Michael Black and John Morgan, a gay British couple, wanted to spend a lovely Friday night at the Swiss Bed & Breakfast in Maidenhead, about 30 miles northwest of London, but when they arrived owner Susanne Wilkinson refused to rent them their room. Because, eww, two dudes sharing a bed?
Wilkinson, whose B&B kindly offers a Continental breakfast and “TV with Freeview + DVD player” in each bedroom, tells a reporter, “They gave me no prior warning and I couldn’t offer them another room as I was fully booked. I don’t see why I should change my mind and my beliefs I’ve held for years just because the government should force it on me. I am not a hotel, I am a guest house and this is a private house.”
She should change her mind because she just violated Britain’s Equality Act 2006, which forbids businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation, and the two men reported her to the police, that’s why.
David in Houston
“I am not a hotel, I am a guest house and this is a private house.”
Uh, no. You’re a business that sells a service to the public. If her ‘beliefs’ included not letting interracial couples stay at her B&B would that be okay too? When you’re personal religious beliefs discriminate against other people, then they’re no longer personal are they?
scott ny'er
SUE! SUE! SUE!!!
I know, it’s easy for me to say. But that’s messed up.
terrwill
Miserable ole witch….I hope her house falls down on top of her……..
Frank
The guy in the black polo shirt is a hot dad…he can come and sped the night in my sofa…or in my own bed, it it is too uncomfortable.
Cam
She is taking money and advertising publicly, sorry sweety, but you’re a business not a private home.
tarxien
You didn’t mention in your report that Mr and Mrs Wilkinson are, of course, Christians. Religious extremists campaigned to be excluded from the Equality Act so they could continue to discriminate against minorities in provision of services. They lost the battle. Now let’s hope this couple of bigots are prosecuted and stopped from providing B&B services.
Cassandra
“Mr and Mrs Wilkinson are, of course, Christians”
Do you have a source for that claim?
Guess what? They’re both bipedal too. Guess that means everyone with two legs is a bad person. Oh and their Brits, which must mean that every Brit is a homophobe. And they are probably light-skinned, but they might be dark-skinned, or somewhere in the middle, so everyone with skin is a homophobe.
There is no shortage of homophobic atheists, and nearly all of the advances in civil equality for GLBTQ people have been the work of people of faith, Christians, and funded by Christians.
Remember, homophobes only hate 10% of humanity, the gay 10%, but atheists hate 90% of humanity – everyone who doesn’t share their guess that there is no God/Gods/Goddesses.
terrwill
@Frank: That would be Mr. Black in black……… : p
Oh-So-Very
@Cassandra: “but atheists hate 90% of humanity – everyone who doesn’t share their guess that there is no God/Gods/Goddesses.” What the hell? Atheists don’t hate the religious, they don’t agree with them there is a difference.
tarxien
@Cassandra:
Do I have a source for that claim? Err…yes. I read the article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/21/gay-couple-refused-hotel-room
Do YOU have any evidence to support your claim that most LGBT rights have been won by Christians?
echop
http://www.swissbedandbreakfast.co.uk/
let Suzanne Wilkinson what you think of her “private home” that she makes money from.
Frank
@terrwill: Yes!…Mr. Black is hoottt!!!…my futton is waiting for him….dinner with breakfast included.
Keith Kimmel
I am fine with this. I would much rather these people be up front with us, that way I can avoid giving them my money. Not to mention, I have always agreed that people have the right to be bigots in their own homes and businesses. Its their property, so they should have the right to say what goes on there. Constitutional rights do not extend to private property, nor should they.
I realize this is the UK, so different rules apply.
scott ny'er
@Keith Kimmel: Well, if they must be upfront, then be UPFRONT. They should list it on their web site. NO homosexuals, NO blacks, NO Latinos, NO Asians, etc. This way forewarned is forearmed.
Now, why wouldn’t they list it on their web site? Hmmmmm?
ROB
@ Scott NY’er… well, apart from it being utterly bigoted (which is the point you are making), in the UK it’s also completely illegal to deny services on the grounds of race OR sexual orientation…
Eddy
Friends, please go and see what the substantial majority of the British public think about this story.
There are currently over 220 comments on this story at the following thread, and it appears that about 98% of them are in support of “The Bigot of the Village of Cookham”.
THIS IS THE REASON WHY WE IN THE UK CANNOT ALLOW A TORY GOVERNMENT INTO POWER.
Here is all the evidence we need that the massive non-Labour camp is out to reverse everything that Labour have achieved for we LGBT people since Labour took control in 1997.
Read what the groundswell of public opinion in this country REALLY thinks about us LGBTs! They don’t believe in Tree logos and respecting Queers! Not one bit. All their electioneering chatter about how much they respect us is nothing but window-dressing to get back into power! Here’s the proof!
http://uk.buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:yahoo_uk_irel306:b2ab5e838e45b1bde87f19a7ebc890b6/Gay-couple-turned-away-from-BB
I reckon we need to post more of our Comments on sites like Buzz than we do here!
Eddy
May I suggest the following message to Mrs. Wilkinson, people.
But please feel free to speak to her in your own words and make sure she learns that you are writing from a long long way away!
This is what I have just sent to her via her website at:
http://www.swissbedandbreakfast.co.uk/contact.htm
Ms. Wilkinson.
YOU have received countless services from gay and lesbian people who have known you to be a heterosexual person but they have happily served you regardless. You have not even been aware that the people serving you have been gay or lesbian.
You have demonstrated for the entire world to see that you are a bigot.
You believe that you have the right to treat homosexual people like fifth-rate citizens, but if a homosexual person were to refuse to serve YOU in a restaurant, cafe, shop, office, bank, or whatever, you would be grossly offended.
Your arrogance is stupendous and deeply saddening.
Would you like all of us to wear Pink Triangles so that you can identify us on sight? That would make your job easier, would it not? I mean, what about the gays and lesbians who slipped into your B&B unnoticed? Should they not all be clearly branded?
I can hear you agree, “Yes!”
And why?
Because your beliefs are akin to those of the Nazis.
They also turned us aside. They made us wear Pink Triangles. They gassed us in the concentration camps, along with the Jews and the disabled.
Shame on you.
scott ny'er
@Eddy: Wow! That’s why I love internet boards, you get to see how people really feel. Of course, maybe, the people who support LGBT aren’t as vocal as these haters.
Those comments are just awful.
terrwill
We here on the Queert threads sometimes get somewhat heated in our spats. However if you can muster the courage to cybersroll over to some of the rightwing lunatic threads on some other sights you will see we are truly bitchs on training wheels compared to the vile hatefests on those some of those threads. The hatred for anything Gay, Obama, abortion,or any of the other favorites is sickening. They follow the garbage spewed from Rush Windbag, Michael (don’t call me by my real last name Weiner) Savage, Yawn Hannity et all with a fevor. ……..Any,thing or one who strays from the rightwing ideology is ripped to shreds the venom those persons spew is truly shudder under the bed holdin a teddy bear ascardness….
I don’t know if its comforting or more scary that it is not only an illness that infects the United States…………
Eddy
The two guys who were turned away wrote a simple honest review of their experience for TripAdvisor. I saw it published there. It is no longer there! TripAdvisor have removed it! So, we gays and lesbians cannot rely on TripAdvisor. Our views of hotels are removed.
Complain to TripAdvisor:
* Mailing address: TripAdvisor LLC, 141 Needham Street, Newton, MA 02464
* General company phone number: 617-670-6300
* Fax: 617-670-6301
[email protected]
[email protected]