Wed 5 Dec 2007
Just as the Governor is forcing taxpayer-funded alternative livestyles down our throats, the City of Scottsdale is now embracing the homosexual agenda.
East Valley Tribune article / Arizona Republic article
Incidentally, Sonoran Alliance reported on these changes coming as early as September, 2006.
Cathi Herrod, President of the Center for Arizona Policy, issued a good summary and call to action:
Last night, the Scottsdale City Council caved in to the demands of advocates of homosexual behavior and voted 4-3 to add “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to the list of individuals receiving special employment protections as employees of the City of Scottsdale. Those voting “yes” were Mayor Mary Manross, Council Members Wayne Ecton, Robert Littlefield, and Betty Drake. Councilmen Tony Nelssen, Ron McCullagh, and Jim Lane all voted against the measure. To thank these council members for standing up to the pressure, please send them an email. Their email addresses are: jlane@scottsdaleaz.gov, tnelssen@scottsdaleaz.gov, and rmccullagh@scottsdaleaz.gov.
I urge you to take a moment and read CAP General Counsel Peter Gentala’s testimony against the ordinance available here.
No evidence was presented to the City Council that discrimination against homosexuals has been an issue for Scottsdale city employees. In fact, to get a picture of any community-wide discrimination against homosexuals, a council member asked the Chief of Police about crimes against the GLBT community. The Chief of Police responded that last year there were 8,970 violent crimes in Scottsdale. Only one of these was committed against a gay couple, and it has not been determined whether that crime was motivated by animosity towards homosexuals. This year, there have been two reported incidents, and both are still under investigation. Those are the facts. But over the last year, the media has portrayed Scottsdale as being under a wave of systematic crime against homosexuals. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What no council members or city staff were able to answer were the practical questions of what the ordinance will mean. Will men who “identify” themselves as women now be allowed to use city park and library women’s restrooms instead of the men’s room? Will the city now have to spend millions of dollars to remodel restrooms? Has the city opened itself up to be the target of new lawsuits based on fuzzy definitions of “gender identity”? Will Christian employees be punished or fired for exercising their First Amendment rights and voicing their deeply held convictions about sexual behavior?
No one knows the answers to these questions. What we do know is that there are no facts that support this ordinance. Its real purpose is to incrementally pass measures recognizing homosexual behavior and relationships that will lead to the legalization of same-sex “marriage.”
Our hats off to The Center for Arizona Policy and especially to Peter Gentala!
December 6th, 2007 at 7:17 am
Special employment protection. Yet there are no cases of complaints from the, if any, current GLBT employees of Scottsdale. There are no reported complaints from individuals seeking employment with the City of Scottsdale.
So what protection will they receive. Are there behaviors that would be unseemly without it? Are there issues stirring that need this to cover them?
I went to high school during the time Title IX was implemented; my first couple of years we had GAA. It was fun but not like varsity sports. Girls could be cheerleaders. (Yes I was) GAA disappeared within a year or two. Then we were allowed equal access under Title IX. If you had it for boys, you had to offer something for girls.
Now many years later, very successful programs with great student involvement are gone or being eliminated to allow equal access for women. I do not feel badly about equal access; I feel badly that anyone would have an opportunity eliminated.
The emphasis has shifted from quality to quantity. I do not complain that young women of today have greater opportunity but the loss has been to another group. Maybe they had too much, maybe they didn’t. Debating the specifics of that issue is not the point. All too often when issues of “fairness” and “protected class” get involved it means someone gets, to quote a previous writer, hosed while the protected entity is given an unfair allowance.
With no complaints or evidence of need, one asks why and what will be the reality of such protection?
December 6th, 2007 at 8:26 am
It puzzles me to see arguments that protection against discrimination amounts to “special rights.”
They are constitutional rights.
Upon reflection, I guess I’d agree that such rights really are special – and worthy of protection.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Why is protection from being fired or discriminated against because you are gay considered a special right?
Fictional Example:
How many of you think that either of these things is NOT discrimination?
a) A city manager chooses to fire an employee who runs the department of transportation upon learning that they are gay or lesbian?
b) A city manager hears that someone in their personal life attends gay bars from time to time. This person is up for a promotion. The city manager chooses someone else upon hearing the rumor.
In each case, the law change in Scottsdale would give that person the right to file an employment claim. They do not have that right now. In each case above, both are clearly discrimination.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Ann,
You said:
“Yet there are no cases of complaints from the, if any, current GLBT employees of Scottsdale.”
And that might be because there’s no guarantee they won’t be canned for making the complaint because there’s no protections for them when the complaint it lodged.
“All too often when issues of ‘fairness’ and ‘protected class’ get involved it means someone gets, to quote a previous writer, hosed while the protected entity is given an unfair allowance.”
I can’t see how anyone gets hosed on this, other than the person openly voicing or acting on their hostility towards gays and lesbians, and I’m really not too concerned about that.
I mean, this from Cathi Herrod:
“Will Christian employees be punished or fired for exercising their First Amendment rights and voicing their deeply held convictions about sexual behavior?”
is ridiculous. Most businesses already have rules about proselytizing on the job – and follow EEOC regs on religion in the workplace and don’t let people go beyond that. If someone’s voicing their deeply held convictions about sexual behavior on the job, they’re either not doing their job or they work for either the Westboro Baptist Church or Castle Boutique.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Ann,
First, the law passed would not be an affirmative action program in any way. It is about not being discriminated against.
Why are there no claims? For one reason, it may be the case that people do not claim now because they do not have the right to under law. If discriminated against, they take it because they have no legal recourse and could be arbitrarily fired.
Another reason might be that Scottsdale has a series of managers and employees that do not discriminate now. They are possibly good managers who care less what a person does in their private life.
The reason for the law, even if their is no claim now, is that someday their might be such an instance of discrimination. It would give the employee the right to make a claim.
Last, economists not so long ago reminded us of the economic costs of discrimination…racial, ethnic, gender, religious, and yes, sexual orientation.
What most models tell us is that discrimination is inefficient, that it harms markets, and frankly it has the capacity of harming economic development.
It is only one reason why the business community, Mayor Walkup, Peter Likins, and a host of others opposed the the marriage amendment.
This measure is not even about marriage, which is still a bit of a lighting rod. This is about discrimination in employment.
I would expect more out of some women here that might have faced discrimination in employment themselves and that would take advantage of the same system of claims if they were fired because of who they were.
December 6th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Hey all. I agree with you all against the whole employment thing but I wonder what everyone thinks about a hate crimes type bill- with a high burden of proof of course, like yelling “die F@g” or something along those lines. So the perp would get assault charge plus a hate crime charge.
December 6th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Can we put hate crimes in a context, just as we do violence? Like in “justifiable” homicide? What is the crime of using an ethnic slur when a more serious crime is being committed? Say you’re walking down the street and you get jumped by someone who’s obviously from Albania. You get beaten and robbed, but the escaping mugger slips on a banana peel, hits his head on the curb, and is left barely conscious. You run over, pick up your wallet, and say “that’s what you get you freaking potato-eating euro trash whatever-the-slur-is-for-you-people” just as the cops arrive. You get arrested for a hate crime, eh? Thirty seconds earlier you could have killed the person and not been charged. Now you have to register as a hate criminal?
December 6th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Could you give us a different analogy there Tim, because what you described is not a crime. An omission to act is not a crime in almost all jurisdictions. Hate crimes attach when you commit a particular crime, with the additional mens rea element of intentionally committing the crime against a particular racial/ethnic/religious group on purpose. We do this because we think that there is additional moral culpability for committing a crime under these circumstances.
So the real question becomes: Do you think it is more morally culpable to attack someone because they are gay instead of being straight?
December 6th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Well I mean in the commission of a violent act, not just saying some words. Thats an infringment on free speech. Hate speech sure, but I don’t think that should be outlawed. I am thinking along the lines of you beat someone up and yelling the n word while beating them up and your apt has David Duke posters all over, your personal blog has lots of white supremist stuff on it. All that evidence taken together shows that you did that action in because of hate of a specific reason, not because your on meth and needed the money so you robbed someone. It would just carry a 2nd charge ontop of the violent crime, NOT in place of.
December 6th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
If anyone can get special constitutional protection for their sexual behavior than an argument can be made to have any other type of behavior protected.
For example, the man who does not like to shower, shave, brush his teeth or hair. Why doesn’t the city of Scottsdale extend protection for his hygenic orientation?
Or what about the woman who only eats beans as part of her diet and can’t help but sharing her methane emissions with her co-workers? Should the City of Scottsdale protect her dietary orientation?
What if a sect of Mormon fundamentalists relocate to the City of Scottsdale from Colorado City and demand that their polysexual orientation be protected?
Does anyone see where this is going? Before we know it, anyone and everyone is going to demand special rights for their personal behavior. Dirtbags, Vegans and Polygamists will all be recognized as a protected class.
My point in all this is that we all already have human rights. The continued fragmentization and balkanization is only making us more divided. Just about every crime is a crime of hate – whether it be against another human being or oneself. Many of the laws we think we need only create more animosity.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
So you think it is perfectly fine and hunky-dory to fire someone because they are gay…and that they should not have the right (if provent that it was bias) to file a discrimination claim?
I don’t see any difference at all between this and firing a woman because she is a woman, firing someone because they are of the Mormon faith, or any other reason.
This is stone age thinking.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Frank: another analogy is when the mugger admits he targeted his victim because the mark was white. Meaning rich and not likely to be armed. Is that a hate crime? Does it get prosecuted as such? The hate crime issue is off topic on this threat, though.
I think part of the protect marriage movement is problematic. I don’t need government to protect my particular marriage, and if I suddenly lost the extra tax benefits from marriage and kids, and the legal presumptions at all levels of government, I guess they could be replaced by powers of attorney, contracts, and all that. My point is that the institution of hetero marriage is ingrained into our other institutions.
I read the license agreement for some software the other day, and for the price of one copy anyone in my “household” can use it. So, if I live at the frat house I have 50 “brothers” getting a freebie.
Anyway, most of my taxes are paid in sales and property tax, which are not really subject to social engineers raising or lowering them. But Congress and the state of AZ, via the IRS and DOR, give me huge benefits, if I am a heterosexual with kids. So conservative or not, I’m not inclined to support Ron Paul or any “flat tax” even though a bunch of conservatives are pulling that wagon.
So I don’t demand special rights. They are just given to me. Why is that?
December 7th, 2007 at 12:02 am
It is never fine to fire anyone for a reason not related to his or her employment. It is never fine to target anyone negatively based on something over which they have no control, such as skin color or a choice guaranteed by our Constitution; among those religion and sexuality.
Unless of course, your behavior in the work place is adversely affected by your sexuality or religion it should not be an issue. I’m too busy praying to work, I read my Bible when I should be writing a report, I speak to other employees about their sure destination to Hell if they do not convert to my way of thinking and then offer all the Biblical support for my assertion preventing them from completing their work. That is not free speech or religion and my pay is not contingent on my successful proselytizing. I’ll leave the sexual indiscretions out.
Why is it not sufficient to have a policy that outlines the requirements for documentation of cause to dismiss? The specificity of this particular policy sets sexuality apart and identifies it as such a protected class that the supervisor of a GLBT employee may actually feel impaired in their ability to manage employees.
The case of some manager getting rid of an employee because they found out the employee was gay just doesn’t fly if there is any consideration of documentation of cause. It is not that easy in a government system to fire anybody but the numbers of poorly performing government employees that are not dismissed for fear of an EEOC complaint are many.
December 7th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Earlier I made my case for another layer of constitutional protection for those with an unusual hygenic orientation. After you read this, you’ll wonder why Mr. Seeman isn’t pursuing a lawsuit on that basis:
NYC Doorman Suspended For Having Bad Breath
http://wcbstv.com/local/doorman.bad.breath.2.605907.html
Opening the door to the Gracie Garden Apartments, a four-story building on E. 89th Street, and greeting tenants is what 60-year-old Jonah Seeman lives for.
“I just say, ‘Good morning, have a nice day, smile, feel good, don’t worry about anything,’” Seeman tells CBS 2.
But despite being very popular among the building’s residents, Seeman was suspended from his job as doorman for one day, without pay, for having bad breath.
“It’s embarrassing,” Seeman told CBS 2. “It hurt my feelings.”
According to a letter from management, Seeman was sent home two other times for the same smelly reasons, but he denies that’s why he went home. Then on Nov. 21, Seeman received a letter from Cooper Square Realty that read: “We can no longer tolerate the fact that you frequently have severe breath odor while on duty, that is bad breath.”
“I was absolutely mystified,” he says. “What are you putting me through? It’s the holiday season.”
Seemen, a Brooklyn resident who supports his 81-year-old mother, says he is now avoiding food with onions and garlic, and he brushes his teeth and gargles with mouthwash everyday.
“I use mints at work, I have mouthwash, I wear cologne, I have deodorant,” he says.
Some residents at the building say they have noticed Seeman’s breath, but others say they haven’t. They all agree he is a nice man and a great doorman.
“He’s a sweetheart. He’s a wonderful, wonderful man,” says resident Stephen Sholinsky. “He’d do anything for you and you can count on him for anything.”
Meanwhile, Seeman has filed a complaint with his union and is looking forward to going back to work tomorrow.
December 7th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Now that I think about Mr. Seeman’s situation, he actually has a case for discrimination on the basis of dietary and hygenic orientation!
December 8th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Ann, I appreciate your last post very much. But I don’t think your plan is workable and it doesn’t get at the need for protecting people who are discriminated against. I guess would could have a GENERAL discrimination clause…
The difference, however, is that we know from experience that people have been fired, not hired, and not promoted because of their sexuality…as with people’s race, gender, and religion. The law attempts to fix this…provide a remedy where one does not exist.
We both agree that people should not be fired in any way that is unrelated to their job or the economics of the place. The only difference here is that we are speaking in a loud voice…through our law…that it is as wrong to be fired for your sexuality (or not promoted or not hired) as it is for race, gender, and religion.
I think that is just and that it is right.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:51 am
All you homosexuals, just like all other minorities want to cry so you get something for nothing. Upon your way of thinking, child molesters will soon get protection too because, “they can’t help it”.