Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
A vote was taken Monday on the Indianapolis City-County Council, Proposal 622,on whether to ban discrimination against gays or transgenders in any businesswith more than six employees and the housing market. Religious and somenon-profit groups would be exempt. It barely passed after having failed once before. Seems like a simple enough vote, right? Well, let's just step in it shall we?
This issue has obviously divided the community. Even religious leaders are heavily divided, some for the ban and some against. And let me say before this really gets underway that I personally don't care for people that discriminate in hiring or housing based on race, religion, or even sexual orientation. That's just my opinion. We all have our own moral opinions, and some of us are more close-minded than others, but overall I feel if someone can do a job or wants to move somewhere, let them do it. Excel and succeed if you can. It's the American way. I also have no problem with the government not discriminating in its hiring practices (although it does, usually under the guise affirmative action). The government represents and is responsible to the people and should therefore be accessible in employment to all the people.
Now let's really step in it. With all that said, I don't think it's any of the government's damn business who a business owner hires and for what reason. If the business doesn't take money from the government, the public really has no say in who they hire and fire. Equally, I don't think the government should have any right to say who a person can let live in their building, either. It's THEIR building, isn't it? Shouldn't the owners have the right to decide who they want to live there? The owner sets the rent at a certain level because they want a certain economic group to live there. If they're close-minded bigots, why shouldn't they have the right to wallow in their bigotry? Who exactly are they hurting? And don't give me the "they're hurting society" line, because that's Marxist crap and anyone who reads history knows it.
The esteemed Abdul Hakim-Shabazz on WXNT 1430AM's "Abdul in the Morning", who is personally for the discrimination ban, has stated that he knows at least one business and land owner who, if this ordinance doesn't pass, is going to fire all his straight employees and evict all his straight tenantsto show how stupid it is to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. The idea, obviously, is to reinforce that those with moral or simply prejudicial reservations are just backwards hilljacks who must be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era. Cuz that's government's job, right?If innocents get hurt in his desire to make a statement, then so be it! Well, I say let the jackass evict his straight tenants and fire his straight employees. Let him make a statement by causing even more misery. Then we can include him with others who practice discrimination and show him off for the slope-foreheaded moron that he really is. I defend his right to be completely retarded, just as I defend other's rights to be retarded against their own disliked groups.
The whole idea of "special protection" for minorities, or separate but inequal standards that must be set in order to give any minority a "fighting chance" has always rung hollow with me. Yes life can suck when you're in a group that's in the minority. Just think how Libertarians feel. But you just work harder and show how much better you really are regardless of being different than the majority. You show that even though they may find something in you is distateful, you're willing to prove that they haven't theslightest idea what they're saying and that you can be as good if not betterthan them. I've always seen being a minority as one of two things. We can all just get over it and accept that skin color, for example, is not a legitimate way to classify people. Or those who are discriminated against can show everyoneby rising above and being better. It's happened before without legislation. Why do we need it now? The fact that such legislation can be used to railroad employers or landlords who the offended party just wants to get back at isignored also, and that goes for just about every discrimination law. The consequences of such laws are rarely considered when they are debated, because then the law might never get passed.
And why the sudden need for this new set of laws? Are gays being hunted down in the streets and taken to concentration camps? Are they forced to use separate fountains? What about bis? Are they afforded half the protection? What about cross-dressers? If they're still straight, do they count? Now let's get a little ridiculous. What about polygamists, incest-cases or peds or beasty-boys and girls? They're people too. They have their own rights don't they? How do we define deviancy? Where do you draw the line? If you're going to protect one specific type of sexual orientation, why not the rest? Why does one get special treatment? See, boys and girls and those questioning, once you start down this path, there really is no end.
You can look at it from a moral, possibly even Christian (did he just say the Cword?) point of view and draw a line. That's what society has always done and how it's remained structured over the millenia. Or you can take the new amoral approach advocated by so many on the Left, and we can travel down this road. Allow private citizens to be private, to live their lives and discriminate or not discriminate. Legislate for them to do it and all you do is cause misery.
For many, it's also important to note that this is a matter of morality. There are many in this city and state who consider such behavior immoral and not genetic. The gay community sees them as backwards and unaccepting. These individuals see the gays as immoral and sinful. Which is right? For our entire history as a nation, the latter opinion prevailed. I've not seen good arguments for change. I've seen common sense people just wanting to live their lives and not be attacked for who they are. And I've seen people with defined agendas who want everyone else to believe as they do even if they have to legislate it. Again, how is legislating that such behavior is moral and worth protection any different than those who labelled it immoral and worth contempt trying to legislate against it? You can't really do it either way without sounding hypocritical.
Again, I ask those who advocate such legislation, if you don't trust the government to fight wars or to spend your tax dollars wisely, why are you trusting them to tell you who to associate with or how to run your private business? Where do you draw the line of trust with government? Either keep them confined to a certain set of duties, say with the Feds for example, those specifically delegated to them in the Constitution, or go George Orwell and let them run everything. Advocating an in-between stance is hypocrisy and such arguments hold about as much water as a sieve. Should it be the business of the city to tell its land and business owners who they can and cannot have on thatland? If you believe so, you're advocating a position identical to thosea dvocated by racists and bigots for centuries, only from the other side. Which one of you, then, is right? Which one of you is moral? Neither. Don't kid yourself.
A vote was taken Monday on the Indianapolis City-County Council, Proposal 622,on whether to ban discrimination against gays or transgenders in any businesswith more than six employees and the housing market. Religious and somenon-profit groups would be exempt. It barely passed after having failed once before. Seems like a simple enough vote, right? Well, let's just step in it shall we?
This issue has obviously divided the community. Even religious leaders are heavily divided, some for the ban and some against. And let me say before this really gets underway that I personally don't care for people that discriminate in hiring or housing based on race, religion, or even sexual orientation. That's just my opinion. We all have our own moral opinions, and some of us are more close-minded than others, but overall I feel if someone can do a job or wants to move somewhere, let them do it. Excel and succeed if you can. It's the American way. I also have no problem with the government not discriminating in its hiring practices (although it does, usually under the guise affirmative action). The government represents and is responsible to the people and should therefore be accessible in employment to all the people.
Now let's really step in it. With all that said, I don't think it's any of the government's damn business who a business owner hires and for what reason. If the business doesn't take money from the government, the public really has no say in who they hire and fire. Equally, I don't think the government should have any right to say who a person can let live in their building, either. It's THEIR building, isn't it? Shouldn't the owners have the right to decide who they want to live there? The owner sets the rent at a certain level because they want a certain economic group to live there. If they're close-minded bigots, why shouldn't they have the right to wallow in their bigotry? Who exactly are they hurting? And don't give me the "they're hurting society" line, because that's Marxist crap and anyone who reads history knows it.
The esteemed Abdul Hakim-Shabazz on WXNT 1430AM's "Abdul in the Morning", who is personally for the discrimination ban, has stated that he knows at least one business and land owner who, if this ordinance doesn't pass, is going to fire all his straight employees and evict all his straight tenantsto show how stupid it is to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. The idea, obviously, is to reinforce that those with moral or simply prejudicial reservations are just backwards hilljacks who must be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era. Cuz that's government's job, right?If innocents get hurt in his desire to make a statement, then so be it! Well, I say let the jackass evict his straight tenants and fire his straight employees. Let him make a statement by causing even more misery. Then we can include him with others who practice discrimination and show him off for the slope-foreheaded moron that he really is. I defend his right to be completely retarded, just as I defend other's rights to be retarded against their own disliked groups.
The whole idea of "special protection" for minorities, or separate but inequal standards that must be set in order to give any minority a "fighting chance" has always rung hollow with me. Yes life can suck when you're in a group that's in the minority. Just think how Libertarians feel. But you just work harder and show how much better you really are regardless of being different than the majority. You show that even though they may find something in you is distateful, you're willing to prove that they haven't theslightest idea what they're saying and that you can be as good if not betterthan them. I've always seen being a minority as one of two things. We can all just get over it and accept that skin color, for example, is not a legitimate way to classify people. Or those who are discriminated against can show everyoneby rising above and being better. It's happened before without legislation. Why do we need it now? The fact that such legislation can be used to railroad employers or landlords who the offended party just wants to get back at isignored also, and that goes for just about every discrimination law. The consequences of such laws are rarely considered when they are debated, because then the law might never get passed.
And why the sudden need for this new set of laws? Are gays being hunted down in the streets and taken to concentration camps? Are they forced to use separate fountains? What about bis? Are they afforded half the protection? What about cross-dressers? If they're still straight, do they count? Now let's get a little ridiculous. What about polygamists, incest-cases or peds or beasty-boys and girls? They're people too. They have their own rights don't they? How do we define deviancy? Where do you draw the line? If you're going to protect one specific type of sexual orientation, why not the rest? Why does one get special treatment? See, boys and girls and those questioning, once you start down this path, there really is no end.
You can look at it from a moral, possibly even Christian (did he just say the Cword?) point of view and draw a line. That's what society has always done and how it's remained structured over the millenia. Or you can take the new amoral approach advocated by so many on the Left, and we can travel down this road. Allow private citizens to be private, to live their lives and discriminate or not discriminate. Legislate for them to do it and all you do is cause misery.
For many, it's also important to note that this is a matter of morality. There are many in this city and state who consider such behavior immoral and not genetic. The gay community sees them as backwards and unaccepting. These individuals see the gays as immoral and sinful. Which is right? For our entire history as a nation, the latter opinion prevailed. I've not seen good arguments for change. I've seen common sense people just wanting to live their lives and not be attacked for who they are. And I've seen people with defined agendas who want everyone else to believe as they do even if they have to legislate it. Again, how is legislating that such behavior is moral and worth protection any different than those who labelled it immoral and worth contempt trying to legislate against it? You can't really do it either way without sounding hypocritical.
Again, I ask those who advocate such legislation, if you don't trust the government to fight wars or to spend your tax dollars wisely, why are you trusting them to tell you who to associate with or how to run your private business? Where do you draw the line of trust with government? Either keep them confined to a certain set of duties, say with the Feds for example, those specifically delegated to them in the Constitution, or go George Orwell and let them run everything. Advocating an in-between stance is hypocrisy and such arguments hold about as much water as a sieve. Should it be the business of the city to tell its land and business owners who they can and cannot have on thatland? If you believe so, you're advocating a position identical to thosea dvocated by racists and bigots for centuries, only from the other side. Which one of you, then, is right? Which one of you is moral? Neither. Don't kid yourself.
posted by Rob Beck | 5:59 AM
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