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Thursday, January 28, 2010

HB 1144: Expand Protection Against Discrimination to Old Folks, Gays, and Veterans

If you enjoyed the fracas in Rapid City over their anti-bullying policy, then let's get ready to rumble on the state level. Mr. Price at Robbinsdale Radical alerts us to the welcome entry of HB 1144 into the Legislature's agenda. HB1144 adds age, sexual orientation, gender identity, and veteran or military status to the classes of persons protected from discrimination under South Dakota's Human Rights laws.

HB 1144 does not add corporations to the list of protected persons. It does, however, replace salesman with salesperson in the statute prohibiting business discrimination. Landladies, your window of opportunity to discriminate is about to close.

Local legislator Mitch Fargen (D-8/Flandreau) has the guts to put his name on this bill—Russ, Gerry, where are you? Some of my other favorite Dems are also sponsors (e.g. Pam Merchant, Bernie Hunhoff, Ben Nesselhuf). They are joined in sponsorship by some prominent Republicans, including Senator Abdallah and Representative Krebs. Let's see who starts trotting out the anti-political correctness meme against Grandma and veterans....

Gee, who's Gordon Howie going to threaten if this bill passes?

9 comments:

  1. Steve Sibson1/28/2010 8:05 PM

    Why not add fornicators and adulterers while they were at it? And how about the pre-born?

    ReplyDelete
  2. From Wikipedia: The origin of the word bigot and bigoterie in English dates back to at least 1598, via Middle French, and started with the sense of "religious hypocrite".

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't need my veteran status to be in a protected class. I can protect it myself. :-D (If veteran status were a protected class... would the Department of Homeland [Motherland] Security take veterans off of it's terror watchlist?)

    Can we add "political identity" to the protected classes? That would be swell!

    What am I thinking! Cory would never advocate that! Slippery slope... wouldn't be long before calling people "teabaggers" would be a hate crime. (How Orwellian is that phrase? Hate crime... hmmm...) Crimethink! Crimethink!

    HATE CRIMES (also known as bias-motivated crimes) occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or POLITICAL AFFILIATION. (Wiki)

    Libel is a crime. :-D (Luckily, I'm not usually a lawsuit kind of a guy...)

    Jason Bjorklund

    P.S.
    These are the main differences between our beliefs: I would go to jail for, I would fight for, and/or I would die for my beliefs. You would send others to jail for, send others to fight for, and/or have others die for your beliefs.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jason, our postscript is gratuitous macho b.s. I happen to believe that legislation is the best way to solve certain problems in civil society. Legislation is generally cheaper and more effectiv than fighting or killing. Just how do I prevent workplace discrimination or bullying in school by goin to jail, or starting a fistfight, or getting killed?

    Besides, your arrogant shower-singing is a recycling of the pablum Glenn Beck spews to reassure you that you and other insecure listeners really are superior to those darned wimpy liberals. Such words are insulting and without logic or substance. Do not dare to presume to know what I would die for. You obviously have no clue how much certain people and principles matter to me, n the lengths to which I would go (and have gone) to protect them from harm.

    Public policy is not about having a manhood-measuring contest. It's about coming up with practical solutions and doing the right thing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Steve brings up an interesting point.

    Corporations (true fornicators and adulterers, all) enjoy the protection of law, as do fetuses in the third trimester.

    Could we ever see a time when Hate, Inc. might need protection from itself?

    ReplyDelete
  6. "You obviously have no clue how much certain people and principles matter to me, n the lengths to which I would go (and have gone) to protect them from harm."

    So spell it out Cory...what principles instead of personally attacking those you disagree with. Obviously it is not those principles contained in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, nor the Constituion of the state of South Dakota. HB 1144 is unconstitutional because it grants higher rights to certain "factions". HB 1144 increases discrimination, not prevent it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Steve Sibson1/30/2010 12:15 PM

    Sorry 1:11pm was me

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Legislation is generally cheaper and more effectiv than fighting or killing."

    That is one of the most beautiful examples of progressive drivel that I have heard lately! (Did you get that line from "Philip Dru: Administrator"? That was President Wilson's favorite book.) Thank you for proving my point! With legislation, you send others to jail (those who fail to comply with your legislation) and have others fight on your behalf (ie: the full force [gun] of the government). But I digress.

    The word "discrimination" is yet another word the progressives have hijacked. It was not always considered a bad thing. (ie: discriminating tastes or colleges discriminating on the basis of GPAs)

    In an attempt to be kinder and gentler... I offer an olive branch. I will reach across our ideological chasm to help you fight all forms of unjust discrimination! Let us start with affirmative action policies! (Why did I just get an Orwellian chill saying that phrase?) Affirmative action policies unfairly discriminate based on ethnicity, race, and sex. As a kind-hearted liberal, you must hate all forms of discrimination that deny people work or education, right?

    Jason bjorklund

    ReplyDelete
  9. Here is what John Locke sid on civil rights (civil protection of toleration) as they relate to atheists:

    Locke's theory of Revolution began with the Bible. He said first that all laws must conform to Scripture:

    [T]he Law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men's actions must . . . be conformable to the Law of Nature, i.e., to the will of God. [L]aws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made.
    Locke, Two Treatises on Government, Bk II sec 135. (quoting Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, 1.iii, § 9 [shows Puritan influence])

    This thought is found in the Declaration of Independence ("the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"). More specifically, the Bible requires that office-holders be men who "fear God." This excludes atheists, which is what Locke and every single state in the union did. The constitution he drafted for Carolina did not allow atheists to hold office. And in his Essay on Toleration, Locke specifically exempted the atheist from the civil protection of toleration:

    Lastly, those are not all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration.
    Chas Sherman ed., (NY: Appleton-Century, 1937) pp. 212-13

    Steve Sibson

    ReplyDelete

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