There was a lesson that could be learned from the Matthew Shepherd murder. No one was saying that his death meant more than anyone else’s, just that it was an event that could be used to wake people up to the problems that gays faced.
There’s also the fact that gay people identified with Shepherd, as they had pretty much all been victims of hateful attitudes, and often violence as well, and thus could sympathize with him.
Your point would only be valid if somehow the “gay community” made incorrect claims in regards to the facts. Since I don’t know that anyone has tried to claim that gays murdering other gays doesn’t occur or is not worthy of attention, I don’t really see what you’re complaining about.
I understand people complaining about the MS case.But if you watched the news they acted like there were groups of straights going around looking for gay victims to kill and we need to pass new laws to protect gays.These are just feel good laws. Laws not designed to help anyone but just to get votes and pretend they are solving a problem
If someone attacks you you have every right as anyone else to legal protection. People saying gays are not legally protected are wrong.
I think you’re mixing up two separate (albeit related) issues:
Firing: I think that we can agree (and I’m making a big assumption here) that firing someone solely because they are gay is a bad thing. Yes? As mentioned above, the burden of proof would be on the person fired to prove the discrimination, but where it does exist (and it does) the courts would be justified in ruling against the company.
Hiring and quotas: In this instance, the circumstances are a little different. Firstly, you can’t tell (or at least not conclusively) whether or not someone’s gay at a job interview, and by law you’re not allowed to ask. Ditto things like religion and marital status, although in all three cases there may be indications (a wedding ring, a Star of David pendant, etc.). AFAIK, there are no legally mandated hiring quotas for any of these categories.
In areas such as race and gender, however, discrimination becomes a much more serious problem. You don’t need to ask whether someone is black or female; it’s (usually!) evident to the eyes. Add to that a tradition of discrimination against minority groups, and you’ve got a strong reason for the law to keep an eye on hiring trends (and, to a certain extent, to redress past injustices through Affirmative Action).
To sum up:
To fire someone for reasons other than job performance (i.e. not doing their job properly) or business reasons (i.e. general layoffs) is a bad thing, and it does not in any way constitute a “special right” to be protected from this.
There are currently no Affirmative Action quotas in the US (and I’m sure someone will correct me on this if I’m wrong) requiring that a certain percentage of a company’s employees be homosexual. This, therefore, is an irrelevant argument.
Ah – I get it. You’re talking specifically about “hate crimes” legislation, a controversial issue about which even the GLBT community is not in complete agreement. The Matthew Shepherd murder was of particular interest to a large degree because it occurred during a period in which the legislation was being hotly debated (in courts, legislatures and the media).
On the one hand, “hate crimes” legislation is intended to redress a societal bias against minorities (here referring not only homosexuals but also racial minorities and other groups traditionally targetted by bigots) by making penalties for said “hate crimes” stronger. This also has an effect on the judicial system, where there are many instances of minority-bashers receiving lighter penalities.
Obversely (and IMHO) there is insufficient evidence as of yet as to whether the additional penalties do have a deterrent effect, and in the meantime the legislation creates an apparent two-tier system. The metaphorical jury is still out on that one.
The purpose of sentence enhancers is not merely deterrence. IMO, the risk of recidivism is higher for bias crimes than for crimes of passion. People who kill out of group-identified hate are more likely to kill again upon release than are people who kill one person out of momentary rage or calculated hate. The latter person may be rehabilitated; I doubt the former can be. As such, I think hate crime murders justify life imprisonment without possibility of parole (or possibly death, but I do not generally approve of the death penalty), while the other type of murderer I speak of should have a reasonable chance of parole or release after a term of incarceration sufficient to effect rehabilitation and to provide effective deterrence.
Deterrence is not the only factor that goes into fixing sentences; in some cases, it is not even the major factor to be considered.
Your points are well taken but people will be affaid to lay off someone who is gay for fear of being sued.And how will the company show they are fair to gays?By keeping records
of the number of gay employees is the only way they show
they don’t discriminate against gays.
check out these link http://www.indegayforum.org/articles/miller20.html
and from this one
http://www.heritage.org/library/categories/crimelaw/bgup168.html
Current civil rights law allows
individuals to sue an employer over legitimate and nondiscriminatory
hiring practices if these practices happen to produce a racial or
ethnic mix in the employer’s work force that is different from that
found in the general population. A statistical disparity between the racial or ethnic composition of an employer’s work force and that of
the general population is called a “disparate impact.” The Danforth
bill would alter the standards in disparate impact suits, making it
more likely that employers will lose in court, and more expensive for
them even when they win. This would encourage employers to try to
avoid being sued in the first place by giving special preferences to
groups that otherwise might be under-represented in the employer’s
work force.
I live in Cook County, Illinois, which has an ordinance which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing, and public accomodations. My employer did not inquire as to whether I was gay when I was hired.
Many localities have similiar laws. Can you provide any example of a company doing business in such a locality which has instituted a policy of requesting their employees to identify their sexual preference in order to maintain a “quota” of gay employees?
Yes, this is in response to employers who would lie in court about the real reason they fired a minority employee. If employers followed the law and did not fire (or refuse to hire) minorities, or otherwise try to circumvent the law, we wouldn’t have to change the law to get around their efforts to circumvent it.
The normal course of action in an EOE lawsuit is for the employee to sue, the employer to provide a “pretext” reason for the firing (usually something along the lines of trivial violations of company rules, or an unexplainable allegation of poor work performance). The employee then returns by showing that (a) the employer historically has not fired other similiarly-situated employees who are white/male and (b) the employer has a disproportionate workforce, both in order to discredit the employer’s pretextual reason. The court (or the jury) then decides who to believe.
We wouldn’t have this problem if employers merely complied with the law and ceased hiring and firing people on the basis of race, gender, and sexual preference; but some employers refuse to give up their sacred right to be assholes. If you must blame anyone, blame the bigots who continue to insist on their non-existent right to be bigots.
Explain how a company being sued can prove they do hire gays? I am not saying companies should tell tell employees
they have identify their sexual prefrence. But if they are sued by someone claiming the company discrimanates(sp) against gays don’t they have to somehow show they do have gays working for them ?
Since GLBT groups are they ones claiming discrimination
why don’t you give some examples of companies that discriminate against gays?
Sometimes people who are fired for legitimate reasons (i.e. poor work performance) attempt to claim discrimination. This should not color one’s view of real instances of discrimination, of course.
Sometimes it only takes one idiot middle manager in an otherwise tolerant company to stir up trouble.
In the interest of maintaining a constructive dialogue, let us avoid tarring with too broad a brush, please.
Religious beliefs are protected by the second amendment.
I do see people on the left attack religious people all the time but I don’t see people losing their job over it.
Even so firing someone for their belief is wrong.
Show some proof that gays are losing their jobs for being gay.
I have already posted some names of people who do go around
hunting gays to kill. But all I can find are gay. Please
list a name of people who go around killing gays. Who themselves is not gay.
Back this up with a citation or retract it. **
[/QUOTE]
herb Baumeister killed somewhere between 16 and 60 gay men.
Jeffery Dalmer killed 17 , John Wayne Gacy killed 35.
Not all of them vitims were gay ,some were just tricked into being in the wrong place at the wrong time. these are just the most famous killers of gay men.
But all of these innocent people were killed and no one in the gay community spoke out like they did with Matthew Shepherd. I want all convicted killers to have the maxium punishment by law .But for the gay community to act like gays are only killed by straights and there needs to be new laws to protect gays it is a total lie.The
**
[/QUOTE]
John Wayne Gacy said he was straight. In every interview he did, he said he was straight. This does not support your claims.
Dahmer also said he was not gay. I interviewed, George Polermo, the forensic pathologist who interviewed Dahmer to judge competency. Dahmer did not see himself as being gay.
Serial killers do not kill for sexual pleasure. It is all about power. This is pathology you are talking about and NOT sexuality. But, of course, since it is bizarre it is fun to paint and taint gay people with this because it fulfills what you think of them. Nice try, but no cigar.
First, a nitpick. Religious beliefs are protected by the first amendment, not the second. Esprix’s question still stands, though. It’s illegal to discriminate based on religion, and religious beliefs, like sexual orientation, and unlike race or sex, are usually not obvious. The EEOC also doesn’t require records to be kept of the religious beliefs of the hired. So it would seem that that would be one example of an anti-discrimination law that doesn’t involve quotas of any sort.
Fortunately for both of us, both sexual orientation and religious beliefs are covered under proposed hate crime legislation, so heterosexual Christians and homosexual Unitarian Universalists are both protected.
I’m glad we are in agreement - firing someone for being Christian is wrong, just like firing someone for being gay is wrong. How one lives one’s life ought have no bearing on one’s work life.
I’d wager people are fired for being gay at least as often as people are fired for their religious beliefs.
I might also add that non-discriminatory policies also protect heterosexuals from being fired from gay-owned businesses unfairly; similarly, it also protects heterosexuals who may inadvertently be perceived as gay and then discriminated against accordingly.