Cabalamat over at Amused Cynicism has a rather interesting post about how the Norfolk Police are treating one of their constables who doesn’t think that homosexuals should be given preferencial treatment here.
Whilst I agree with the thrust of Cabalamats argument that the Police should uphold British law irrespective of whatever any silly ’supreme being’ belief system can come up with and that people who work in such jobs should therefore put the application of the law above their own personal views, I do feel that Cabalamat is disregarding the nature of the policemans bosses in calling for such action.
While neither me nor Cabalamat know the details of any allegations due to lack of detail from the newspaper report it is clear (to me at least) that PC Graham Cogman has done nothing more than point out his distaste that one particular group, in this case, homosexuals, was singled out for promotion.
I used to be a policeman and when I took the oath of the office of constable it was to police “without fear or favour” and by having the top brass of Norfolk Police telling everyone that they were encouraged to show support for a particular 5% of the community *IS* showing favour. The same thing happened last year with a group of firemen up in Scotland. Their bosses wanted them to hand out fire safety leaflets at a homosexual pride march and the firemen in question were threatened with the sack if they didn’t comply. The reality of the situation in both the Scottish firemen and this case is that the bosses want to be seen to be ticking the “lets be nice to homosexuals and promote them” box instead of focusing on getting their collegues to perform the duties that we the taxpayer actually pay them to perform.
Considering all this, when PC Cogman was fined 13 days pay he must have realised that he had nothing to lose and therefore might as well take his employer to court for descrimination.
Good luck to him I say, even though I think he is a religious nutter his bosses clearly aren’t concerned with treating everybody equally or even offending the views of those people who like him think homosexual activity is a sin. Norfolk is a small force of some 1200 or so police and I just know that PC Cogman now has absolutely no chance of ever getting any promotion, courses, detachments or anything else he may want to do with his career. Instead he will get all the ’shit’ jobs going, however good he maybe at police work and treating members of the public the same.
As an aside, the first comment Cabalamat has received is mere noise and adds nothing to the debate. I know Cabalamat has a light touch where moderation is concerned but in this case it’s nonexistant.
