Israel Folau, freedom of speech, and employer rights.

There is a major furore happening here in Aus at the moment, with a rugby player, Israel Folau mounting a court action to dispute his dismissal by Rugby Australia as a player.

Succinct version, Folau is a fundamentalist Christian who used his social media platform to tell homosexuals (among others) that they will burn in hell unless they repent and turn to God. He was sacked by Rugby Australia for promoting hate-speech and according to RA, he contravened his contract with them by doing so.

Folau maintains his right to ‘free speech’ has been hampered and is threatening to take RA to higher courts to defend his position.

There’s also been another shitstorm today with gofundme deleting the page he set up to fund his legal stuff, on the basis that his platform constitutes hate speech, and that they are not prepared to support that. Apparently all the donations so far (app 700kAUD) will be returned to the donors.

So, the debate is: does RA have the right to sack a player who might hold beliefs that contravene their standards? Is it OK to have those beliefs provided they are not shared with the public?

Does Folau have any right to share hate speech via social media as an employee with a contract? Is he justified in taking his case to the High Court as a ‘free speech’ issue? Is RA justified in terminating Folau’s contract on the basis that his continued employment is a detriment to the face of rugby, given that they promote inclusiveness and non-discriminatory policies as a matter of fact?

I’d link pages, but there are just too many of them.

tl/dr

Rugby player hates on gays, association sacks him, player is pissed and launches legal shit to get his job back. Also, gofundme dumps his bid to raise funds for legal shit. Discuss.

As usual, a needful reminder that “free speech” means the government can’t silence you or have your books burned ; but doesn’t mean you get to say whatever the fuck, nobody can react and are owed a platform to broadcast your speech.

Additionally, the principles of tolerance cannot and should not include tolerance of the intolerant (see: tolerance, paradox of (the)). If you can’t play nice with others, how about fucking right off ?

I suspect he has a contract clause that requires him to refrain from that.

I don’t think so, he has the right to say what he said without criminal sanction but not without consequences. Just because your beliefs come from a religious rather than a political or personal point of view should have no relevance.

Absolutely. And from a practical point of view, with it being a team game you have a certain duty not to proudly, loudly and publicly proclaim that some your team mates are going to hell.

Yes, they also added a specific clause to his contract after a previous occurence where he was let go with a warning.
Doing it a second time with the warning and the clause in place, even if “inspired by god”, seems just foolish.
For a short overview of all that’s happened until now, you can check The Guardian.

Free speech doesn’t guarantee you the freedom from repercussions from it.

Selectively censoring a person’s religious views isn’t going to be productive in the long term.

This post doesn’t seem that relevant to this thread – are you saying he should not be fired?

But, to your post, is it OK to censor their hateful views? ETA: And, he’s not even being censored – he’s free to say what he wants.

To the OP, as others have said, free speech doesn’t mean you’re free from the consequences of your speech. If he were calling for Jews to be killed for Christ or for separation of the races because of the bible, there wouldn’t even be a discussion – he’d be out.

@octopus : who’s being censored, exactly ?

Economic extortion to enforce uniformity of thought and to suppress religious freedom and freedom of expression is de facto censorship.

Mind you. he isn’t calling for anything like that. He only believes that gays, along with a multitude of other “sinners” will go to some mythical hell.

I think that we would achieve more to make people feel included if those with views like Folau were simply openly mocked. Young people should learn that they can just ignore idiots with those sorts of religious views, that they are more to be pitied than feared.

Maybe? I certainly can’t say whatever I want and expect to remain employed. Employees are the public face of their corporation. Is there any line that they could cross where you think they should be fired?

Also, are you going to address the OP? Apparently, he had a clause in the contract he signed that addressed this very thing. Do you think the employer has the right to fire him? Should he have signed that contract and then violated it, without repercussions?

Nope. They’re saying “hate speech has consequences.” They’re not forcing him to change his mind, though clearly they’d like him to read that part about Jesus is love until he gets it.

Does that apply to people watching at home? If I’m otherwise a rugby fan, am I infringing on Folau’s rights if I decided I don’t want to watch games in which he plays?

Is lying a form of speech that should be protected from repercussion, octopus?

Australia doesn’t have “free speech” as a specifically protected Constitutional right. Like most countries outside of the US, Australia can easily pass hate speech laws.

Of course, this is a sportsman entertainer violating his contract, so it doesn’t really brush up on that fact.

I think most of what religion has to say is nonsensical and quite a bit anachronistic. However, it’s a fact that economic extortion and other punishments are going to be applied in a biased way. If all members of all religions were to be treated with equivalent harshness I’d still disagree with the methodology but at least it wouldn’t be pure politically correct virtue signaling.

Why not boycott the entire Middle East if it’s appropriate to financially cripple ancient, barbaric ideology?

Would you mind limiting the right-wing buzz phrases to one per sentence? It would make translating a lot easier for the rest of us.

As a private individual, you are welcome to boycott whomever you wish for any reason you may believe to be true.

But the fact is, “economic extortion” is a meaningless phrase that may sound ominous, but so does “leprechaun scorn” and no one is very worried when rainbows come out.

You seem to be all over the map here. Do you think it was appropriate for the team to fire the player after he had signed a contract that specifically addressed this behavior? Should he have signed the contract if he planned on violating it? Do you think non-hateful Christians are treated badly by Australian teams?

Economic extortion?

You mean that people don’t want to give him money because he says hateful things?
In your own job are you free to say anything you want about any group without repercussions? I suspect you are not. And really holding those opinions deeply is not going to be any protection against your employer firing you for it.

Forget the religious angle, it is a red herring and I don’t know why you think it offers any mitigation at all.

Imagine that I stood up at an industry conference and said “my own, deeply held personal belief is that women are better suited emotionally to staying at home at having babies and should stay out of the sphere of science”. What would you think of me? What would my employer think of me? Would either opinion change if I gave it a religious grounding?