Organization: York University
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1992 21:47:35 EST
From:         MMORSE@YORKVM1.BITNET
Subject:      Re:

Dear Doctor,
  Very much to my surprise, and perhaps yours as well, I find we are
within hailing distance of agreement in principle. What would materially
hasten this political nirvana is for you to select one of two clashing
strains in your last posting, and stick with it. Your sentences seem to
alternate between the two threads as regularly as a windup metronome: you
say now that whatever anyone does is their own business and right, now
that it shouldn't (have to) be accepted as normal, now that government has
no right to interfere, but that private business must be free to make its
own decisions..
  There is nothing wrong with having complex or even contradictory feelings
about a difficult issue; but I think most of us feel better, or at least
more at peace with ourselves, when the more pressing tensions abate some-
what. May I suggest the following line as a resolution: tolerance and discri-
mination are mutually exclusive. If it is "permitted"--ie not subject to
legal sanction--to do X, then at least in principle the law may intervene
to permit the right to practice X, and to sanction those who attempt to
abridge that right. This does not mean that law can or will or should in
all cases, only that it is a reasonable use of the law, consistent with
the principles of democratic freedom. My right to free speech means little
if every time I exercise it the law ignores people who throw rocks at me,
endangering my safety. Similarly, if you agree that the government has no
business in the bedrooms of the nation, then you must see the contradiction
in permitting employers to discriminate against folks of a harmless but
unpalatable orientation. While I realize that the private rights of employers
must be respected, since they are part of the same system of principle,
it is plainly an abuse of those principles if private citizens may take away
at their whim what the Constitution attempts to safeguard. To stay with the
cases you mentioned in your posting, I would agree that an employer would
have a perfect right to fire someone for homosexual acts on the premises,
i.e. at work--but, from your own arguments, it follows that firing them
for what they do privately (or, more typically, what someone suspects they
do; a good percentage of the "gays" I know who have been victims of
discrimination are completely heterosexual, and merely had the bad fortune
to have high voices or effeminate mannerisms) is, IN PRINCIPLE, unjust.
  If you truly believe in a democratic society, and are not beholden to
Biblical hogwash in your principles, I think you owe it to yourself to
ask yourself honestly what grounds you have for disapproving of or
disliking homosexuality. If such a practice is an inalienable right,
which as you agree should not be abridged by law, doesn't this already
suggest that there might BE no basis for condemning it? Have you honestly
considered this possibility? I should mention that the behaviour of the
gay-bashers on this tends to confirm, spectacularly sometimes, the
idea that many men hate homosexuality because they have gay inclinations
of their own which they cannot deal with, and invert into hatred. If
this is not the case with you, then, as the saying goes, where's the beef?
What have gay people ever done to you?
  There are those who have simply lived in our culture long enough that
they have engrained a kind of subconscious, quite irrational antipathy
towards effeminate men and/or masculine women. It can be difficult to
come to grips with such feelings (though getting to know a couple of gay
friends can do wonders), and perhaps even the attempt may not seem worth-
while. But: from what you have said, you must recognize that such feelings
are just that, feelings, and not a reasonable basis upon which to decide
how to conduct yourself with respect to your fellow human beings and fellow
citizens.
  Forgive me if I have spoken too personally or forthrightly. But this is
a serious question and, if your commitment to justice is as strong as it
sounds like it is, then you will understand that I am attempting to appeal
to that sense, and thus make bold to encourage you to resolve your dilemma
along the line of greatest decency and respect for your neighbors.
Michael Morse
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