From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Equal protection dead end? 3.
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 19:09:31 GMT

In article <34657@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU> smezias@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Stephen J. Mezias) writes:
>In article <1992Dec28.003613.16323@rotag.mi.org> kevin@rotag.mi.org
>(Kevin Darcy) writes: 
>
>>Read it again, moron: "equal PAY for identical PAY". What the hell does
>>that gibberish mean? Pay for pay?
>
>You knew very well that it meant equal pay for identical work, moron.

If I did, it was no thanks to your sloppy wording.

>>Are you an honorable man, Stephen? Can you honestly and forthrightly admit
>>your mistake?
>
>Yes, I made a typo in a discussion of equal pay for identical work
>subsequent to our original discussion and long after it should have
>been clear to an idiot what was meant.

It took you two rounds of posts to admit your mistake, Stephen. If you had 
taken the word "gibberish" seriously the FIRST time I used it, then all of
this nastiness could have been avoided. Such are the risks you take when you
adopt a smug "Oh, it's just Darcy" attitude...

>>Are you trying to tell me that "equal pay for identical work" has nothing
>>to do with trying to combat discrimination??? What are you trying to pull
>>here?
>
>The same thing I have been telling you all along: Unequal pay for
>identical work requires no proof of discriminatory intent for a
>finding of illegal discrmination.

Not generally. Only when the laws in question are written in certain ways,
which relieve the claimants of proving intent. No federal laws I know of
protect abortion under the banner of "Equal Opportunity", Stephen, 
therefore your claim that it is not necessary to prove discriminatory
intent in the case of abortion is speculative at best.

>>I said "probably", Stephen. Then I considered the fact that maybe the laws
>>were consciously written to relieve the claimants of the burden of proving
>>intent. As it happens, that's how most of the Equal Opportunity laws are
>>written. As for whether there is really a substantive difference between:
>
>Now all of a sudden, you remember the conversation you could not
>remember before because of my typo?  Aren't you embarassed to be so
>disingenuous within the same post?  

I never claimed forgetfulness. Please refrain from trying to put words in
my mouth.

>On top of that your substantive
>claim here is incorrect: very few discrimination laws are written to
>relive plaintiff's burden of proof.  

EXplicitly, you mean? You might be right there. However, when a law is
worded something like

	If an employment requirement applies to some members of <protected
	class> more than others, without it being a Bona Fide Occupational
	Qualification (BFOQ) for the position, this is discrimination.

This doesn't EXplicitly relieve anyone of a burden of proof, but by stating
that "X qualifies as Y", it does IMplicitly mean that "Y" can be proven
without having to show anything more than "X". And if "X" doesn't mention
discriminatory intent, well then, I guess there's no burden to prove intent,
huh?

Besides, your original point was a claim that abortion restrictions violated
Equal Protection, a la the Fourteenth Amendment. EP and Equal Opportunity
are only tangentially related to each other. The rules are quite different.
I have already produced evidence that EP claims DO require a showing of
intent. You have not responded to the evidence, preferring instead to go
meandering off into Equal Opportunity tangents.

>>Whether one can generalize from the specific case of EMPLOYMENT discrimination
>>to discrimination in general, is of course a highly debatable question too.
>
>I am not trying to do so at all.  I have clearly stated the following
>since the beginning: (1) I accept discriminatory effect as proof of
>discriminatory intent in the case of advocacy of abortion laws.  

This is an irrational "acceptance". You may believe it, but don't expect
anyone else to. And don't expect for it to be successful when used as a
legal argument.

>(2) As an example of a legal case where this reasoning is accepted, I
>cited equal pay for identical work.  

It's a "legal case", all right, but in a substantially DIFFERENT legal 
context than the Equal Protection claim you originally made. You have yet
to show that EP claimants are relieved of the burden of proving 
discriminatory intent.

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism