From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Subject: Re: interesting thought (amendment 2)
Organization: eklektix - Boulder, Colorado
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 23:14:15 GMT

kary@col.hp.com (Dan Kary) writes:
>...One
>question I still wonder about has not been addressed anywhere I have seen.
>I live in Colorado Springs and you (aparently) live in or around Fort Collins. 
>Neither of these communities, nor the county or State they are in have ever
>ever had any kind of gay rights ordinance or law.  Has it always been legal
>to discriminate against homosexuals in these communities?  If not, why is
>it now legal to discriminate?

It is no more legal now to discriminate than before the election.  The
difference lies in what can be done if discrimination becomes a problem in
one of those communities.  (That's not to say it isn't a problem right now;
I don't know.)  If any sort of pattern or trend toward significant discrim-
ination begins, there's no option for remedy in law.

Keep in mind that there are various criteria which have been and are being
used to "discriminate" against people in various ways.  In practice, we
can't pass laws protecting people on all these possible criteria, so what
we've done over the years is to add laws where we've felt they're needed,
to right the more obvious wrongs.  Some folks here have argued that we've
already got too many such laws; regardless of that, it's clear that we've
not come anywhere near creating laws to prevent all the possible forms of
discrimination.  It's important that we keep the freedom to pass the laws
as they become necessary.

In the great USENET tradition of dubious analogies, let me use left-handed-
ness as an example.  I'm left-handed.  I was born that way, and even if I
might have been able to change somewhat in my youth, it would only have
been partially effective.  I certainly can't change now.

In some cultures my use of my left hand for most tasks would be considered
repulsive, offensive, and against nature.  Our language is replete with
positive references to right-handedness (the positive meanings of "right"
in addition to the meaning of direction, "dexterity", "right-hand man",
etc.) and negative references to left-handedness ("left-handed compliment",
"sinister", etc.).  There are facilities and utensils built only for the
right-handed; there are tools which are useless or (much worse) barely
usable but extremely dangerous if used left-handed.

Someone could say "you're left-handed; you can't live here" or "we can't
hire you; you're left-handed."  Yet there are no laws to protect against
this.  Why?  Simply, we haven't found them necessary; it hasn't been a
problem.  *BUT* note that if society started treating us as outcasts,
denying us housing and employment, we would have the possibility to seek
laws to protect us.  *IF* the laws became "necessary", it would be possible
to enact them.

OK, with all that blather as context, back to Amendment 2:  This has denied
one particular group the option to seek enactment of laws to protect that
group.  Why?
_ _ _ _ _

As I wrote the above, I started wondering about Amendment 2 _vs_ Article I
of the US Constitution.  I don't think I've heard this mentioned in the Am
2 discussion (if I've missed it, sorry; just quietly toast me in email:-):
Why does Am 2 not violate the right "to petition the government for a
redress of grievances"?  Or am I badly misunderstanding Article I?
_ _ _ _ _

continuing with Dan's note:
>I've always thought that local civil rights ordinances are a bad idea because
>I feel that local government and what they have that passes for a "judiciary"
>is not competent to judge anything more important than traffic violations.

I'm not sure whether I have more faith than Dan does in local judiciary, or
less than Dan in the higher courts.  (I suspect the latter.:-)  The
argument of uniformity of treatment seems more compelling:

>...I very strongly prefer that civil rights
>issues be the domain of federal laws and courts.  I see no need for local
>interpretation of civil rights, civil rights need to be the same everywhere
>and there is no need for local variances.

This is a reasonable view, but it neglects the possibility of "community
standards" and the role a community can play in leading toward a local
situation of greater equality and respect for individual differences.  It's
a double-edged sword, of course; as I understand Dan's point it's that
local communities can make things worse rather than better.
-- 
Dick Dunn    rcd@raven.eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado
	...Simpler is better.
Newsgroups: co.general