From: owen@autodesk.com (D. Owen Rowley)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Giving Blood (WAS Re: Lifestyle Choices (was  Re: Sexuality))
Date: 6 Jan 93 21:43:02 GMT
Distribution: usa

In article <106189@bu.edu>, kane@buast7.bu.edu (Hot Young Star) writes:
> In article <1993Jan5.073027.15391@anasazi.com>
> briand@anasazi.com (Brian Douglass) writes:
> 
> >My point is NOT that gays ARE a harm to the general public, but legal
> >descrimination against the individual in certain cases is allowable. [...]
> >Blood donation is a specific case where people who have had sex with a
> >member of the same sex, an action generally to be called gay activity are
> >forbidden from donation.  It is the activity that justifies the
> >disqualification, just as it does with someone who pays for sex. Same thing.  
> Seems to me that, given the use of careful screening procedures of donated
> blood, that the proper discrimination is in discarding tainted blood, not in
> disallowing donation from a person who fits a broad characterization.


the term discriminate has two somewhat different meanings depending on use.

Both meanings involve the concept of judgement, but one meaning connotes
the element of good taste while the other connotes unfair treatment due to
prejudice.

It is not unfair to have discriminating taste in art because it only involves 
yourself. An Artist whose works you don't care for has no *right* to force
you to support his work. Criticising the NEA for supporting specific artists
you don't like is the other sort of discrimination if at the same time you 
are willing to let the NEA support art that *I* don't like.

In the case of the NEA our government has empowered a group of people
to exercise judgement on what is discriminating and what is not. 
Caveat emptor.

We all judge things, others, whatever.. on a regular basis.
And we act according to those discriminations, all the time.
disqualifying individuals in high risk categorys for HIV infection from 
donating blood to a blood bank may be a prudent pre-screening policy, and 
is not unfair to anyone. 

In the case of civil libertys it is not fair to manipulate legal definitions
that end up treating some people differently than others.
Unfortunately, it is done a lot, and the result is that
we now have a tangled web of unfair legislation and unreasonable
expectations that only get worst as we continue down this path.

Quota based civil rights legislation is discrimination plain and simple.
as such it is undesireable and only shifts discrimination from one 
sector to the other. It does not treat the core problem of discrimination,
it adds to the sum amount of discrimination. 

CO#2 is discrimination because it unfairly disqualifys certain citizens from 
legal remedys that are available to other citizens. Now some of those legal
remedys just happen to be the sort of unfair civil libertys legislation
that I spoke about, which introduces a dillema. The legislative process
needs to approach civil libertys from an inclusive approach rather than an
exclusive approach or else it fails utterly.

The intent of our constitution is to protect the citizenry from the tyranny
of the majority, as such the initiative process is a tremendous danger
to our nation. The case of CO#2 shows us why.
The use of the initiative process to adress civil libertys issues is an
abuse of our system, even if it is in response to other abuses perpetrated
through other governmental processes.

LUX ./. owen


--
D. Owen Rowley {uunet,fernwood,sun}!autodesk!owen, owen@autodesk.com
[ EU-PHORIA: A STATE OF WELL BEING ]
Euphoria is my natural state, I do what I enjoy and an abundance 
of all good fortune comes to me for it.