When I first read of Adrian Smith being demoted and having a 40% pay cut slapped on him for stating on Facebook an opposition to same-sex marriage, I hung fire. As dismal as it looked for Traford Housing Trust to rusticate an employee for a comment made outwith work and which had the most tangential link to work or risk of his mistreating others, I wondered if there were more to it.
There was not, as a judge has ruled that his employers acted not only out of all proportion but intervened in a matter which was beyond their authority. The trust appears to have avoided a potentially eye-wateringly high fine simply by dint of Smith’s not pursuing them through the Employment Tribunal system.
Less benignly, the Ugandan Parliament is set to introduce punitive anti-gay legislation as a “Christmas gift” to the population. BBC News reports on an altercation between the Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament and Canadian Foreign Secretary, in which the former said “if homosexuality is a value for the people of Canada they should not seek to force Uganda to embrace it. We are not a colony or a protectorate of Canada”.
Answer is maybe. No other country, though, has an obligation to provide Uganda with financial aid on her terms.