On Sun, May 22, 2016 at 11:18 AM, Eliot Lear <lear@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Ted,
Put more bluntly: there will always be some group who is at least inconvenienced and at most prohibited from attending a meeting.
A commitment to inclusiveness is something that takes work. If you give up on it ab initio as impossible, it is not a principle, it is window dressing. I don't think Fred meant it that way, and I certainly don't. As Stephen has pointed out, the Internet we've helped build may be better at inclusion than any country we could visit. That should make us proud, but it cannot also mean we give up on this for or physical meetings while we have them.
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I will tell you that religion has been a problem in the past where participants have been unable to eat according to their custom. For those who are devout followers of a faith we have not made every accommodation. We probably cannot.
I believe this is another case where participation, rather than entry, is the right criterion to put into a document. If someone with a religious dietary practice that requires inspected food cannot have access to that food for the duration of a meeting, they are effectively barred from participation even if they are permitted entry.
I had not been aware that this was the case for any of our meetings, but I agree that it should be a consideration and I hope that it is one where accommodation can be created. In the case of a state which prevented the use of such inspections, I would expect it to be "militated against", in Fred's terms.
Thanks again for your thought on this,
Ted