Hey kids, guess what? A poll
came out that showed an overwhelming proportion of Louisianans said that
Ebenezer Scrooge should not treat his employee Bob Crachit so unfairly at work.
That fictional creation parallels results from an actual recent poll, this part
paid for by groups that seek to have those who practice homosexuality be given
preferential public policy treatment, which revealed that – believe it or not! – almost all
Louisianans think that those who identify themselves as homosexually-oriented
should not be denied housing, nor not be protected from bullying in school, nor
not be fired from jobs with secular employers. Meanwhile, dog bites man.
One group leader expressed
surprise that the margins in each case were almost 90 percent or higher
expressing these attitudes. Where has he been? It only confirms what each of us
knows already, that attitudes like these are a matter of common sense and
simple human decency. For the life of me, for example, I can’t understand why
anybody would want to see somebody being bullied, for any reason. We are called
to love our neighbors, and while there’s not universal agreement on that, to
anybody sentient in this society from birth they should have realized there is
a huge consensus that, at a personal level, an overwhelming majority think we
must treat people fairly as we hope they will do the same for us.
Which is where the policy-making
confusion enters. Groups behind the state-the-obvious questions say they will
use these results as evidence that there is support for state laws, for
example, that ban firings in the workplace over sexual orientation and in
renting dwellings. (Although any change to anti-bullying would be nonsensical;
the law
already prohibits any behavior that is bullying regardless of motive.) But
theirs is an apples-and-oranges comparison, because the questions did not
address those kind of issues. They may have asked about people’s feelings about
these things, but they did not ask them whether they thought that government
should be empowered to restrict these kind of activities.
As previously
noted, these are crucially different questions because the “protected class”
involved defines itself on the basis of expressions of attitude, not by any
innate, immutable quality. An enduring myth is that there can be no discrimination
in American society. In fact, government allows discrimination in all sorts of
ways – people with higher incomes are taxed at a higher rate, very tall people
can’t be astronauts, a play that calls for a role of an older white female can
disregard applicants who are black and/or male and/or young, etc. The question
is whether there is a compelling reason consequential to the private activity that
by allowing government to regulate it would cause a significant diminution of
the liberty of individual given the discretion to discriminate on that basis.
In the case of people with
characteristics that are genetically inherent, or that (in the case of some
disabilities) were unfortunately thrust upon them by disease or injury, there
are extremely few instances where this discrimination can be justified. But
when it’s a case of sexual expression, because that involves not genetics or
uncontrollable circumstance but rather a set of attitudes where the holder of
them has the choice whether and when to express them behaviorally, greater
individual latitude and lesser government intervention is justifiable.
For example, must a child care
center continue to employ an individual who continually expresses to all around,
staff, parents, and children alike, the opinion that pederasty should be
accepted as a normal, loving human interaction? (Note that if the speech was
limited only to about changing the law against sex with minors, legally this actually
could be protected speech under civil liberties terms.) Any law that protected
the behaviorally-defined class of “sexual orientation” would apply in this instance,
even if it should shock no one that being unable to prevent such behavior would
harm this business.
Certainly no large employers, and
almost no other employers, or no landlords with large holdings, and almost no
other landlords, care how their employees or tenants express themselves
sexually. The only behavior they care about is whether the work gets done
satisfactorily or the rent shows up on time on an undamaged property. As for
those very few (according to the poll) that would let personal feelings on this
issue get the better of their business sense, for any employee or tenant
subjected to this, there are plenty of places their money and talents will be
wanted, but to empower government to force their acceptance by these
exceptional cases simply gives government too much power that invites excessive
and inappropriate regulation of individual freedom, putting society on the
slippery slope at the bottom of which is tyranny.
So the only novelty of these poll
results is probably something their backers did not wish to be realized: that their
recommended policy changes are solutions in search of a problem. Attitudinally,
few people demonstrated that they would treat those who expressed homosexual
preferences any differently in employment or housing, and given the threat to
liberty that the suggested overbroad solutions present, this confirms why it is
a good idea for state law to resist the trendiness of making practitioners of behaviorally-defined
“sexual orientation” or “gender identity” a protected class in these matters.
1 comment:
The fundamental flaw of this piece is your assumption that gay/transgendered people (and those who support them) are asking for "preferential" treatment by law, which simply isn't true. They're asking for *equal* treatment.
It's also untrue to say in passing that people with higher incomes are taxed at a higher rate. (You just had to slip that untruth in there, didn't you? Though it would be nice if it were true, as those with higher incomes should pay more in taxes.)
And here's another ridiculous reduction to the absurd:
"For example, must a child care center continue to employ an individual who continually expresses to all around, staff, parents, and children alike, the opinion that pederasty should be accepted as a normal, loving human interaction?"
That's no different, and no less ridiculous than those on TV barking that same-sex marriage will lead to people marrying animals, a recurring theme with conservatives, who seem bent on drawing a false line between homosexuality and bestiality, just as the "Duck Dynasty Guy" did recently.
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