There rarely seems to be a time when the statement “Bermuda is different” is meant in a positive or exemplary way. Instead, it always seems to be as a rationale for shoddy service, poor performance or some other exception to the rule.It is difficult not to see Families Minister Glenn Blakeney’s failure to deliver an amendment to the Human Rights Act barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in this light. Mr Blakeney has said his Ministry is still trying to find a way of amending the Act “in the context of Bermuda”.That appears to mean at the very least that homeowners would not be obliged to lease a room in their own household to a person whose lifestyle offended their religious beliefs, and that religious organisations would have been exempted from the rule.According to former Human Rights Commission chairwoman Shade Subair, the Commission accepted these exceptions, presumably on the basis that the amendment would then be tabled in Parliament last year.But that did not happen.As a result, as Ms Subair said, it means: “ ... It is still lawful under the Human Rights Act to taunt and harass people because of their sexual orientation. It is still lawful under the Human Rights Act for a person to be refused entry to a movie theatre because of their sexual orientation. As unimaginable as it should be, it is even still lawful under the Human Rights Act for a doctor to refuse to treat a patient because of their sexual orientation.”It may be that the Human Rights Commission decided, in the words of Voltaire, that “the perfect is the enemy of the good”, and proceeding with the amendments proposed by Mr Blakeney was better than doing nothing at all.But Amnesty International local chairwoman Françoise Wolffe was correct when she stated in yesterday’s Royal Gazette: “Human rights, as defended by Amnesty International and other Human Rights organisations around the world, do not allow for half-measures in ensuring basic human rights: they are universal and non-negotiable.”By definition, there cannot be exceptions to human rights. It either is a human right or it is not. That does not mean that there will not be times when one right conflicts with another. And a conflict between a bar on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and the right to religious freedom is a classic example of that.But it is unlikely that a homosexual would wish to worship in a fiercely anti-homosexual church. Nor would a homosexual wish to live in a house with a bigot. But the difficulty, as Ms Wolffe went on to say, is that exemptions for landlords and religious groups would provide an easy and convenient loophole to the law, meaning discrimination based on sexual orientation would be perpetuated.And such loopholes could then be stretched to the point where the amendment would be meaningless. The only answer is to have an unequivocal amendment, and to then have the Human Rights Commission and the courts determine how best to balance different rights.