Is it the case that married and civilly-partnered people are protected under the equality act while single people are not? Section 8 Equality Act 2010 seems to define the protected characteristic as solely applying to people who in fact are married or partnered, but my impression was that one could not be lawfully discriminated against either for being married or for being unmarried. Reading the provision makes me question this. Am I missing something? What gives?
It is. Part 2 Chapter 1 Section 8 specifically says &quot;People who are not married or civil partners do not have this characteristic.&quot; In practical terms, a claim for unlawful dismissal would not have to rely on this Act or this Characteristic. Many company handbooks refer to avoiding discrimination on &quot;marital status&quot;, so the claim could be made that the company had acted against policy. Not as strong as national law, but likely to succeed in absence of other factors. Single people who were expected to cover shifts that people with a family consistently avoided could argue constructive dismissal on &quot;making unreasonable changes to working patterns or place of work without agreement&quot; grounds. And cases of sexual harassment are as likely to refer to Sections 11 or 12 of the Act as to Section 8. There appears to be some interest in this - north of the border if not in England and Wales - and perhaps less jurisdictionally in Bella De Paulo's article for Psychology Today, which concludes &quot;All serious forms of prejudice and discrimination go through a similar process of going unrecognized, then getting dismissed and belittled once people start pointing them out, and in the best cases, eventually getting taken seriously. Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that when she was first appointed to the Supreme Court, the other judges did not think gender discrimination existed. ...&quot;
The question didn't mention marital status, but since states formally recognize that relationship it's helpful to start there. tl;dr: The Supreme Court decided state laws that required a woman to notify her spouse were unconstitutional. Thus it's unlikely there'd be grounds for suit. Background The central mechanism of Roe v. Wade (U.S. 1973) was a balancing act between what it decided was a 14th amendment right to privacy and the state's interest in both the health of the woman and the potentiality of life. Because Roe explicitly recognized a state interest, Pennsylvania passed a statute in 1982 that required informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period. It also mandated parental consent for minors (with some exceptions) and spousal notification. This reached the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of SE Penn. v. Casey (U.S. 1992). There, the court upheld most of the Pennsylvania law (reinforcing its statement in Roe that a state does have an interest) but struck down the spousal notification portion. To do that, it determined the appropriate test was whether a state was placing an undue burden---a significant obstacle---in the path of a woman seeking an abortion prior to fetal viability. It reasoned that: state regulation impacts a female's liberty more than male's during pregnancy (by way of biology) if a man and woman disagree, only one can prevail not all women are equally impacted by a notification mandate (for reasons of domestic violence, etc.) Combining this with the notion that women do not lose any constitutionally protected liberty upon marriage, it decided spousal notification would be a significant obstacle and thus an undue burden. In other words, unmarried women don't have spouses to notify, so placing a notification requirement on married women creates an additional burden that the court found undue. To get back to the question, the father certainly has a right to file a suit against the female (...and it happens from time to time). However, it likely wouldn't go far. Since unmarried women were the baseline in Casey, it's unlikely there'd be grounds for either married or unmarried fathers to sue their female partners. This comes up frequently under the moniker of "Father's Rights," which has gained less traction in the U.S. than in other countries. That said, Wisconsin recently introduced a bill that would allow fathers to proceed against abortion providers.
In the US at least, discrimination is legal (and sometimes even required) unless it is discrimination against specific, protected characteristics, and even then it is sometimes allowable if it is "necessary". Income, whether of an individual or that individual's family, is not in any list of protected characteristics. As such, discrimination upon it is fully legal.
how does hiring only women comply with our Civil Rights Act (which outlaws discrimination based on sex)? It is compliant. The Civil Rights Act includes an exception where the discrimination or limitation based on sex (or any other protected category) "is a bona fide occupational qualification for employment". That exception is located at the end of 42 USC 2000e-3(b). Although literally referring to employer's publishing of that preference, the very existence of that statutory exception implies a permission to discriminate [for certain occupations] on the basis of sex. At the outset, it would be unreasonable to allow the employer to explicitly state his criteria for hiring and yet be prohibited to implement them. But a more important reason for that exception is the premise of bona fide occupational qualification. That premise indicates that the legitimate purpose of the employment at issue takes priority over the general intent of the Civil Rights Act. The actual &amp; occupational purpose of cheerleading in the NFL context is not to shake pom poms and do choreography on field grass, but to amuse men, who comprise the vast majority of the customer base in the football business. Accordingly, the issue is not whether males are fit or unable to cheerlead, but that male cheerleaders simply would not amuse the average football fan. The occupational purpose would be frustrated if females were replaced with males. The legislative intent of the Civil Rights Act is to preclude discrimination for employment where the protected category (be it sex, religion, etc.) is irrelevant to the actual fulfillment of the occupational purpose.
That’s legal The New York Human Rights Law prohibits discrimination on the basis of “age, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, marital status or disability”. Federal law prevents employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information (including family medical history). What law school you went to is on neither list. If Harvard’s policies break the rules, that’s not the firm’s issue. However, AFAIK, Harvard is scrupulously fair in their admissions program - so long as you have the grades and the money, they’ll let you in. It’s not Harvard’s fault that most of the people who get the best secondary education and have the most money are predominantly white, Christian, and US born - that’s do to politico-social-historical-economic factors beyond Harvard’s control.
"Living together as man and wife" means actually living together under the same roof and being in personal relationship. Therefore, to prove "not living together as man and wife" it is sufficient to prove that the pair either or both 1) are not living together; 2) are not in personal relationship. What evidences "being in personal relationship"? Shared budget, joint ownership of bank accounts/property, mail addressed to the two names, travelling together, being seen going out together etc. Having regular sex together is also a good indicator, though it may be difficult to prove either way. So, if none of this happens, it is a good indicator that the separated are not living together as man and wife.
Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in the United Kingdom is a nineteenth-century innovation, based on the previous practice of keeping parish records of baptisms, marriages, and burials. The history is different but parallel in England (and Wales) and Scotland. What the churches were originally trying to do was to record information about their own ceremonies, because there are religious consequences to being baptized, married, etc. Civil law follows: you might have to prove in court that you were validly married to such-and-such a person, now deceased, and therefore had the right to live in his home as his widow. The parish system, because of its general utility, was regulated by legislation. In England, it was made mandatory in all parishes in the middle of the sixteenth century (although in practice, this happened at different rates in different places). Legislation in the following centuries covered the manner of keeping records, penalties for non-compliance, and fees for registration. For example, by the late seventeenth century you would have to pay sixpence to register the birth of each child, and a massive 40 shillings if you failed to do so within five days of the event. Registration also served as a device to give nonconformists an incentive to join the established churches, as there was no secular way to prove age, and few ways to marry. With liberalisation of religious strictures in the nineteenth century, the civil system began in England and Wales in 1837, and in Scotland in 1855. Under the Acts (6 Will 4 c.33, 17&amp;18 Vict c.80), records were kept by governmental authority, with no religious qualification required. This was helpful for non-Anglicans or non-Presbyterians wanting to live their lives, and helpful for the government for having a more complete set of records for the population in general. Currently, registration of births is free, but there are various penalties for not doing it in time, and it costs money to get copies of birth certificates. The fees are not based on any estimate of lifelong earning power or anything of the kind. There was a very brief period (1695 to 1706) where in order to fund a war with France, the government levied a variable rate tax on parish register entries. The rates depended on the degree of the person registered. It was abolished due to its considerable unpopularity, also resulting in low rates of compliance and therefore revenue gained. The law, An Act for granting to his Majesty certaine rates and duties upon Marriages Births and Burials and upon Batchelors and Widowers for the terme of Five yeares for carrying on the Warr against France with Vigour, 6&amp;7 Wm&amp;Mary c.6, now called the &quot;Duties on Marriages, etc. Act 1694&quot;, set out the following for births: Paupers: Free Most people: Two shillings Aristocrats: Between twelve and thirty pounds depending on rank, and with a surcharge for the eldest son, in addition to the two shillings. Baronets, knights, lawyers, academics, gentlemen and senior clergy: Between one and five pounds, plus the two shillings. Anyone not included in the above but who is rich: Twelve shillings. Similar fees were charged for marriages and so on. I believe this is the only time in UK law when there were differential fees for registration depending on the status of the parents. The scale was presumably based on the idea that wealthier people could afford to pay more. There were no legal consequences for the child as a result of the different fee paid, except insofar as they would be disadvantaged later in life if they were not properly registered. The law was repealed and the &quot;Warr against France&quot; has also been over for a long time. As usual, the &quot;sovereign citizen&quot; conception is completely bogus. There is not, and has never been, any notion of a birth certificate being a financial instrument. The confusion may be due to the word instrument being used for lots of different kinds of official documents, as well as a general boneheadedness about how the law works. A birth certificate is a convenient way to prove the circumstances of your birth, and for the government to collect statistics. Indeed, a paper copy of a certificate is just a way to make the management simpler - you can get many copies or none, at your option - since it saves effort compared to inspecting the centralised registers themselves.
You didn't specify the context so I am assuming you mean for the purpose of anti-discrimination laws. If so, the definition of disability is found in Section 6 of the Equality Act 2010: (1) A person (P) has a disability if — (a) P has a physical or mental impairment, and (b) the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on P's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. Elaboration is provided in Schedule 1: 2 (1) The effect of an impairment is long-term if — (a) it has lasted for at least 12 months, (b) it is likely to last for at least 12 months, or (c) it is likely to last for the rest of the life of the person affected. (2) If an impairment ceases to have a substantial adverse effect on a person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, it is to be treated as continuing to have that effect if that effect is likely to recur. However, this is subject to regulations made under the Act. Regulation 3 of the Equality Act 2010 (Disability) Regulations 2010 provides: (1) Subject to paragraph (2) below, addiction to alcohol, nicotine or any other substance is to be treated as not amounting to an impairment for the purposes of the Act. (2) Paragraph (1) above does not apply to addiction which was originally the result of administration of medically prescribed drugs or other medical treatment. Regulation 4 provides: (1) For the purposes of the Act the following conditions are to be treated as not amounting to impairments: — (a) a tendency to set fires, (b) a tendency to steal, (c) a tendency to physical or sexual abuse of other persons, (d) exhibitionism, and (e) voyeurism. So, in conclusion, an addiction is a disability provided that the following conditions all apply: It is a mental impairment which has a substantial adverse effect on the ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. It has lasted or is likely to last at least 12 months. The substantial adverse effect is either current or has ceased but is likely to recur. It is not an addiction to alcohol, nicotine, or other substance unless it is the result of medical treatment. It is not an addiction to setting fires, stealing, physical / sexual abuse, exhibitionism, or voyeurism. It doesn't matter whether the addiction results in illegal activity provided the other criteria are met.