In a surprising and troubling decision, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has ruled against Adam Knauff, a firefighter who made global headlines for filing a legal case after he faced discrimination for being vegan. The case raised a novel issue—whether a vegan belief system counts as a “creed”, a protected ground under the Ontario Human Rights Code. Mr. Knauff plans to appeal the decision by seeking judicial review in the Divisional Court of Ontario.
They would have bent over backwards for him if he was Jewish or Muslim. Belief in fairy tales required.
The Tribunal accepted that creed should include non-religious belief systems, yet still rejected ethical veganism because it “does not address the existence or non-existence of a Creator and/or a higher order of existence”.
What the hell kind of “non-religious belief system” addresses the existence or non-existence of a “Creator”? Are they trying to expand “creed” just enough to cover a particular definition of atheism and absolutely nothing else? The whole point of atheism is that is doesn’t have to address a “Creator” because the laws of nature work just fine without that question being addressed. Sure, some flavors of atheism take a stance on the question, but not all of them do. Are those flavors of atheism suddenly not a “creed”? How could they possibly justify that without applying a biased religious lens (which by its very nature violates basically all atheist “creeds”)?
Edit: I just realized this is exactly like when people who do not understand the first thing about homosexuality ask a male couple which one is the “woman.”
The Tribunal accepted that creed should include non-religious belief systems, yet still rejected ethical veganism because it “does not address the existence or non-existence of a Creator and/or a higher order of existence”.
It’s kind of funny that there is the implicit idea that any wacky ideas counts as a creed as long as it has fake answers for irrelevant questions. It’s ballsy for the Tribunal would shit on religion like that.
What is it with firefighters and meat? When I was a member of a small voluntary firefighters brigade, they were really fixated on having meat in the food we got. Needless to say that there were almost no women serving.
It is kinda weird that the people most likely to know what burning human flesh smells like are in any way still interested in meat.
When I was in medical school, I had my lab scheduled before lunch time. Which meant that I went straight from dissecting people, to eating. I’d get a big salad, and asked the cafeteria workers to heat up the slices of chicken breast I’d get on the salad. They didn’t like that I asked for it heated up, because it was extra work for them. But after they told me they wouldn’t do it anymore, I said “man, I was just dissecting a person, and this chicken is just way too similar looking to human for me to eat cold, ya feel me?” They ended up heating my chicken.
Why does it need to be a creed in order to count as discrimination?
If someone is allergic to peanuts, and they are only offered peanut butter sandwiches as food, they should get sued as well.
Creed doesn’t necessarily equal a religion. A creed is a set of sincerely held beliefs one uses to guide their actions, it just typically takes the form of a religious creed, but non religious people can have their own creed. Believing that factory meat is horrible and therefore you’re vegan or vegetarian is a creed in my book. It’s a sincerely held belief (factory farms are horrible) that guides decisions (don’t eat meat)