1)While its true the “city” never received a complaint the “department” did. Many times, spanning sevral years. They proptly sent the complaints to the round file.

2)The firefighters (not firemen, gender neutral) have served that district without incident for many years, and have received unit lifesaving citations, commendations, and several letters of thanks from the community.

3)The mission of SDFD is to potect lives and property, not ride in parades. (yes this includes all parades.) Coincidently all of the other city promoted parades are staffed with volunteers on a parade engine, not the districts front line emergency response engine. Using the front line rig deprives the rest of the community with aequate emergency response coverage.

While I dont approve of the law suit, without help from the department they had few options. Their is clearly a double standard in place, and the department has been negligant to correct it. We have many firefighters who would gladly volunteer for this duty resulting in better service to the community, improved moral, and compliance with EEO laws. Please dont be so quick to judge the feelings, values or morals of others or label them homophobic.

The firemen could not carry signs saying that homo & lesbian sexual behaviors are harmful & that celibacy is good for homosexuals. If you see something wrong with a sexual behavior, then being forced to say or celebrate that it’s OK is sexual harassment. What if a city wants to have a parade which says that homo & lesbian sexual behaviors are bad for the health? The Fire & Police Dept. job must simply be limited to extinguishing fires in the parades & protect people from crimes & fires.

NDT said:
So a woman who hugged and kissed a relative in a place that she found uncomfortable, but then was upset when a person she didn’t even know and wasn’t attracted to starting saying, “Hey look, the pretty girl is handing out hugs and kisses, can I have one too?”, is “ridiculous” as well? Would you tolerate someone saying that?
(end of NDT quote)

If you want to be fair the sentence should read “Hey look, the girl is handing out hugs and kisses, I hope she hugs and kisses me too.”
The testimony shows the person casually wondered about it out loud, but did not specifically ask for a hug. There is a difference.

Now that we’re being fair. My answer is “yes” I would tolerate it. In fact, I have tolerated it because it isn’t a sexual remark, nor is it anything I would worry about. I’ve been legitimately sexually harassed, and have known others who have as well, so I do know the difference.

Oh, and I love your attempt to shame me for pointing out facts and making critical comments about the firemen.

I will re-iterate….

-I have not only attended Pride Parades but I have actually participated and as someone in that situation, I clearly, clearly, remember it being too damn loud to hear what people standing next to me were saying. I certainly couldn’t hear the crowd and I was at street level. Therefore I find it hard to believe that men sitting inside a loud firetruck, at a noisy event, with windows several feet in the air could all clearly hear the exact same comments. Did the comment makers have bullhorns?

-More than one of the firemen documented in their own paperwork that they had pre-planned to file paperwork before they set foot inside the truck. Does that not lend evidence to this being a trumped up lawsuit?

-They claim that clothing harassed them, and cite such innocent examples as “look at the big firemen” (Let’s note that while harassment is offensive, not every offense is harassment.)

-All of the men marked on the form that they were harassed because of their sexual orientation — yet none of them provides any follow up evidence, or make any attempt to elaborate on how they were harassed regarding their sexual orientation. Nobody called them breeders or homos, or anything of the kind so where’s this harassment based on sexual orientation? Even if everything they said is true, none of it points to harassment based on their actual or perceived orientation.

this is a gem here:
“It is expected under California and Federal law that you take every — repeat EVERY — allegation of sexual harassment seriously, investigate it, and avoid making comments about the person making the allegation. For you to practice the type of character assassination that you are doing on these firemen would be prima facie evidence that a hostile and harassing environment exists, thus lending even more credence to the sexual harassment charge.”

A) I don’t live in CA. I’m not a police officer, lawyer or judge. I’m not directly involved in this case. It’s nice that they have to take all complaints seriously, but that doesn’t mean that I have to as well. Our legal system is clogged with frivolous lawsuits, I need proof. Innocent until proven guilty.

B) So essentially I’m not allowed to point out obvious flaws in their testimony and their assessment of the situation? Because pointing them out is “character assasination” (nice use of drama there) and apparently defacto evidence that they are 100% right. That’s super. I guess the trial is over then, hang the crowd, hang the supervisors, and apparently hang the evil dyke fire chief that you have some sort of mysterious vendetta against.

Incidentally why do you have a link that goes to some scandal involving a lesbian fire chief in Minneapolis? It’s not the same woman, nor is it a remotely similar situation. Are you suggesting that all lesbian fire chiefs are intrinsically corrupt, creating your own brand new lesbian stereotype?

You’ll also note at no point did I defend the crowd. I think what the crowd did or did not do is irrelevant until they get some witnesses. Presuming as some do, that Pride Parades offend all kinds of homos, I’m sure someone saw/heard the events described and is willing to testify. Until then, I’m sorry, no sale. Their testimony is sketchy, logically inconsistent, and does not have an air of anything other than fear-based hostility, add on that their legal counsel has a dubious history, and I can’t say I’m a believer.

Do people behave differently on the day of Pride parades than they do normally?

And if they do, then in what fashion?

Answer those questions honestly, and you will have your answer.

The question is not whether one has told dirty jokes in the past, but rather whether the employer of these men had reason to believe they would be sexually harassed. This is Kevin’s point. Without any complaint for 15 years, it will be difficult for them to claim that their supervisor should have expected it.

Secondarily, Kevin’s calling into question the integrity and the veracity of the claims of these persons is not in any way an indication of the type of reception they received last month in San Diego. The two are unrelated. My criticism of, say, Hillary Clinton, says nothing whatsoever about her welcome at the Logo debate last night.

Those arguments simply don’t stand up to logic.

There are certainly plenty of cases where the “perception” of “offense” was used as an excuse to murder gay Americans, and that excuse is still being used today. Moreover, these are men working in a heavily-gay neighborhood, which means they are in contact with the community every day – and suddenly they have this preconceived idea about being offended?

The fact they went to the same legal organization which threw a tantrum over the gay chorus singing at a baseball game (because children…shudder…were present) doesn’t speak well for the motivations of those men – or for their particular dedication to honesty.

I don’t care how they handle the investigation – but if I was living in Hillcrest, I would suddenly not feel very comfortable calling that fire department.

Usually, yes.

But Federal law, and more specifically California law, place the burden on the employer to prevent sexual harassment if it can in any way be anticipated.

And given that even gay people find some images, conduct, behavior, and statements made at Pride parades to be objectionable, it could be reasonably anticipated that the same would take place here.

The “well, nobody ever complained before” argument doesn’t hold water either. You may have been telling those obscene stories to new employees for ten years, but that doesn’t make it any less objectionable if the next one you try it on takes umbrage. Especially if it was made clear to everyone, either directly or indirectly, that those who didn’t laugh or go along with your stories were on the fast track to bad performance reviews, no increases, and out the door.

Again, some of the things being said here are just plain clueless. Nobody in their right mind would walk around calling an administrative assistant who objected to having to attend a strip club to take notes for the boss’s meeting a “fundy” and a “man-hater” for filing a sexual harassment complaint, just because she happens to be religious and because she filed the complaint. It doesn’t matter how inane you think it is, how little you think of her lawyer, how much you hate her religious beliefs, or whatnot; what matters is that the person is offended, and that ultimately the judge or the DFEH/EEOC will have to decide whether or not the offense is reasonable — and if your first response is character assassination, I can promise you that that makes it far more so.

Yes. That is the law.

Whether or not they win the lawsuit is another matter entirely.

But I promise you this: it never looks good in a court of law when the immediate response by the alleged perpetrator of sexual harassment to spread rumors and make claims that the other person is vindictive, anti-male, and is just lying so she can get an expensive settlement.

It is expected under California and Federal law that you take every — repeat EVERY — allegation of sexual harassment seriously, investigate it, and avoid making comments about the person making the allegation. For you to practice the type of character assassination that you are doing on these firemen would be prima facie evidence that a hostile and harassing environment exists, thus lending even more credence to the sexual harassment charge.

And two can play at this game. When confronted with sexual harassment by gays before, glbts have claimed that the people making the complaint were motivated by “homophobia and sexism”. What’s to make people believe that this isn’t another attempt by glbts to cover up bad behavior by a lesbian fire chief?

Again, the basic problem is that you are, rather than admitting that gay people could have acted inappropriately, trying to minimize and accuse of lying the firemen making the accusation.

For example:

I find it ridiculous to hear a man say he hugged and kissed a gay man, yet when another casually mentioned he would like a hug, that he felt so destraught his knees began to buckle??

So a woman who hugged and kissed a relative in a place that she found uncomfortable, but then was upset when a person she didn’t even know and wasn’t attracted to starting saying, “Hey look, the pretty girl is handing out hugs and kisses, can I have one too?”, is “ridiculous” as well? Would you tolerate someone saying that?