The crux is "If it's my business, it's my business." - Edit 2
Before modification by Joel at 23/10/2012 09:14:31 PM
I was discussing with someone the other day how best to tackle private employment discrimination. There has been a suggestion that sexual orientation could be protected by the "basis of sex" clauses of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This actually could work to some extent, because sexual orientation discrimination is discimination on the basis of the sex of the person's associations (or their associations' associations, etc.), which is analogous to miscegenation in the workplace. Where it fails is when the employer says they aren't even considering the person's orientation or relationships, but merely their politics. For instance, if they can fire a heterosexual who displays a Human Rights Watch bumper sticker on their vehicle, then they can fire a homosexual for the same thing. It's the "I don't care if you're gay -- just don't throw your politics in my face" attitude.
That is a tricky issue. I know I wouldn't want to lose the right to fire someone for politically associating with Neo-Nazis. If it's my business, it's my business. But at the same time, it isn't currently possible for a gay person to disassociate their politics from their sexual orientation. So firing someone for their politics seems all too handy an excuse for firing someone who also oh-so-coincidentally just happens to be gay.
That is a tricky issue. I know I wouldn't want to lose the right to fire someone for politically associating with Neo-Nazis. If it's my business, it's my business. But at the same time, it isn't currently possible for a gay person to disassociate their politics from their sexual orientation. So firing someone for their politics seems all too handy an excuse for firing someone who also oh-so-coincidentally just happens to be gay.
That covers a lot of ground, and I tried to avoid going there after getting into it a while back over equal opportunity housing and related laws. The bottom line is that we cannot, or should not, ban bigotry itself. Free democratic societies tend to gradually reduce bigotry by ostracizing bigots (which is not "bigotry against bigots" because it rejects behavior, not people.) What we cannot do is let the majority dictate what everyone believes or how they choose to dispose of their own property. Unfortunately, that means businesses ought to be able to post "Irish need not apply" signs if willing to deal with the loss of trade such practices provoke.
It is less tricky than it is a case of tolerating views we despise for the sake of protecting those we cherish; such is liberty. We can and should advocate and organize against bigotry, but by social rather than legal means (which applies to hate crime laws, too; where I am from all murders are created equal.) The only exception to that rule should be in public service, which manifestly involves the law and is legally required to provide equal protection by the law.
This is why (as I think you argued similarly elsewhere) it isn't always possible to simply generalize the solution. Generalizing in this case would take away too many personal freedoms of business owners. Sometimes protections have to be tailored to specific groups in order to protect even the very people who despise them.
The moment we specify particular groups we implicitly condone discrimination for/against them. That is much of why, half a century after amending the Constitution to give blacks the vote, we had to amend it AGAIN to give women the vote: Because instead of asserting a universal civil right for all law-abiding adult citizens, we specified one disenfranchised group and ignored the rest. Meanwhile, American Indians and immigrants from Asia and Latin America looked on, wondering when it would be their turn for democracy and civil rights. And, of course, because we specified certain rights for specific groups, the same old bigots immediately went to work crafting ways to circumvent the Constitution and restore the racist status quo; it took them but a decade to accomplish and America a century to reverse.
Rights are either universal or non-existent. Any non-universal right remains a mere privilege indulged/revoked by a ruling elite as convenient.