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- Newsgroups: co.general
- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!agate!boulder!csn!slimer!eric
- From: eric@igs.com (Eric Janik)
- Subject: Colorado Ski Report
- Message-ID: <1993Jan12.010301.5437@igs.com>
- Sender: eric@igs.com (Eric Janik)
- Organization: IGS, Inc.
- Distribution: co
- Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 01:03:01 GMT
- Lines: 42
-
- In article <1993Jan8.053155.19529@ncar.ucar.edu> Jim Rosinski writes:
-
- I see no reason why you should feel threatened by homosexuals. On the
- other hand, always fear laws ostensibly designed to protect "rights",
- which in fact act to deny freedom of association. Do you *really* want
- the government telling businesses who they must hire or otherwise
- associate with?
-
- I, too, am suspicious of this kind of infringement happening. On the other
- hand, I believe that the "law" and business in practice are quite different
- from from an ideal model of "free association".
-
- No company is forced to hire anybody management considers flakey. There are
- plenty of reasons for not hiring someone without going into race, religion,
- or sexual behavior. "We didn't think this person would get along in our shop"
- is a perfectly valid excuse.
-
- In practice, I think the issue manifests itself more as a conflict between
- a supervisor and a subordinate in a corporate situation. At the time of hire,
- no problem existed. After time and changes, people stop getting along and
- people end up saying or doing something regrettable.
-
- In practice, a civil rights law makes it explicitly unacceptable for an
- employer to tell the employment office, "We fired him because he's a fag."
- It would also prevent the employment board from denying benefits on this
- basis. Still, Colorado is a "right to work" (sic) state, which means employ-
- ers can fire anybody they choose not to work with.
-
- In the matter of civil rights laws, I have no grudge against a community that
- believes it can ensure the rights of individuals without special rules, and
- makes a reasonable effort to do so. I do generally believe that less rules
- is better rules, if it still gets the job done. I am just pessimistic that
- ruling majorities will always show due respect for the minority groups and
- dissenters they overrule. This is the field where I believe the debate
- between liberals and conservatives should happen.
-
- What galls me about Ammendment 2 is that besides invalidating sexual
- orientation as a basis for charging discriminition, it is mean, dishonest,
- cowardly, and it prevents communities from considering all reasonable options.
-
- Eric Janik
- Lyons, Colorado
-