From: zstewart@nyx.cs.du.edu (Zhahai Stewart)
Newsgroups: co.general
Subject: Re: Stripped of Civil Rights?
Date: 8 Jan 93 04:24:43 GMT
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
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In article <1993Jan8.002158.9439@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> pciszek@nyx.cs.du.edu (Paul Ciszek) writes:
>Let's keep this in perspective, folks.  Amendment 2 does not strip away
>the conventional Civil Rights such as voting and due process.  It does
>remove the "right" to be considered a minority.  Thus, this is sort of
>"second order" discrimination.  Other states such as Georgia practice
>"first order" discrimination against gays and lesbians by making it
>illegal to be gay or lesbian.

Your main point (that #2 is aimed against the second wave of opening up, 
ie: sexual orientation non-discrimination, rather than the first - sodomy
is illegal in 24 states, a felony in 15 of those) is well taken.  Also, #2
does not remove some of the traditional basic civil rights, as you point out.

However, I still haven't been able to decode anything meaningful from the
stuff about the "right to be considered a minority".  Homosexuals ARE a
minority.  So are bowtie wearers, or to be less trivial, smokers.  So what?
Being a minority doesn't grant anybody special privileges in itself.

Oh, do you mean being named as a group to get federal affirmative action
preferences?  Well, of the millions of minorities, only the ones specifically
named in the legislation are covered; and one of the covered groups is a
majority (guess which).  Being considered a minority is irrelevant.  Being
named as a recipient group (minority or majority) is relevant.  Colorado law
doesn't affect this either way, of course, being federal.

The existing non-discrimination laws don't care about minority status; unlike
the more limited federal affirmative action laws, these (like Boulder, Denver,
and Aspen have) don't name any subset group for any special rights; they give
all citizens the same rights.  Namely, some protection from discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation, whether gay or straight.  Minority status is
irrelevant.  "Protected status" is fuzzy words put together to suggest special
rights given to one group but not the rest of us; do homosexuals have 
"protected status" under Boulder's law?  It depends on how you want to define
it, since the term is so vague.  But they have exactly the same status as
heterosexuals, so either all citizens have protected status or none do.  There
is no class singled out for differing status.

Anyway, there are many dimensions to the question, but as far as I can 
determine, "minority status" and "protected status" are garbage phrases in
regard to "gay rights".  They have no meaningful definitions, and were
created mainly as a political ploy to falsely suggest that gays have some
sort of affirmative action preferences, "rights given to gays only and not
to heterosexuals".  Actually, there is nothing existing or proposed of that
sort in Colorado.  Equal rights are all that have been suggested or passed.
Either no legal protection, or equal legal protection for gay and straight.

Until #2, which singled out gays and bisexuals for fewer rights than 
heterosexuals.  Doing in practice what it's supporters falsely attributed
gay rights activists of passing or seeking: makeing different legal classes
for straight and gay (except prejudicial rather than preferential).

Anyway, if you have some real meaning for "being considered a minority" in
the Colorado context, please share it.  Is this like some ID card, that if
the "minority" hole is punched, the bearer gets automatic legal goodies from
the state or cities?

I think there is an urban legend of sorts involved - that there is some ticket
punch that women and blacks get, bowtie wearers don't, and gays are seeking -
which gives one automatic preferences.  Hogwash.  Equal non-discrimination is
the only issue, and both sides of the legal case know it.  The rest was smoke
and mirrors to distract the voters.
   ~z~
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