Civil Rights Law and Individual Liberty

[Bill Mutz]

Like I really care. I know what I'm doing and that's blocking you wherever you turn.

As he unintentionally admits above, ApologiaPhoenix has been intentionally trying to derail discussion on this issue. Frankly, the only reason I didn't see this at first blush is that I have a very bad habit of assuming the best about people, even when I am given positive evidence to the contrary. If I had been quicker to see through his gambit, I might have been able to rescue the thread, but it wasn't meant to be.

Well, I felt that the discussion was going in a very positive direction prior to his unpleasant intrusion. I would like to continue on the main point that I intended to address in the thread this is cited from. I feel that it is interesting and highly relevant in regard to several contemporary issues.

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=127390&page=6

The school acted in violation of our civil rights traditions regarding gay people and other minority groups. Furthermore, I think the school was infringing dangerously on the girls' freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.

One of the reasons that gay people need to be safeguarded against acts of discrimination is that private individuals or institutions are likely to cause harm to gay people intentionally for the sake of making a political statement. Being such a subject of controversy puts the gay people at risk, and society owes them some degree of protection from harm. If the school is not made to answer for these actions, it will just encourage other private schools to pursue this witchhunt mentality, where the online biographies of students or other personal/semi-personal documents are raided for "incriminating" material.

The fact that gay people's visibility puts them in the line of fire is one of the reasons that the law is harsher regarding crimes that are commited based on hate against gay people in general. We cannot allow individuals or institutions to use discrimination or violence as a means of political canvassing. This isn't just about protecting the safety of gay people: it is about protecting the sanctity of our democracy. The alternative to civil rights protections is to allow these controversial issues to become a political powderkeg, and we have already been down that road. We went down that road during the early days of the Civil Rights movement, when the black people were on the road to becoming a military insurgency. It's not like we haven't dealt with this sort of issue before.

Civil Rights is not only an important part of the American tradition, but it is a deadly serious component of what our democracy is. American democracy is something that we have honed and perfected over time, not just something that was invented at a single historical instant. Our laws against discrimination are a part of our culture and a part of our rich democratic tradition. I believe that, without these laws, we just aren't the same America.

The so-called libertarians here are claiming that it is within the rights of these private institutions to make their own rules regarding how they treat their students. Well, this is one of the inherent flaws in libertarian philosophy: in this case, the libertarians are swatting at the wasp to prevent it from preying on the fiddleback. The threats to our individual liberty are not limited to the direct influence of the government. Individuals and private institutions can be just as deadly a threat to individual rights. For example, if it were not for civil rights protections, the Southern Baptist Assembly could have declared some sort of holy war on the gay people, resulting in Southern Baptist business owners going on a firing spree against the gay people in their employ in hopes of stopping the gay rights movement through intimidation. If it were not for our laws regarding hate crimes and our willingness to create and enforce them, extreme anti-gay youths would have tried to stop the gay rights movement by going on a spree of anti-gay murders against pro-gay activists. And I do have precedent for what I am saying here if you would like evidence that this actually happens. In the case of civil rights protections, the libertarians are defending the greater threat to our liberty from the lesser threat. In the case of civil rights, the government is the vaccination, not the poison, in regard to individual liberty.

© source where applicable

Do you think that I am right this time? I like the analogy, "swatting the wasp to prevent it from preying on the fiddleback," which is the reason I put this phrase in italics. Do you think that this is the case when libertarians voice objections to laws that truly protect us from other threats to our individual liberty? When does the antidote become more harmful than the poison?

[Philosophickle]

I think you're wrong. Libertarians certainly oppose murder, whether the people are gay or straight. But no one has the individual right to someone's property. Private institutions are the result of free people's choice to build a school and spend their time teaching at the school. It is their business. They can make contracts with anyone they choose, so gay people or blacks (or straights or whites) don't have any right to the services not agreed upon in contract. They can boycott- probably with considerable success-but crying to the govt. because a religious institution won't agree to provide services to someone who's lifestyle is against everything they believe is right is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

[Bill Mutz]

I think you're wrong. Libertarians certainly oppose murder, whether the people are gay or straight.

But how is the government supposed to react when murder is being used as a means of political canvassing? Isn't this a little bit like a sort of serial murder?

But now we're onto two disparate issues, here: hate crime law and civil rights law. To be fair, if you want to continue the tangent, I won't try to tie the discussion on hate crime directly to civil rights law.

because a religious institution won't agree to provide services to someone who's lifestyle is against everything they believe is right is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

You make it sound like they were trotting around in full-leather bondage gear, not stating on some website that they were "unsure" about their sexuality.

It sounds like the school's real qualm with these girls is thus: they see the gay rights movement as some sort of threat, and I think the school was trying to vent their frustration over the real or perceived failures of measures like Prop. 8 to slow it down by setting out to make victims out of two innocent girls. I doubt the school would have taken up this witchhunt mentality if it were not for homosexuality being such a politicized issue. The reason for civil rights protections is to keep businesses and institutions from targeting innocent people to vent frustration over the failures of their political cause.

What if a circle of racist business owners conspired to make sure that Affirmative Action (which works through incentives, not penalties) failed to help the black people by going on a spree to fire every black man in their employ? What if they did this to intentionally skew the statistics to create "evidence" that Affirmative Action is "ineffective"? What if, every single time Al Sharpton spoke on television, private schools across the country decided to manufacture some excuse for expelling some of their black students and putting some terribly disreputable mark on their record that could damage their ability to enroll in some colleges? We need laws to protect civil rights because they are an essential part of our democratic process. The gays are a protected civil rights minority.

[Philosophickle]

But how is the government supposed to react when murder is being used as a means of political canvassing? Isn't this a little bit like a sort of serial murder?

I don't care how it's being used. And if you did, you wouldn't be so selective about using these kinds of cases to support your cause. Remember Matthew Shepherd?

You make it sound like they were trotting around in full-leather bondage gear, not stating on some website that they were "unsure" about their sexuality.

I didn't make it sound like anything. I called them "gay", and if that brings images of SM then that reflects on your imagination, not on me.

It sounds like the school's real qualm with these girls is thus: they see the gay rights movement as some sort of threat, and I think the school was trying to vent their frustration over the real or perceived failures of measures like Prop. 8 to slow it down by setting out to make victims out of two innocent girls. I doubt the school would have taken up this witchhunt mentality if it were not for homosexuality being such a politicized issue. The reason for civil rights protections is to keep businesses and institutions from targeting innocent people to vent frustration over the failures of their political cause.

Again, you have no idea why the school did what they did. For all you know this has always been the schools stance and it was the girls feeling empowered by the recent surge in pro-gay legislation that caused this to happen. But it doesn't matter. The school is a private business, so unless there is some clause in their contract with the girls that forbids expulsion based on sexual preference, they are in the right.

What if a circle of racist business owners conspired to make sure that Affirmative Action (which works through incentives, not penalties) failed to help the black people by going on a spree to fire every black man in their employ? What if they did this to intentionally skew the statistics to create "evidence" that Affirmative Action is "ineffective"? What if, every single time Al Sharpton spoke on television, private schools across the country decided to manufacture some excuse for expelling some of their black students and putting some terribly disreputable mark on their record that could damage their ability to enroll in some colleges? We need laws to protect civil rights because they are an essential part of our democratic process. The gays are a protected civil rights minority.

There's an easy solution to this. For one, I would never eat at an institution that banned black folk from eating there. Second, if this anti-black movement became big enough to actually cause distress to black people, I would start a business that allowed anyone to eat there. I would quickly pwn the racists in town and drive them out of business.

Besides all those examples, though, you are forgetting something very basic. The difference between you and me is one of entitlement. I don't think anyone is entitled to anything that isn't theirs and you do. That is the fundamental difference between a liberal and a conservative (libertarian).

[Bill Mutz]

I don't care how it's being used. And if you did, you wouldn't be so selective about using these kinds of cases to support your cause. Remember Matthew Shepherd?

Whether Matthew Shepherd was an actual hate crime is a little up in the air. The boys were obviously motivated by homophobia, but the act seems to lack the sort of calculated political posturing that I would expect of a bonafide hate crime. Also, I do not think that they were acting under the influence of a politically motivated religious leader. The culprits were bullies and teenaged punks. They don't have any excuse for their actions except that they were adolescent vermin. Their homophobia probably stems from a highly distorted image of masculinity and their own insecurities.

I am thinking more along the lines of beatings and murders against homosexuals that are designed specifically to frighten them into silence or into leaving a community. I think the criteria that are used for determining what actually constitutes a hate crime are clumsy and ineffective. I think that we need to heavily reconsider how we should go about differentiating between bonafide hate crimes and crimes that stem from adolescent-style homophobia.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to be serious about these distinctions when the boys very well may have gotten their distorted understanding of maculinity from an ill-meaning religious leader. What are we supposed to do? Make laws against preachers saying things that might put bad ideas in the heads of impressionable boys? That's crossing a few sensitive lines, but the problem is pretty serious when we have gay bashings of varying severity occuring on practically a daily basis.

I didn't make it sound like anything. I called them "gay"

They weren't even necessarily gay. According to the material on the website, one of the students was "unsure," and the other was "bisexual." A lot of adolescents who aren't old enough to know what they want often consider themselves to be "bisexual" until they know what it is they really want, and it usually stems from them having no real sexual experience whatsoever. The girls were probably less sexually active, if at all, than many of the heterosexual girls who attended the same school.

The school is a private business,

So are restaurants, but restaurants are not allowed to open their doors only to white people. They aren't even allowed to pick only black people or only white people to serve there as waiters.

There's an easy solution to this. For one, I would never eat at an institution that banned black folk from eating there. Second, if this anti-black movement became big enough to actually cause distress to black people, I would start a business that allowed anyone to eat there. I would quickly pwn the racists in town and drive them out of business.

So you don't think that protecting civil rights is the domain of the government at all. I disagree. Black people are an economically disadvantaged group of people, and it was actually to the advantage of businesses during the time to only open their doors to white people. It is similar to laws we have today against bringing pets into eating establishments that are not certified service animals. By and large, the black people already had other places they could go to eat. Your "open to everyone" establishment would have been seen as an amusing novelty and nothing else. It was absolutely necessary during the time period for the law to intervene.

Besides all those examples, though, you are forgetting something very basic. The difference between you and me is one of entitlement.

For very different reasons, I think so as well. Libertarians are full and plump with their belief that they are absolutely entitled to be able to do anything they want to without regard to the consequences their actions can have on others, and they resent it when the government comes along to tell them "no" or "you have to do this." They are unwilling to tolerate any restriction on what they are allowed to do, justified or not. They think that their "liberty" comes free of charge, without rules, without boundaries, without restrictions, without limitations, and with no imposition that they act with respect toward the rights of others. Their entire concept of "liberty" is utterly selfish and, by no small measure, childish.

"Whether you like it or not," our country has a long-upheld civil rights tradition, and gay people are as much a part of that tradition as the black people. If you are unable to handle the customs and traditions of our country, there are plenty of other countries that you are encouraged to try if you are unhappy with ours. You may not open businesses that only cater to one race. You may not, without good reason, employ only members of your own race. You may not exercise favoritism based on gender, sexual orientation, or any other dichotomy that is protected under our laws. Civil rights is just as much a part of our heritage as the concept of individual liberty.

You are not entitled to unlimited or unchecked "liberty" just because you behave as if it is yours by holy commandment.