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Originally Posted by lurkette
Here's the deal, though - the legislation is not separating an individual group and granting them rights, it's simply adding a criterion (sexual orientation) to the list of things that can't be used as basis for discrimination (age, gender, race, etc.). It's taking a group that's very specifically NOT protected and bringing them under the blanket of protection that is currently afforded to every other person...who's not gay. If the bill were saying something like "every apartment complex that doesn't have at least 10% gay/lesbian tenants has to rent preferentially to homosexuals until the population is proportionately representative." Now THAT would be preferential treatment. This is not guaranteeing special rights, it's guaranteeing EQUAL rights. I'm not sure how you would go about ensuring equal rights for everyone without specifying the things people are not allowed to discriminate based on. (Sorry for the bad grammar.) It's perfectly legitimate for lenders to discriminate based on credit history (sorry, dude), or for hotels not to rent rooms to minors who have no legal standing (age of reason changes based on social norms); but I don't see any problem with specifiying how people are NOT allowed to discriminate against certain groups who currently are likely to experience discrimination. Not expressing myself very well.....d'oh.
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I read the legislation in full after and this law is really a bad example of the argument I'm making because as it's written I agree with the protection that it's advocating, as an equal addition to existing rules. I read the articles that centered around people being upset at Microsoft for declaring themselves neutral on it and that seemed to say to me that they felt they deserved preferential treatment, in this case from MS, because of their practices. As far as this particular law I'll be the first to admit that I'd be wrong to argue against it because it doesn't meet any of the criteria that we've put forward up to this point and aims only for equality.
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Originally Posted by lurkette
The problem I have with a market-driven system is that the whims (and therefore the values) of the market change with what is financially expedient, not what is ethically right. From the legislation: "The legislature hereby finds and declares that practices of discrimination against any of its inhabitants because of race, creed, color, national origin, families with children, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, age, or the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a disabled personare a matter of state concern, that such discrimination threatens not only the rights and proper privileges of its inhabitants but menaces the institutions and foundation of a free democratic state." Such basic protections of fundamental principles of democracy would seem to me to be the domain of the state and not of corporate entities.
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Outlined like this I'd agree with you, but that's why it's important that corporations not be the ONLY ones resposible for these ethics and upholding equality because I'm sure that for the vast majority of them it would take about 10 minutes of it cutting into their bottom line for them to ditch the practices! However, large corporations do have the power to sway public opinions, like you observed, so it is important that they set good examples which is where a law written like this one could be invaluable in holding them to a decent standard.
Really though more than this particular law I was attempting to open a discussion on why certain people feel that they should be awarded special privleges over another person, pretty much in any situation. And why should it be the power of the state over the individual person to be responsible about being mature enough to attempt to limit and/or remove wrongfully discriminatory practices?