Warning: the following post is even more tedious and self-indulgent than usual. Proceed at your own risk.
Since everyone else is weighing in on the Boy Scouts thing today, I could reasonably let it drop and move on. But there are a couple of things about it that interest me. Notably, it bears a striking resemblance to an incident that took place here in New Orleans back in the early 90s in which Mardi Gras krewes (basically social clubs that get together every year during Carnival to host a ball and run a parade) were ordered by the City Council to integrate.
Now, krewes are fundamental to the social hierarchy in New Orleans. If you grow up here, your identity and your social milieu are somewhat determined by the krewe to which your family belongs. If you're part of an old-skool krewe like Rex or Comus, you've got it made. If, on the other hand, you belong to one of the newer, pretender-to-the-throne sort of krewes (e.g. Tucks, Thoth), you're gonna have to work a lot harder at it. So it's not surprising that the krewes were reluctant to adhere to the City Council's edict (perhaps the most understated thing I've ever written). In fact, many krewes went on hiatus in protest, bringing to an end parades that had been running for nearly 200 years. They thought, like the Boy Scouts, that krewes are social organizations and that they can associate with whomever they want.
Although not technically business, I'm assuming that the City Council based their decision in part on the precent set by the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
SEC. 2000e-2. [Section 703]
(a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer -
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
(b) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employment agency to fail or refuse to refer for employment, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, or to classify or refer for employment any individual on the basis of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
If that's the case--if the City Council used the Act as its precedent--then social organizations are subject to these guidelines, right? And so for homo activists, it's just a matter of amending the Civil Right Act to include "sexual orientation" so that homos are officially protected just like everyone else. And in fact, according to the precedent set by the Supreme Court's ruling against Colorado's Amendment 2, homosexuals do constitute a protected "class" of citizen, not unlike African Americans or women:
We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws. Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Colorado is affirmed.
(full text here)
So, even though homos aren't mentioned specifically in the Civil Rights Act, the Court has essentially ruled that like Ragu, we're in there and we're protected. Which would mean that we should be able to belong to any social group we want, right?
Then, yo, why'd we get dissed? Are they speaking out of both sides of their mouth, or what? Or maybe the City Council's edict is just unconstitutional.
Of course, come to think about it, the Colorado Amendment smackdown flew somewhat in the face of the Bowers v. Hardwick decision, which essentially said that homos aren't a protected class at all--at least, not when it comes down to fudgepacking. Maybe the Court's decided to do a bit of backpedaling on homo rights for now.
Or maybe I'm completely off-base. Just food for thought, I guess.
[Note: Regardless of the convoluted arguments expressed here, Justice Anthony Scalia is still the Antichrist.]
