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From: smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.motss
Subject: Re: I've said it before and I'll say it again ...
Message-ID: <1039@ulysses.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Oct-84 16:07:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: ulysses.1039
Posted: Fri Oct 26 16:07:48 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Oct-84 04:29:29 EDT
References: <207@usfbobo.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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> From: brunson@usfbobo.UUCP (David Brunson)
> Message-ID: <207@usfbobo.UUCP>
> Date: Mon, 22-Oct-84 23:46:02 EDT

> I've said it before and I'll say it again.  I am NOT advocating discrimination
> against blacks, jews, women, hispanics or people who eat peanut butter and
> jelly sandwiches....

Let me try to explain my objection (and I think the objection of others) to
your position.  You claim that to compel you to do business with gays would
violate your religious beliefs.  However, your basis for for that claim is
grounded in your own personal interpretation of your own religion -- and we
cannot allow one individual's religion to dictate the behavior of others; that's
what the First Amendment is all about.  But the real question I want to address
to you is this:  what of someone who claims, on religious grounds, the right not
to hire Jews?  After all, I've heard it said (and I'm not saying I've heard it
from you) that we're damned.  What of a Catholic who doesn't want to hire someone
who's been excommunicated for (what the hierarchy perceives as) heresy?  Or an
Orthodox Jew who might find it improper to work with a woman (under certain
circumstances)?  Homosexuality is different, you say?  How?  Can you give a rule
that can be used to distinguish, objectively and without recourse to your own
religious beliefs, amongst these cases?  (Note that I will not accept the
claim that "homosexuality is a matter of choice".  Apart from that fact that
that claim is at the very least controversial, religious beliefs are equally
a matter of choice.)

> What's more, if you had been reading carefully, you would know that I
> am not advocating discrimination against homosexuals....

I regard the arbitrary refusal to hire someone, based on assorted stated
grounds (race, creed, color, sexual preference, etc.) as discrimination
by definition.  How is it not?