NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/co/general/2694

Text File | 1993-01-22 | 4.9 KB | 97 lines

Newsgroups: co.general
Path: sparky!uunet!boulder!ucsu!ucsu.Colorado.EDU!fcrary
From: [e-mail] (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: Colorado amendment 2 information / boycott
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
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Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 17:19:07 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Andrew Burt) writes:
>I can clearly understand a supporter of A2 being intolerant, i.e., voting
>for it because they're intolerant (I am not implying in this statement that
>all voters for A2 *are* intolerant, just that I could understand it if some
>were).  I have a harder time seeing how someone who votes against it is
>being intolerant.

I wasn't really refering to voters, so much as advocates: The supporters
of Amendment 2 are fairly clearly intolerant. However, given the
accusations of "hatered" and "homophobia" when someone says anything
positive about the Amendment, the logic I've seen supporting the
boycott (to the effect that hurting innocent people is irrelevant),
etc... I think the vocal, politically active opponents of Amendment 2
(as opposed to those of us who voted against it) are also quite
intolerant (of anyone who disagrees with them politically.)


>...What would a opponent be intolerant of, "people who are
>intolerant of special rights"???  Not!

"people who dislike anti-discrimination laws"

>>Unless there is sufficient evidence of severe and harmfull discrimination,
>>I'm against anti-discrimination laws in general.

>I guess I take the position that almost all discrimination (i.e., based
>on irrelevant factors) is harmful.  So I feel comfortable with your
>position.  But, that means I feel that there will be few laws that
>cover "harmless" discrimination.  In fact, I'm having a hard time coming
>up with an example of a harmless discrimination; I'd sooner believe it's
>an empty set than a large one...

Consider a man who tries to rent an apartment, but is refused becasue
he is a homosexual. He then goes across the street to another apartemnt
building, and rents a comparable apartment at a comparable price.
He would certainly have been discriminated against, but I can't see
how any real harm was done. I guess in addition to "severe and
harmfull discrimination" I should have added, "which occurs commonly
enough to prevent access to basic necessities of life."

>I have no objection to laws that say "this is a fundamental human right",
>if, indeed, it is fairly obvious that it is a fundamental right.

As a matter of legal doctorine (i.e. as far as any court of law
is concerned), such a law would be meaningless: Fundamental rights
are pre-existant, and not "granted" by the government. The sort
of law you suggest would only be (technically) an acknowledgement
by the government of something which had always been true. Most
declarations of rights go further: The acknowledge the existance
of the right, and forbid the government from infringing on it.
None, however (as far as I know) say anything about private citizens
(E.g. under the First Amendment the government may not prevent a
religion from being practiced. However, private citizens may do
so lawfully by, say, picketing a church.)

>>...That raises the
>>whole problem: The rights of the individuals which are violated in the
>>process. The issue of homosexuality isn't, in my opinion, relevant,
>>or do I think the law can fairly single them out.

>I must be missing something -- whose rights are violated by repealing A2
>or by having anti-gay-discrimination laws?  (Note anti-gay-disc. does not
>mean an AA law.)  I don't see how anyone is harmed, but I do see some
>folks protected.  The only ones harmed, indeed, are those who *want* to
>discriminate against group X... I guess I don't mind stepping on *their*
>toes (:-) :-) :-)  since I don't think it's in any way right to want
>to discriminate;

People have, I hope you agree, some rights regarding who they associate
with (e.g. it would be an invasion of your rights for the government
to name who could, and could not, be your friends) and some rights
regarding the use of their own property (the whole concept of
private property assumes that the owner, not the government, decides
how it would be used.) Therefore, anti-discrimination laws violate
these rights: Freedom of association by requiring people to associate
with a particular group, property rights by determining the criteria
on which someone can decide to rent out/pay from one's property. This
might be justified on some occasions, but it is still a government
infringement of basic rights and something that shouldn't be trivially
ignored.

                                            Frank Crary
                                            CU Boulder