Cop Refuses to Work at Gay Pride Parade in Utah

[RKM]

So you're saying that the officers should dictate to command who will work where and when? Yeah...Right...

Not saying that at all. Common sense would dictate, to avoid a problem, let the gay cops work the gay parade.

 

[Okie4570]

So what you are saying is if an EMT at your local fire station gets a call about a man with a heart attack and it is the man's partner calling in, he can have the ability to refuse to answer the call and just try to pass it on to someone else? What if it was a black man? Woman? Muslim?

No, they get treated all the same.

 

[The Cow Exploder]

Who brought it to the press? Are you saying the agency pushed the story?

Someone did. Since the officer's name had not been released (per the story) it seems reasonable to guess that it wasn't him.

I guess you don't understand police work. Officers get to volunteer for assignments or apply for certain semi-permanent postings, but they don't get to refuse the ones they don't want to work. If you don't run your own business, chances are you don't get to decide what you do or don't do for the people you work under. In a public trust position, it gets even more limited. They can't afford to have dissenters making demands. Pretty soon, everyone is making demands and nothing works. The system breaks down.

So you're saying no officer has ever been excused from an assignment for personal reasons? I think it would be interesting to know the circumstances of his refusal. Whether it was in the presence of other officers as an "I'm not doing it" or if it was a request to his supervisor in a one-on-one situation. Generally I don't trust news stories to be either complete or unbiased. On the other hand I suppose he could have just developed a case of blue flu.

Whether any of you like it or not, sexual orientation is a protected class. If you want to refuse service to them, then you don't belong in a public trust position, period. I don't get why that's so hard to understand?

Sexual orientation, political rally, whatever - it really doesn't matter to the principle, except that s.o. is such a hot button issue that there are lots of knee-jerk overreactions on both sides of the issue and I rather suspect all of the attention this gets is a result of that as much as anything. In the end, though, there are the rules and there's right - and they don't always fit together particularly well. Personally I don't think a black officer should be forced to provide security for a KKK rally if he requests to be excused from that duty and there are any other options available to management to meet the requirement.

As much as any of us may say or even believe that we put our personal feelings and prejudices behind us, when it's time to take action they're still there and a person who does not believe in something may well be less likely to be an asset in the protection of that something as is a person who either believes in it or has no opinion one way or the other. The notion that people can put their personal opinions out of their minds in their decision making process is a fallacy, and an especially dangerous one where instantaneous, potentially life or death, decisions are required.

I have all the respect in the world for law enforcement officers having had several in the family over the years. That's also why I know that of all the things they are and are not, at the end of the day they're still human.

 

[yukonjack]

Not saying that at all. Common sense would dictate, to avoid a problem, let the gay cops work the gay parade.

I don't have a problem with that. Try being a white male police officer going to arrest a female Muslim in an ongoing domestic assault in a room with other devout male Muslim men. See if you can do break up the fight and arrest the
Muslim woman without actually touching her.

 

[Shootin 4 Fun]

True enough but mardi gras isn't a celebration heterosexuality.

Damned if it's not. Why do you think the girls are showing their tits?

 

[RidgeHunter]

So what you are saying is if an EMT at your local fire station gets a call about a man with a heart attack and it is the man's partner calling in, he can have the ability to refuse to answer the call and just try to pass it on to someone else? What if it was a black man? Woman? Muslim?

now imagine they were straight

 

[twoguns?]

I don't have a problem with that. Try being a white male police officer going to arrest a female Muslim in an ongoing domestic assault in a room with other devout male Muslim men. See if you can do break up the fight and arrest the
Muslim woman without actually touching her.

I say ...Piss on your hands , Man ,and get to Gettin....

 

[RidgeHunter]

Maybe a little insight on why he refused.

SAN DIEGO, California, January 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Four California firefighters forced to participate in a gay pride parade in July 2007 are victorious after the California Supreme Court this week refused to hear the city’s petition to review an appellate court decision last year.

The four men, led by Fire Capt. John Ghiotto of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, filed the suit against the city of San Diego for sexual harassment a month after a battalion chief directly ordered them to ride a fire engine in a lewd parade through the city streets. The men endured verbal abuse and come-ons, as well as overtly sexual gestures from the crowd.

“You could not even look at the crowd without getting some type of sexual gesture,” stated the original complaint, which noted that Christian protesters reviled them for joining the parade. Had the men refused, Ghiotto noted, the men risked being immediately suspended and stripped of any chance of promotion.

“As a supervisor I felt disgusted and embarrassed, that I had to subject my crew to this type of behavior.”

An initial trial ended in a hung jury in September 2008, before a jury sided with the firefighters the following February. After the San Diego attorney’s office appealed, the firefighters won again in October of last year, when the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District issued a ruling strongly in their favor.

Charles LiMandri, the general counsel for the California branch of the National Organization for Marriage who represented the firefighters, told LifeSiteNews.com that his clients were “delighted” with the outcome.

“It’s an important case because it shows that if Christian or people of faith generally are willing to stand up for their religious beliefs, and refuse to be bullied by secular agendas, that they do have rights that can and should be enforced in court,” said LiMandri. “In this case those rights were upheld.”

LiMandri said that it also “sends a strong message to people about what these gay pride parades are really like.”

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/sa...ous-in-suit-against-forced-participation-in-g

Denver PD has to work 420 fest, NOPD has to work Mardi Gras, Chicago PD has to work Lolapalooza, etc, etc. If seeing "unsavory" things offends your delicate sensibilities, you shouldn't be a fawking cop. Work your assignments or get fired - it should be that simple. These lifesite.news "firefighters" sound like a bunch of pusssies who need to take an accounting job somewhere. So sorry they "endured" some queers acting goofy and having fun. Sounds like hell.

Who went to Tulsa Tough yesterday? TPD was there.

 

[RidgeHunter]

What would a cop do at one of those parades if he (or she) witnessed something immoral that is against the law? Do the homosexuals get a free pass because it's "their" parade?

Uh, use discretion? When a police department works a large event where drinking/drugs/debauchery is commonplace, that's generally what the officers do. They are there to help keep things under control and keep people safe as best they can.

Smoking pot in public is illegal in Denver. On 4/20, downtown has tens of thousands of people smoking pot in public. I think they wrote 100-something citations last year, mostly to people smoking conspicuously in the streets. They were there to have a presence and keep the idiots from acting like idiots. Nudity is illegal in the street in New Orleans. During Mardi Gras they usually give one warning for a tit flash.

Yes, because it's "their parade" "they can likely get away with behavior that would get them arrested if they tried it in the local Applebee's. Festival/parade/concert law enforcement is generally a bit different than it is on any other day.

Public intox/open container? If the thousands of people at Tulsa Tough yesterday who were wasted show up in that neighborhood wasted with a drink in hand tomorrow, they would likely end up in the back of a cop car. Why is it difficult to understand that events like this are handled differently? Most of them aren't gay events, either.

 

[Okie4570]

Denver PD has to work 420 fest, NOPD has to work Mardi Gras, Chicago PD has to work Lolapalooza, etc, etc. If seeing "unsavory" things offends your delicate sensibilities, you shouldn't be a fawking cop. Work your assignments or get fired - it should be that simple. These lifesite.news "firefighters" sound like a bunch of pusssies who need to take an accounting job somewhere. So sorry they "endured" some queers acting goofy and having fun. Sounds like hell.

Who went to Tulsa Tough yesterday? TPD was there.

I didn't........nice pic you took though