Women Must Whore or Lose Job Benefits

As usual, The Last Amazon has posted an unusual story, this one from the News Telegraph, that I note is now being picked up by other bloggers.

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year. Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners "who must pay tax and employee health insurance" were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe. She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her profile'' and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job "including in the sex industry" or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

"There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry," said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. "The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits." [emphasis is mine.] ....

Miss Garweg said that women who had worked in call centres had been offered jobs on telephone sex lines. At one job centre in the city of Gotha, a 23-year-old woman was told that she had to attend an interview as a "nude model", and should report back on the meeting.

Hit the News Telegraph link to read the rest of this sordid little tale.

You see how this happens don't you. First, the state redefines what is morally and legally permissible in society. Then the state punishes anyone who does not conform to the new zeitgeist. Sound familiar? No?

Just ask the Knights of Columbus in British Columbia, who are under attack in the B.C. Human Rights Commission by a lesbian couple because the Knights refused to rent their hall for the matrimonial celebration; an act which runs contrary to the Knights' religious beliefs. See my January 21st post Lesbians Launch Attacks on Knights of Columbus .

Or you can ask registered nurses in Calgary's Foothills Hospital about how their beliefs were overridden when the hopital began requiring nurses in the maternity ward to assist in the slicing and dicing of babies.

Another nursing staff member, "Sally," wrote an anonymous letter to this
magazine last week describing the volatile situation currently gripping the
postpartum and labour and delivery wards at Foothills. She was outraged by
the administrative decision that forced postpartum nurses to care for women
aborting "imperfect" babies. "The present mood is... chaotic, helpless,
frustrated and highly emotional," Sally wrote. "In the past weeks, I have
witnessed tears, breakdowns, illnesses, and stress such as never before...Sick
calls have been high and experienced staff nearly impossible to recruit." ....

"As it stands now the union has told us that nurses can't refuse to
care for patients," says Catherine. "There are 125 staff on the unit, and no
matter what the hospital says about making efforts to accommodate nurses who
don't want to do [abortions], the head nurse and the charge nurse have told
us that we all have to take our turn. I have to shut off a part of me to do
this job now. It's bad."

Or you could ask the Durham District Catholic School Board, right here in the land of Castle Mad. The court forced my local Catholic school board to allow Marc Hall, a graduating student, to bring his boyfriend to the prom, despite an explicit written provision in the Canadian constitution guaranteeing Catholics in the province the right to schools based on our religion, and the clear magisterial teaching of the Church on this matter.

In his ruling, [Mr. Justice] MacKinnon wrote that "the idea of equality speaks to the conscience of all humanity dignity and worth. "Marc Hall is a Roman Catholic Canadian trying to be himself. He is gay. It's not an answer to Section 15 Charter rights on these facts to deny permission to attend a school function to celebrate the end of his high school career with his classmates." Hall's lawyer David Corbett said the ruling tells Catholic schools "you can't disciminate on the basis of sexual orientation when you're dealing with young people. You shouldn't be able to do that with anybody, but especially not young people in their care."

Or ask the provincial civil marriage commissioners in Saskatchewan who were forced from their jobs because marrying same-sex couples would violate their consciences.

Eight Saskatchewan marriage commissioners have resigned because of new laws requiring them to "marry" same-sex couples, according to Justice Minister Frank Quennell. Three others said they would go to court if they were fired for refusing to "marry" same-sex couples, according to Saskatoon Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott.If same-sex couples are refused "marriage" by a commissioner, the complaint will be reviewed by the Justice Department, Quennell said Tuesday, as reported by the Saskatchewan News Network."We'd have to investigate the circumstances and potentially remove their power to perform civil marriages because they weren't willing to administer the law as it stands," he said.

This latter violation of rights is happening despite assurances from the Right Honourable (Liberal) Prime Minister Paul Martin and his Honourable (Liberal) Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler that religious rights are fully protected in the brave new same-sex marriage world. To each of them I say, "Liar liar pants on fire!"

In all these cases the courts or the state started out by redefining the good by redefining civil rights. This is soon followed by the state implementing these new rights by trampling on the old rights of people holding to traditional (i.e., religious) moral beliefs. Some rights are more equal than others .... and the new one's are .... well .... new.

Today's Globe & Mail has an editorial advocating that we all ought to enthusiastically support gay marriage, on the grounds that it will save traditional marriage, which is under stress from liberalized divorce and common law domestic arrangements.

Before we mock Germans too much for tying job benefits to requiring women to protitute themselves, we ought to take a serious look at the demented dominion we are creating right here at home. Maybe Damian Brooks is right, and I'm John the Quite Sane, after all. It's the world that has gone totally stark raving mad.