Bryan Fischer
"Sexual orientation" bill a danger to civil liberties
By Bryan Fischer
Leslie Goddard of the Idaho Commission on Human Rights (ICHR) recently promoted S1323, a bill focused on "sexual orientation" and "gender identity," on the pages of the Idaho Statesman ("It's time for plain talk about fairness," 2.5.08). She says in her column that this matter "calls for an open, respectful discussion." I agree, and happily join the dialogue here.
It's exceedingly odd to see an organization with "Human Rights" in its title push a bill which represents such a clear and present danger to the civil liberties of good-hearted Idahoans. For Ms. Goddard's bill would punish Idaho employers and landlords who take homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality or transgenderism into account in business decisions.
The bill would violate freedom of conscience by forcing businessmen and landlords to compromise their own moral convictions or face potentially crippling lawsuits. It would violate an employer's constitutional right to freedom of association, his basic right to select a workforce that represents the values he wants his business to reflect, by giving government the power to drag him into court for making politically incorrect employment decisions.
It also would violate the first freedom guaranteed to Americans in the Constitution, the free exercise of religion. Any Christian, Jewish or Muslim business owner who holds time-honored views of marriage and sexuality would become immediately vulnerable to paralyzing legal action.
This is not a hypothetical threat. In New Mexico, a Christian photographer, Elaine Huguenin, just last month was hauled before the New Mexico Human Rights Division, the state's counterpart to the ICHR, where she was forced to spend two days being grilled by the thought police in the Land of Enchantment.
Her crime? She had respectfully declined to photograph a lesbian "commitment ceremony." She did so for the simple reason that her conscience restrained her from participating in a ceremony that would send a signal contrary to her own deeply held religious beliefs.
It mattered not that New Mexico does not recognize either same-sex marriage or civil unions, meaning this ceremony was purely symbolic in the first place. And it mattered not that Ms. Huguenin is not the only photographer for hire in the state of New Mexico.
No, she had transgressed New Mexico's human rights law, which provides special rights for those with non-normative sexual orientations, and had to be punished.
Since New Mexico also awards attorney's fees to prevailing plaintiffs in civil rights cases, if Ms. Huguenin's case goes through an appeals process her legal bills could easily mount into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, jeopardizing the survival of her business.
(A pernicious companion bill, S1283, would add an attorney's fees provision to Idaho code — but only for a successful plaintiff in a civil rights case, not a successful defendant.)
Further, S1323 does not define "sexual orientation" anywhere. But the American Psychiatric Association does, listing no less than 30 different sexual orientations in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Included are such things as bestiality, pedophilia and prostitution. A bill with no definition opens Pandora's Box to litigation that could result in the granting of special protections to various sexual perversions.
Far-fetched you say? Hardly. One plaintiff in Canada has already tried the tactic of claiming in court that sex with children happens to be his particular "sexual orientation," that he was born that way, and that he deserves special protection under Canada's discrimination statute.
At this point, it mercifully appears that this dangerous bill will gain no traction in the Idaho legislature this year. Nor should it. Idaho is too great for laws that trample on freedom of conscience and fundamental constitutional liberties.
© Bryan Fischer
Leslie Goddard of the Idaho Commission on Human Rights (ICHR) recently promoted S1323, a bill focused on "sexual orientation" and "gender identity," on the pages of the Idaho Statesman ("It's time for plain talk about fairness," 2.5.08). She says in her column that this matter "calls for an open, respectful discussion." I agree, and happily join the dialogue here.
It's exceedingly odd to see an organization with "Human Rights" in its title push a bill which represents such a clear and present danger to the civil liberties of good-hearted Idahoans. For Ms. Goddard's bill would punish Idaho employers and landlords who take homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality or transgenderism into account in business decisions.
The bill would violate freedom of conscience by forcing businessmen and landlords to compromise their own moral convictions or face potentially crippling lawsuits. It would violate an employer's constitutional right to freedom of association, his basic right to select a workforce that represents the values he wants his business to reflect, by giving government the power to drag him into court for making politically incorrect employment decisions.
It also would violate the first freedom guaranteed to Americans in the Constitution, the free exercise of religion. Any Christian, Jewish or Muslim business owner who holds time-honored views of marriage and sexuality would become immediately vulnerable to paralyzing legal action.
This is not a hypothetical threat. In New Mexico, a Christian photographer, Elaine Huguenin, just last month was hauled before the New Mexico Human Rights Division, the state's counterpart to the ICHR, where she was forced to spend two days being grilled by the thought police in the Land of Enchantment.
Her crime? She had respectfully declined to photograph a lesbian "commitment ceremony." She did so for the simple reason that her conscience restrained her from participating in a ceremony that would send a signal contrary to her own deeply held religious beliefs.
It mattered not that New Mexico does not recognize either same-sex marriage or civil unions, meaning this ceremony was purely symbolic in the first place. And it mattered not that Ms. Huguenin is not the only photographer for hire in the state of New Mexico.
No, she had transgressed New Mexico's human rights law, which provides special rights for those with non-normative sexual orientations, and had to be punished.
Since New Mexico also awards attorney's fees to prevailing plaintiffs in civil rights cases, if Ms. Huguenin's case goes through an appeals process her legal bills could easily mount into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, jeopardizing the survival of her business.
(A pernicious companion bill, S1283, would add an attorney's fees provision to Idaho code — but only for a successful plaintiff in a civil rights case, not a successful defendant.)
Further, S1323 does not define "sexual orientation" anywhere. But the American Psychiatric Association does, listing no less than 30 different sexual orientations in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Included are such things as bestiality, pedophilia and prostitution. A bill with no definition opens Pandora's Box to litigation that could result in the granting of special protections to various sexual perversions.
Far-fetched you say? Hardly. One plaintiff in Canada has already tried the tactic of claiming in court that sex with children happens to be his particular "sexual orientation," that he was born that way, and that he deserves special protection under Canada's discrimination statute.
At this point, it mercifully appears that this dangerous bill will gain no traction in the Idaho legislature this year. Nor should it. Idaho is too great for laws that trample on freedom of conscience and fundamental constitutional liberties.
© Bryan Fischer
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