[ZrByte]

Originally Posted by towny

Your reasoning is flawed. For a start, I don't see how you see equivalence between age, 'old fashioned' attitudes and bigotry. You can be, or have, any one of those things without being all three. I reject absolutely the notion that someone who believes the way something was done in the past is better than the way it is done now is a 'bigot'. I'm afraid the accusation of bigotry is all too easily thrown around by people who simply can't respect someone for having a different opinion.

I really dont see how my reasoning is flawed, you basicly said in your first post that a good reason for discriminating against men wearing earings is that some people from older generations may make mental accusations about thier sexuality and as such would find them unapproachable (sounds very biggoted to me)

ala, this sentence...

but for a great many older people an ear-ring in a man's ear says a whole lot of things about him that might lessen or destroy their trust in him and his authority.

why should what people think about a mans sexual preference matter to his occupation?

Originally Posted by towny

Secondly, you try to make the big issue of race equivalent to a relatively trivial issue like the wearing of an ear ring, which is a little bizarre. In an ideal world, all police officers would be of a type of person who is absolutely unable to cause offence to anyone, and who naturally exudes authority and demands respect. Such a person does not exist. So, what we must do instead is look at what we've got and decide how best to make use of it.

Race is an issue for, I hope, a minority of people across all communities and age groups, but it cuts in every direction - blacks may not trust whites, whites may think blacks are inferior, and so on. Given the complexity of the problem, the solution is to ensure the police force is properly representative of races in the UK.

Ear rings - well, this is on a completely different scale. A man can't change the colour of his skin. Nor should he have to. But he can take an ear ring out of his ear for the few hours he is on duty if it makes community relations easier.

you basicly said in your first post that it is ok to discriminate to satisfy the small minded minority (i.e. those who think that males who wear earings are gay, what a silly concept). so by the same reasoning it is ok to disallow black people on the police force, just to satisfy the racist few, you say this is different because a black man cannot and shouldnt have to change his skin colour, well by the same arguement a man cannot choose what gender he is (and shouldnt have to) just so he can wear an earing. We live in an age of equality and what applies to women should apply to men in equally.
The scale of the issue should not make a difference to the discrimination.

If there is a good enough (practical) arguement for this discrimination then fair enough however, satisying bigotted, small minded individuals is not and should never be a good enough reason.