AIDS virus from discrimination.

Miss Elizabeth Christopher urged Government to beef up the 1981 Human Rights Act.

She said Bermuda had a very clear history of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Some 10 years ago, for instance, an expatriate Policeman was dismissed for being gay.

Miss Christopher, speaking to Hamilton Rotary Club, said the officer could not be fired today because of changes in the law.

But she asked: "What would happen today? Changing the law does not change attitudes. There is nothing to stop a person from being dismissed on trumped up charges when there is a desire to discriminate against homosexuals.

"Surely that cannot be right. People may have differing views about whether it is morally right to be a homosexual.

"Clearly protection against discrimination on the basis of a person's sexual orientation has a place in our Human Rights Act.'' Miss Christopher went on to point to another possible amendment to the Human Rights Act.

This would prevent medically unjustified discrimination based on real or perceived HIV status, she told Rotarians at their weekly luncheon at Hamilton's Princess Hotel.

"Notwithstanding attempts to educate the public as to the risks of contracting HIV, many people have erroneous conceptions about the risks involved in being around someone who is HIV positive.

"There is a residual impulse to exclude these people by firing them from jobs, evicting them from houses, banishing them from their own families.'' Miss Christopher said the storm over the Stubbs bill showed how Bermudians needed to be educated on human rights.

The current climate in Bermuda was cause for concern.

And she warned: "No change in the law in and of itself will bring about sufficient change to ensure that all people are treated fairly.'' Miss Christopher is a lawyer with Conyers, Dill and Pearman.

She dedicated her speech to the late Dr. Stubbs, praising him for his "courage'' in piloting his bill decriminalising homosexuality -- despite fierce opposition.

The Stubbs bill raised the issue of human rights, she said.

"The rise of the modern concept of human rights came from what the world witnessed during World War II when Jewish people were put to death because they were Jewish, gypsies were gassed because they were gypsies, the ill were put to death because they were ill, and yes, gay men and women were exterminated because they were gay.'' Miss Christopher said the recognition of each human being's uniqueness lay behind "the concept of the individual which the human rights law is primarily concerned to protect''.