Celebrities
Louis Staples
Apr 15, 2020
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A British woman who claims to be in a “long-term relationship” with a 92-year-old German chandelier has been officially told that her attraction to historic light fittings is not considered to be a protected sexual orientation under the law.
Alexa, play "Chandelier" by Sia…
In case you were (understandably) wondering, yes, this is actually real.
The Guardian reports that press regulator Ipso made the ruling after Amanda Liberty complained about an article in The Sun “mocking her public declaration of love for Lumiere", her name for an intricate lamp she bought on eBay.
Liberty claimed that the newspaper’s article breached the regulator’s code of conduct that requires publishers to avoid prejudice towards a person’s sexual orientation.
Liberty defines as an “objectum sexual”, which is her term for “an individual who is attracted to objects”.
She objected (see what we did there) to being included in an end-of-year article by Sun columnist Jane Moore.
She also accused the newspaper’s reporting of being inaccurate after the article “referred to her being married to the chandelier” when she wanted to make clear they were in a relationship but not married.
Good to hear they're taking it slow (who would propose to who in that situation, anyway?)
The newspaper responded by saying that it didn’t question whether or not she was actually attracted to the chandelier, but pointed out that sexual orientation in the context of the press regulation code covered people who were attracted to people of the same sex, the opposite sex, or both (so not chandeliers, then).
The Sun also argued that, seeing as Liberty has spoken about the relationship to various media outlets over the years and exercised her freedom of expression to do so, then Moore was entitled to comment on it in the manner in which she did.
The complaints panel acknowledged that the article was “offensive and upsetting” for Liberty but ultimately dismissed her complaint on the basis that their code “provides protection to individuals in relation to their sexual orientation towards other persons and not to objects”.
This means that her attraction to chandeliers “did not fall within the definition of sexual orientation”.
It’s a sad, sad day for "chandelovers" everywhere.
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