From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 18:50:15 GMT

In article <C0Jo4u.3uI@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
>Evelyn C. Leeper tries out the substitution of ``Jewish or
>Muslim Religious Observance'' in CO2. See, Evelyn, I
>think at the moment such a substitution would work fine
>in the measure. As fine, that is, as ``Homosexual Orientation''.
>The only problem I'd have with it in your alteration would be
>that the First Amendment already implies this to me (that
>government shall not privilege or give special status or special
>claims to discrimination on the basis of any religious observence).

>Therefore, I would think it redundant.

Read what she says.  She points out that her formulation DOES privilege
those forms of observance NOT enumerated.  Her formulation is not 
redundant to the First Amendment; it VIOLATES it.

>Evelyn writes:
>  Had CO2 listed heterosexuality as also barring one from a claim to "any
>  minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of
>  discrimination," I might (*might*) actually believe that someone might
>  think it was intended to provide equal protection to all.  As it stands
>  it clearly does not.

>I would think that it would have been much better if CO2 had said
>``Sexual Orientation''.

Why?  Why should one not have the right to claim discrimination on
grounds of sexual orientation?  

Why should a corporation reserve the right to fire, say, a gay 
nightwatchman?  And to do so at its caprice?  Why this legal 
encouragement and sanction of blackmail?  

>  As I have said many times, if people would run statements about gays
>  and lesbians through a filter that substituted "Jews" and/or "blacks"
>  for "gays/lesbians" and then read the results and asked themselves,
>  "Does this sound bigoted?" we might be saved a lot of silly posts.

>But, you see, we're so used to picking out *anything* with the
>keywords ``Jews'' or ``blacks'' in it and construing it as bigoted
>that *of course* if we substitute these words it is going to ``sound
>bigoted''. The question is, *is* it bigoted? When I read the measure,
>I mentally did exactly the substitution you now suggest, but I also
>tried to read for *what it says*, *suppressing* my emotional response
>to the *sounding bigoted*. (Heck, my emotional response to the *sounding
>bigoted* is already there with the language as it is without the
>substitution.) My problem is, though I would agree that it sounds
>bigoted, I nevertheless think it is not bigoted, and in fact is much
>milder than I had been led to believe. 

NO CLAIM OF DISCRIMINATION -- what more do you need?

>(OR9, on the other hand, is as bad as I have been led to believe.)

Yet the two statutes were promoted by the very same political groups
with the same political agenda.  All theorizing about rights aside
for a moment, don't the real political implication of these statutes,
and the political goals of those who promote them, give you pause?
Don't rights deserve a little protection, i.e., a wall built around them?

>For what little it is worth to this discussion, Evelyn, (but
>since it's in your .sig) I happen to believe that the military
>ban on homosexuals is both stupid and wrong.

Why?  How can you justify that?  How can gays claim discrimination
in the military but not in Colorado?  

Roger