an impression on him and the Nazis copied the symbol rather than coming up with something on their own).
OhYeah
Europe just loves its Muslims but has mixed feelings about its gays. Bad choice for the future of Europe.
OhYeah
(And that awful Von Trapp family..)
Steve
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
A good law gives protections to racial and religious minorities. A better law would give protection also to other minorities, such as homosexuals.
There is no need to remove protections from racial and religious minorities, just because the law does not also protect other minorities.
Each step in the right direction is part way to the goal.
Refusing to move because one cannot make the entire trip in a single step, would be foolish.
Jim
@Cam:
Just a small correction: Kurt Waldheim, the Austrian President and UN Secretary General, was never a member of the SS. he was an intelligence offiver in the Wehrmacht. That is quite an important distinction.
dancobbb
Wait til the Moslems become a majority of the population in Austria! Then I guarantee you that anti-discrimination laws that protect Christians and white Austrians today will suddently “lack dangerous close-range and long-range effects”.
There’s something in the water there that completely prevents these people from “getting it”. Again, they’re making disctinction –like during the Nazi period– where it’s OK to discriminate and harass a group of people. Now it’s the gays turn, apparently.
dancobbb
The real issue is that these countries live in an ethnically homogenized world. Even though there are many foreigners in “THEIR” country, these foreigners will always be outsiders. And to be fair, many of the outsiders have their own thousand+ years of history and are averse to integrating into Austrian society (the same can be said of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Britain, etc.)… In the U.S. the indigenous population was wiped out. Historically, this left a blank slate, that was initially populated by Scots/Irish, Brits, Africans, Germans and French Heugotnauts, primarily. Then came waves of immigration from other countries. Since there was no cohesive national culture at the outset of this country, it became increasingly about integration and some loose social structures –but strong institutions. I think our deference to courts and laws is a function of a need for some source of stability where the “social ethos” provided little certainty. Our “social ethos” has never been very defined, like it is in the cultures of Europe or Asia –cultures that had thousands of years to refine and define itself. Austria, like so many “old world” countries has the baggage of its social heirarchies and rigid social ethos. And the notion of “free speech” or “freedom” are significantly limited there by the restrictive notion of a social ethos. A good example of this is that people are forbidden by law from insulting a person’s religion or ethnicity. You can get thrown into prison for that. This is based on the Austrian ethos that doing so is disrespectful and potentially dangerous. Meanwhile, in mosques throughout Austria, imams insult Christianity on a regular basis and call the Austrians PIGS for eating pork. What the Austrians don’t get is that their ethos is NOT the Moslem’s ethos. And Austria will eventually be destroyed by this delusion they live by.
As for gays, the court is saying that the rights of gays to be free from discrimination just doesn’t feel right in the Austrian ethos. Gays are “other” and people with an Austrian ethos should have the liberty to discriminate against gays. They cannot understand the concept of LAW over ethos. They don’t get it because their cultural ethos is so pervasive in their homogeneic society that the entire concept of freedom and liberty is constrained not only by criminal sanctions, but also social ones.
Kev C
@Schteve: The decision is about politics not law. The judges and politicians who opposed legal protection for gays are probably Holocaust Deniers. This is a serious matter and needs to be brought to an international court.
Steve
I’ve been visiting Vienna which is a beautiful and humane city.
Schteve
@Kev C: It’s fine to criticize politicians for not including sexual orientation in a nondiscrimination law.
It’s not fine to criticize a court for coming to the logical conclusion that not encompassing every group possible makes a nondiscrimination law illegal.
Schteve
@Schteve: *doesn’t make a nondiscrimination law illegal.