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As I understand matters from my remote outpost, the Denver City Council approved an ordinance which banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This upset some people, who collected sufficient signatures on petitions to put a repeal question on the May 21 ballot.
Some say that repeal of a simple anti-discrimination ordinance is being pushed by a bunch of homophobic yahoos.
Doubtless there is some truth in that charge, but the anti-gay-rights-ordinance crowd does have a point. They say that lesbians and urnings are getting protection not afforded to other segments of society, and they're right. If American society truly cared about human rights and allowing all people to perform up to their potential, we'd see an enlarged anti-discrimination ordinance:
· The Differently Cultured. Corporate American expects a certain regular-guy mind-set. You're supposed to like football and network TV. Veer far from those standards either way -- a taste for opera or country-western music, a preference for PBS or Nashville Network -- and you're an egghead or a low-life. You'll never be part of the team, and you face a lifetime of discrimination until you learn to walk the walk and talk the talk.
· Slobs. This is personal. I've tried to change, but it must be genetic. Other people can stay dapper after shoveling a load of organic fertilizer, but I can emerge from a barber shop in a three-piece suit, and within minutes, I look like the survivor of a three-day Hells Angels picnic.
This is one reason that I am among the millions of unemployables. Yet we could be productive members of society if the Neatness Bigots ever realized that there are things that matter more than clean fingernails.
· The Under-Credentialed. What do Thomas Edison, Clarence Darrow, H.L. Mencken and Harry Truman all have in common? No college degree, although they succeeded brilliantly at engineering, law, journalism and politics.
Many studies show that at least 90 percent of jobs which
supposedly require college degrees can be performed by any
literate person. Most often, when you see B.S. or B.A.
required,
it really means we want an upper-class,
well-dressed vacuum with appropriate social graces. Thanks
to the Reagan-era cutbacks in financial aid, those are the
only people likely to have college degrees.
Think of J.
Danforth Quayle, and you've got what most employers
actually want when they specify a college diploma.
Homosexuals do suffer unjust discrimination. So do most other people -- the majority of Americans are not well-groomed football fans with college degrees. If the gay-rights lobby would only realize that, and start building coalitions with the others of us who get raw deals, then we'd see some universal anti-discrimination laws, and we'd never see an election to repeal laws which had such widespread support.
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