Foxy,

Your judge Judy quote is particularly apt post the UK appeal court judgement as modified:

"Don't give me a biblical quote and call it discrimination."

That RA's sponsors are now also in the firing line, it will be a wake up call to the corporate SJWs.

Shadow Minister,

Interesting times ahead.

Foxy,

Indeed. This case has gone from a simple disagreement to possibly setting ground rules for religious discrimination law for years to come.

Dear Shadow Minister,

While there are some similarities there are some very big differences and I think Rugby Australia would find many grounds for solace within the judgement.

One of the strongest criticisms from the court of the university was their hasty conclusion that both the “Appellant and Pastor Omooba were intransigent and defiant”. They deemed there was not sufficient effort to engage and “that underlying attitude may almost certainly have led to a too-rapid and disproportionate conclusion that removal from the course was necessary, rather than the institution of a calm, continuing process of guidance of the Appellant, spelling out what he could and could not properly say, and the circumstances in which he could say it.”

This was certainly not the case with Falou.

I think both courts did a solid job in articulating the issues and are work a read. Both have strengths and weaknesses.
http://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ngole-v-sheffield-university-judgment.pdf

However there is one important issue both seem to have not addressed. While the judges rightly conceded;

106. On the other hand, the legitimate aim of such regulation must extend so far as to seek to ensure that reasonable service users, of all kinds, perceive they will be treated with dignity and without discrimination. Social work service users cannot usually choose their social worker. The use of aggressive or offensive language in condemnation of homosexuality, or homosexual acts, would certainly be capable of undermining confidence and bringing the profession of social work into disrepute. As the Guidance makes clear, the Appellant had an obligation not to allow his views about a person’s lifestyle to prejudice his interactions with service users by creating the impression that he would discriminate against them.

They deem the language of 'wicked' and 'abomination' to be biblical enough that even used outside of a direct scriptural quote they do not fall under “aggressive or offensive”. I do not think that is sustainable.

I've been following this one in disbelief.
No one has raised the question about relativity and credibility.
To begin with, religion, or more precisely, the bible, is to be viewed in the same context as a fiction novel.
The whole concept of religion is fiction.
It's no different than the tooth fairy, or the Easter bunny.
The fact that a guy called Jesus existed is believable, and the fact that he went around preaching, is also believable.
But beyond that it just gets weird.
He walked on water? turned an item of food into a banquet?, Died and came back to life? (not without 20th century medical intervention)
So it is that religion is the fodder of the foolish and the gullible.
It is just another of many cults.
When God himself confirms that Christianity and all it's teachings, was all his doing, I will have no choice but to accept the stories and the Bible.
Until then, these things called 'religions', remain in the realms of man made stories and have NO spiritual significance or validity.
Therefore anyone suggesting that being a queer will send you to a place which does not exist is a fool for believing such things and treating the comments as anything but irrelevant.
If someone mocked a football team which did not exist, they would not even be given a thought, let alone a response, because it was not referring to anything real, so there's nothing to respond to, and that's what should have happened with Folau.
So who are the fools here for 'taking the bait'?
Folau? for speaking of an unproven, unconfirmed entity?
NRL? for giving his comments, credibility?
Joyce for really showing how overly sensitive queers can be, even when there is nothing to justify his objections to someone suggesting that people like himself were going to hell?
I don't know but maybe hell has been wrongly promoted, because if it exists, it's probably a great place, with parties every night, disco's and so on, and those already there don't want any more 'gatecrashers'?
Can anyone confirm the existence of hell?

SR,

While there are plenty of differences in the two cases in which both of them have many aspects, the precedent set here is as follows with emphasis on the second paragraph:

It was, in fact, the University itself which became entrenched. First, by failing even to explore the possibility of finding middle ground, despite this being suggested by Pastor Omooba, who accompanied the Appellant at the disciplinary proceedings. Second, by unfairly putting the onus entirely upon the Appellant to demonstrate that he did have “insight” and could mend his ways.

The University wrongly confused the expression of religious views with the notion of discrimination. The mere expression of views on theological grounds (e.g. that ‘homosexuality is a sin’) does not necessarily connote that the person expressing such views will discriminate on such grounds. In the present case, there was positive evidence to suggest that the Appellant had never discriminated on such grounds in the past and was not likely to do so in the
future (because, as he explained, the Bible prohibited him from discriminating against anybody).