Explanation
A year or two ago, there was a request for comments made by the Board of Directors of the SCA regarding the proposed change of the wording in Corpora regarding qualifications for Crown Lists from:
“Each competitor in a Royal Lists must be fighting for a prospective consort of the opposite gender.”
to:
“Each competitor in a Royal List must be fighting for a prospective consort of the opposite sex unless the Crown has elected to permit a competitor to fight for a prospective consort of the same sex.”
Below is what I forwarded on to the email address they provided for comments.
Comments, As Sent to the BoD
I apologize if this comment is strongly worded – I have attempted to ensure it is civil, but I also feel the need to express how strongly I disagree with the wording as proposed and why.
While I think that the proposed language is an improvement in that it could lead to opportunities for same-sex royal couples (which the current language does not allow), I feel that the revised wording fails to solve the problem sufficiently.
“Each competitor in a Royal List must be fighting for a prospective consort of the opposite sex unless the Crown has elected to permit a competitor to fight for a prospective consort of the same sex.”
All this does is pushes the discrimination away from the Society level and pushes it down to the Crown level. It then is up to the Crown whether to grant same-sex couples the ability to fight in Crown, based solely on their sexual orientation. I honestly find this extremely offensive. I am well aware that the Crown can decide to allow or disallow individual couples based on their own criteria – but those criteria should relate to specific society-related things, like combat prowess, progress in the Arts and Sciences, etc. Not things that the individuals are identified as.
To see how offensive this is, try the following wording on for size:
“Each competitor in a Royal List must be fighting for a prospective consort who is of Caucasian descent unless the Crown has elected to permit a competitor to fight for a prospective consort of Black descent.”
Obviously the SCA would never back such a proposal. I suggest to you that there is little difference between the above and the proposed wording. People would be equally upset if there were maximum age restrictions, or a requirement that people don’t have disabilities, or if we didn’t allow Catholics to fight in crown, or disallowed veterans from fighting in crown. The wording proposed suggests that the SCA is perfectly ok with allowing discrimination against homosexuals based on nothing other than their sexual orientation. The main difference seems to be that for these other classes of individuals, it is codified in law that we should not discriminate against them based on their status – it’s not yet universally accepted in this country that people should not be treated differently due to their sexual orientation.
As a group, we are usually extremely friendly to people with alternative lifestyles – the SCA is by and large very friendly to the gay community. I know many homosexuals within my local group – they are well liked for who they are as people, not who they sleep with. Indeed, my kingdom has had at least one major officer who happens to be homosexual. We induct them into our highest orders of the Pelican, Laurel, and Knights. We do not prevent gay people from serving the society in other ways and I see no logical reason to prevent them from serving as our crown.
Furthermore, many large corporations have a very strong non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity. They are not required by law to do so, so why bother? The answer is that in addition to being the right thing to do (and let’s be honest here, that’s not going to get most companies to do it), it’s good for business. I would very much like to see the SCA be ahead of the curve on this issue. We try to recreate the best of the middle ages, and toss the negative parts. Why not toss discrimination?
Here’s the wording I’d like to see:
“Each competitor in a Royal List must be fighting for a prospective consort.”
Short, simple, and nondiscriminatory. Dictionary.com includes several different definitions of the word consort, but the two that matter for this discussion are: “a husband or wife; spouse, especially of a reigning monarch.” and “a companion, associate, or partner”. Neither of those definitions actually specify that the consort must be the opposite gender.
Personally, I’d like to see the board of directors take this a step further, as well. In the document “THE CORPORATE POLICIES OF THE SOCIETY FOR CREATIVE ANACHRONISM, INC.”, available online at http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/precedents/wilhelm/atoc.html, section XII, I’d like to see the current text:
“The SCA, Inc. will not discriminate against any member or participant on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, age or disability. The SCA, Inc. will comply with all laws of the nation in which the meeting or event is held. For any meeting or event held in the United States, the SCA, Inc. will comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The SCA, Inc. will provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities to enable all participants to fully enjoy the events whenever it is possible to do so. The SCA, Inc. will at all times attempt to provide reasonable accommodations, while preserving the fundamental nature of the SCA event.”
amended to:
“The SCA, Inc. will not discriminate against any member or participant on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, age or disability. The SCA, Inc. will comply with all laws of the nation in which the meeting or event is held. For any meeting or event held in the United States, the SCA, Inc. will comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The SCA, Inc. will provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities to enable all participants to fully enjoy the events whenever it is possible to do so. The SCA, Inc. will at all times attempt to provide reasonable accommodations, while preserving the fundamental nature of the SCA event.”
Although we are not legally required to do this yet, current events suggest that it’s only a matter of time before sexual orientation is added to the list of protected classes. We would do well to be proactive on this issue.
Thank you for taking the time to read and consider my thoughts on this issue. I’m more than happy to discuss further, and can be contacted via email at antonio at danscomputing dot com, mail at 502 S Jefferson St., Brownsburg, IN 46112, or phone at 317-985-3178.
Antonio Bellini (mka Daniel T. McGillen)
SCA Member for 4 years, residing in the Barony of Sternfeld, Constellation, Middle Kingdom, Knowne World