🚀 go-pugleaf

On 3 Apr 1996 03:36:37 -0700 Paul Ciszek (pciszek@nyx10.cs.du.edu) wrote:

> Is being a member of a protected class a constitutional right?

> Should constitutional rights be contingent on race, gender, sexual
> orientation, etc.?

The constitutional right in question here is not the right to be a 
protected class, it's the right of access to government.  The reason that 
the amendment was struck down in the courts is because it prevents a 
specific group of people from ever even *attempting* to pass a law in 
their favor.  Thus, a group of people no longer has access to the law.

> I ask this because I am denied membership in any protected class
> because of my race, gender, and so forth.  (I am male, caucasian,
> and hetero.)

Have you heard of the Jenny Craig suit?  (Three men sued their company
because they claimed that they were denied promotions and harassed by
their female bosses.) This suit would have been impossible without gender
discrimination laws. 

In New York City (where there is a sexual orientation discrimination 
ordinance) a woman is suing her employer (the Metropolitan Opera) on the 
grounds that she was denied promotions because she is heterosexual.

Anti-discrimination laws should (in theory) protect everyone.  In fact, 
sexual orientation non-discrimination laws cover your *percieved* 
orientation so if you are straight and fired because your boss thinks you 
are gay, you are covered.

If you're worried about quotas, every sexual orientation non- 
discrimination law I've seen explicitly forbids quotas.  (They also
exempt religious organizations.)

Alex.

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Alex Elliott
Yale University Physics Department
New Haven, CT, USA

email:  elliott@minerva.cis.yale.edu
  WWW:  http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~elliott
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