Can’t ask, so don’t tell: Updated
Various news outlets this morning are reporting on San Fran’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that Roommates.com can’t ask if you’re straight or gay when you fill out their profile page on the site:
To inquire electronically about sexual orientation would not be different from asking people in person or by telephone if they were black or Jewish before conducting business, the panel said in an 8-3 ruling that partly overturns a lower federal court decision.
“If such screening is prohibited when practiced in person or by telephone, we see no reason why Congress would have wanted to make it lawful to profit from it online,” 9th Circuit chief judge Alex Kozinski wrote. “Not only does Roommate ask these questions, Roommate makes answering the discriminatory questions a condition of doing business.”
Since when did “homosexual” become a race? Have homosexuals, on the whole, ever been denied the right to vote? Have they been forced to the back of the bus? Do suicide bombers attack them in the market place? Did Hitler exterminate 6 million of them?
Secondly, some liberals are so racist and bigoted that they can’t see straight (no pun intended). They say that homosexuality is no big deal, but then absolutely freak out—we’re talking take it through the courts freak out—when someone asks if they’re homosexual.
What I mean is that homosexuals will often say that they’re proud — they’ll go to a gay pride event, they’ll hang a multi-color lei from rear view mirror, etc — but when you ask them outright their orientation they suddenly become angry and view it as discrimination.
I don’t think it’s an unfair question to ask if your potential roommate may or may not be attracted to your gender. You can ask male and female, and this pertinent question exists because of sex. It is called your “sex” after all. In simpler times I would know it was inappropriate, as a man, to consider a woman as a roommate for sexual reasons. Today, that’s simply not enough information to make the decision. Is it unreasonable to want to know this? Is it any more discriminatory than asking your gender these days?
I’m expanding on this because I received a call from a friend of mine who was confused by the tone of the message, so let me say two things: 1.) ALL liberals are not anything, any more than ALL conservatives are anything. I don’t want to insinuate that all liberals are racist bigots just as I don’t want anyone to insinuate that all conservatives are racist bigots, and I don’t want to fall into the name-calling trap that many of my conservative friends do; 2.) I’m not ant-homosexual. I think homosexuality is a sin, but I also think fornication, envy, and drunkenness are sins, too. I’m not rejecting the person or that person’s rights as defined by the laws of this country. What I DO reject is special consideration and special treatment and special laws.
The bottom line for me is that giving homosexuality the same protection and classification as race is a consideration that isn’t merited by the evidence.
