From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 01:00:07 GMT

                                        Friday, the 8th of January, 1993

Roger Lustig writes at me:
 Read what she says.  She points out that her formulation DOES privilege
 those forms of observance NOT enumerated.

Huh? This is utter nonsense, Roger. The measure would say no privileges
and no claims of discrimination based on certain kinds of religious
observence. It doesn't say special privileges shall be given to other
kinds of religious observence. And I think it's quite clear that
such a law itself (i.e. one granting special privileges to some
other religious observence) would itself fail on First Amendment
grounds.

RL:
                                           Her formulation is not 
 redundant to the First Amendment; it VIOLATES it.

I'm sorry, but I don't think it does. I think rather the legal
allowance of claims of discrimination based on religious beliefs
in wrongful termination suits in the first place violates the
First Amendment (it being a governmental intrusion upon the
religious conscience of the employer).

I said:
  I would think that it would have been much better if CO2 had said
  ``Sexual Orientation''.

Roger replies:
  Why?

Because this excludes even more grounds than CO2 does from the special
privilege to claim discrimination in employment.

RL:
       Why should one not have the right to claim discrimination on
  grounds of sexual orientation?  

Because the employer ought to have the right to free association.
The point is, it's his business, his property, not fundamentally
a grant made by him from the State.

RL:
  Why should a corporation reserve the right to fire, say, a gay 
  nightwatchman? 

Because it wants to?

RL:
                  And to do so at its caprice? 

Ditto.

RL:
                                                Why this legal 
  encouragement and sanction of blackmail?  

Why your own legal sanction of an individual Right to employment (i.e.
at someone else's expense)?

RL:
  NO CLAIM OF DISCRIMINATION -- what more do you need?

I need someone to explain to me *why* non-discrimination
ought to be considered a Right.

RL:
  Yet the two statutes were promoted by the very same political groups
  with the same political agenda.  All theorizing about rights aside
  for a moment, don't the real political implication of these statutes,
  and the political goals of those who promote them, give you pause?
  Don't rights deserve a little protection, i.e., a wall built around them?

You and I do agree about there being a Right to equal opportunity
in employment.

You also glibly elide the crucial difference between the two measures.
One measure gives government a mandate of extra power and purpose
to correct what right-wingers see as a social problem. I mean
besides the moral repugnance of these right-wingers' agenda, it's
worth voting against just because it aggrandizes government. The
second measure takes some power away from government. Not enough power,
but taking any power away from government sounds good to me.

*Of course* I find the political agendas of some of these groups
outrageous and repugnant. *Of course* this gives me pause. But
so does the opposition to these measures of groups whose
agendas I consider equally outrageous and repugnant.

I said:
  For what little it is worth to this discussion, Evelyn, (but
  since it's in your .sig) I happen to believe that the military
  ban on homosexuals is both stupid and wrong.

Roger responds:
  Why?  How can you justify that?  How can gays claim discrimination
  in the military but not in Colorado?  

Why are you blind to the distinction I have maintained between moral
wrong and something that warrants legal sanction? For the record, 
I do not believe that mere stupidity or mere moral wrong warrants
legal sanction. Legal sanction in the private sector is only appropriate
when the moral wrong corresponds to a violation of some human Right.
Do you have a problem with this?

                      Mike Morris
              (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)

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