🚀 go-pugleaf

dave5@advtech.uswest.com (David Ensign) wrote:
>
>It looks like you worked for a pretty strange company.  With all my previous
>employers, racial/gender parity has been a goal.  Even though parity was never
>achieved, that didn't stop them from hiring the best candidate for the job.  I
>believe the situation you're describing is not necessary under today's EEO
>laws.  A company must protect itself with documentation and practices
>to demonstrate conformance with EEO regulations, but I don't thing they need
>to undergo waiting periods or hire less qualified employees.  I'm sure there
>are some horror stories, but I think they're less common than current rhetoric
>would indicate.

The problem is that there are tons of "horror" stories.  You are correct 
that the EEO regulations do not require this.  However, a number of 
companies (and I believe it is more wide spread than you) really do have 
to keep track of "norms" so that they can be in compliance.  I recall an 
EEOC employee saying that they are no quotas, however, the company being 
sued did not have sufficient number of black employees on that day, so 
therefore they were guilty.  They most funny thing about this case was 
that in the company of 500 people 4 were white males and the rest were 
"minority".  On any given day (the company had great turnover) there 
could have been mostly black.  However, on that given day it was mostly 
Hispanic, therefore, this company was guilty of EEO violations. How you 
win EEOC cases are to show the number of each "minority" that you have 
employeed, and then you win or lose.


>Anyway, this seems off the topic to me.  I've never seen proposals for
>making gay/lesbian a suspect class, so I can't see why this argument would
>be used in support of amendment 2 or against anti-discrimination legislation.
>In fact, I'm aware of no companies that keep any data whatsoever with regard
>to their employees' sexual orientations.
>
>If you want to debate current employment laws concerning the mix of women
>and minorities that's fine.  But it's completely irrelevant to the sexual
>orientation discrimination topic.  There is no movement afoot to request
>affirmative action of any sort for gay/lesbian folks, and I doubt whether
>any such movement will materialize.

This is why that I think this is on topic.  When you add sexual 
preference to the list of other AA checklist that the government gets 
involved in making sure there is no discrimination, then it seems to me 
that you are asking to request AA for GLB folks. Why I am against sexual 
preference as poart of the AA checklist is there are very few cases that 
win discrimination suits without proper documentation on how many other 
employees are of that "persuasion" (persuasion meaning the list of 
government watched items and is not meant as derogatory at all -- I could 
not think of another word).  You are right, I know of no companies that 
keep records of peoples sexual preference.  In fact, if companies were to 
ask that, my guess would be that the GLB lobby and watchdog groups would 
be extremely angry and call for a boycott of those products.  Media 
circus would soon follow and probably the government would say that you 
can not ask those questions.  If this is the case, then how can a company 
defend itself against lawsuits?

Although I did vote for A2, after reading this newsgroup I become more 
against A2.  It was not written fairly.  However, I still do not believe 
that adding sexual preference to the list of discrimination is something 
that I like and I will continue to fight it.  Please do not say that I am 
a hateful person.  The more I hear that in public, the more I believe 
that the fight between the 2 radical sides of each goup will intensify 
and NOTHING good can become from that.  I have nothing against 
homosexuals at all.  I think that it is horrible when anyone is fired, 
thrown out of there place of abode or anything of the like, for this 
reason.  (I am about to explain why I am not a "hateful" guy.  I know 
some are going to read the rest of the paragraph and take it negatively, 
but it is not meant to be.)  When I heard that my favorite restaurant 
fired all the gay employees because they were gay (Cracker Barrell did 
that a number of years ago), I have never eaten there since, and I tell 
everyone that I will never eat there again and I will never eat there 
again.  The jeweler that I use is gay (in fact I did not know that until 
someone told me and then I saw a bunch of gay literature in her store) 
she does excellent work and I continue to go there.  Most of the 
professors that I correspond with since college are gay.  In fact, we 
have had this discussion many times.  

I do not know the answer on how to solve this problem, but I really 
believe that adding it to the AA list is not the right way.  I think the 
government should stay out of what people decide to do in the privacy of 
their own home (or at least what people agree to do).


chuck