🚀 go-pugleaf

Mike Mills wrote:
> 
> Mr. Anderson:
> 
>      It's obvious from your post that you think an employer should be able
> to fire people because they are gay or lesbian.  You are an admitted
> bigot. 

It doesn't sound from Anderson's post like he's particularly fond
of gay people.

But I disagree that thinking an employer should be able to fire 
people for being gay or lesbian makes someone a bigot.

I think they *shouldn't* fire people, but I think they should
*be able* to.  Who you hire and fire should fall under "freedom
of association" clause of the first amendment; people should
be able to choose employees, friends, business partners, whatever, 
with no interference from anyone else.  That goes for race and
religion, too, IMO.

Having all sorts of extraneous criteria when you hire people,
("I won't hire gays because they'll prance all over the office
talking about sex; and you know those black people will steal 
things and the mexicans will be lazy, and women will talk
on the phone too much, and ...") will shrink the pool of
applicants a company has to choose from, and ultimately hurt
their competitiveness.  Bigotry is its own punishment.  It's
bad not just because its bad, but because its stupid.

I think giving bigots enough rope to hang themselves will be
more effective than continuing to expand the current strategy
of forcing them to deal with people they're uncomfortable with.
It's creating a backlash, rather than getting them to
reconsider their perceptions, IMO.

> That's fine.  I wasn't talking to you.  I was talking to the closet
> bigots who were pretending that they can be against ENDA without being for
> discrimination.  

By the way, I agree with you that this argument is often used
to justify bigotry.  But you *can* be against both ENDA and
job discrimination.  Just because you think a thing is bad doesn't
mean it has to be illegal.  People should say "please" and "thank
you" and hold doors open for people with lots of baggage.  But
there shouldn't be laws to that effect.

                     ____
 Chris Bogart        \  /  http://www.quetzal.com
 Boulder, CO          \/   cbogart@quetzal.com
 Chair, Libertarian Party of Boulder County