The War on Multiculturalism

[Scooter]

Did you read Scalia's dissent in Lawrence (in which Rehnquist concurred)? It was about WAY more than a states' rights argument. He invoked the language of culture war to describe the equality struggle of gay and lesbian citizens. The homophobia was dripping from his pen.

As to providing examples of conservative Christians opposing the passage of human rights legislation that establishes sexual orientation as a protected class, will someone next be asking for evidence that the earth is not flat? Sorry, but I gave up acceding to such Mickey the Dunce requests long ago.

[Andrew D]

Well, Scooter, I have difficulty equating this:

Are those same groups who are intent on denying basic human rights to gay and lesbian citizens going to be told the same?

with this:

... conservative Christians opposing the passage of human rights legislation that establishes sexual orientation as a protected class ....

Is being a member of a protected class a basic human right? Is the existence of any hate-crimes legislation a basic human right?

Gob wrote: "I think Meade was referring to the UK, as in the article, which does not have the extremism of American religion."

He has lived in the UK; I have not. For all I know, he is correct, and the UK is not afflicted by the kind of pseudo-Christian viciousness so prominent -- though not as widespread as its vociferousness makes it seem -- in the US. Meade may or may not be being passive aggressive, but I assure you that I am not. I am not aware of any conservative Christian groups in the UK that oppose basic human rights for gay people. (Nor, for that matter, am I at all familiar with the UK's hate-crimes laws, if it even has any.) You apparently know of such groups, so why not identify them -- if not for Meade then for me and others like me?

[Scooter]

Well, Scooter, I have difficulty equating this:

Are those same groups who are intent on denying basic human rights to gay and lesbian citizens going to be told the same?

with this:

... conservative Christians opposing the passage of human rights legislation that establishes sexual orientation as a protected class ....

Is being a member of a protected class a basic human right?

Your question amounts to asking whether human rights legislation has anything to do with protecting human rights.

As to the rest, Meade may live in a world where marriage is not a human right (or he may choose to define the problem away by asserting that same-sex couples have the same marriage rights as anyone else - to marry someone of the opposite sex, just as interracial couples were told that they had the same right as anyone else to marry someone of the same race), but he will not deny that conservative Christians in the UK have opposed the extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex couples at every turn. He may live in a world where the right to earn one's bread or to have a roof over one's head without fear of unjustifiable discrimination does not exist, but he will not deny that conservative Christians in the UK have opposed extending protection against such discrimination based on sexual orientation. He may live in a world where it is acceptable to trample on free speech rights in the name of "protecting" children from the "promotion" of homosexuality, but he will not deny that conservative Christians in the UK spearheaded the passage and vociferously opposed the repeal of the infamous Section 28 of the Local Authorities Act, which effectively muzzled any sane discussion of homosexuality in UK schools and forced LGBT student groups all over the country to disband.

[Andrew D]

Is being a member of a protected class a basic human right?

Your question amounts to asking whether human rights legislation has anything to do with protecting human rights.

Not at all.

How should we decide what characteristic(s) entitle(s) a person to protected-class status? If we use the immutability of a characteristic, religion is no longer a protected class, because people can and do change their religions. So (unless you think that religion should not be a protected class) how should we go about it?

Suppose that a vegetarian kills a meat-eater because he or she is a meat-eater. Should that be a hate crime; i.e., should meat-eater be a protected class?

We could think of many such examples. The bottom line is that some characteristics entitle the people possessing those characteristics to protected-class status, and others do not. How should we decide which ones do and which ones do not?

Suppose that we did away with hate-crimes legislation entirely. Suppose that killing a black person because he or she is black were treated the same as killing a black person for any other (unjustified and unexcused) reason. Would we be violating anyone's basic human right(s)? If so, which one(s) and how?

[Scooter]

I don't see what hate crimes legislation has to with this at all. It was a straw man introduced by Meade to avoid addressing what I had actually said, which he knows to be the truth. Hate crimes legislation is about how to punish criminals, not about protecting human rights.

[Andrew D]

Well, what "human rights legislation that establishes sexual orientation as a protected class" are you referring to?

[Scooter]

I believe I have made reference to it several times already - legislation that provides protection from discrimination in employment, housing, etc. Legislation that is typically called a "human rights code" or a "human rights ordinance" by the jurisdiction promulgating it.

[dgs49]

scooter, further to what Andrew wrote above (and I have to admit I don't clearly recollect the case you may be referring to), the aforementioned justices may have taken the position that the USSC may not strike down a state law because it violates the so called "right of privacy," because there is no such Constitutional right.

Those justices disdain the rationale that says, "If it oughtta be in there (in my opinion), then by golly it's in there!" This is pretty much the difference between interpreting (conservative) and expanding (liberal) the Constitution.

[Scooter]

Perhaps you should actually read the decision and the dissents and then get back to me if you disagree with my assessment of their position.

In any event, the decision struck down so-called "sodomy" laws then still existent in 14 states. Furthermore, in most of the remaining states, so-called "sodomy" laws were overturned by judicial, not legislative, action i.e. not because the popular will demanded it, but rather in direct opposition to those states' popular representatives who had chosen to leave said laws in place. Thus to assert, as you have, that the belief that homosexual acts should be criminalized is virtually non-existent, or however you phrased it, is patently ridiculous.

[Gob]

Before the topic gets lost or changed into a debate on gay rights, a subject worthy of its own thread, here's an interesting article;

Academics' definitions of multiculturalism refer to anything from people of different communities living alongside each other to ethnic or religious groups leading completely separate lives.

Likewise, columnists who write about multiculturalism don't often define what they mean by the term, looking instead at what it is not.

The Oxford English Dictionary offers a broad definition of multiculturalism as the "characteristics of a multicultural society" and "the policy or process whereby the distinctive identities of the cultural groups within such a society are maintained or supported".


Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth says in the Times that multiculturalism was intended to create a more tolerant society, one in which everyone, regardless of colour, creed or culture, felt at home. But, he says, multiculturalism's message is "there is no need to integrate".

He distinguishes between tolerance and multiculturalism - using the Netherlands as an example of a tolerant, rather than multicultural, society.

Additionally, he says the current meaning of multiculturalism is part of the wider European phenomenon of moral relativism and talks of multiculturalism as dissolving national identity, shared values and collective identity which "makes it impossible for groups to integrate because there is nothing to integrate into".

Others, however, see the term as offering a range of meanings. In the Observer, the editor of Prospect magazine, David Goodhart, insists the strategy has taken on different forms within the UK over the years.

He distinguishes between the "live and let live" multiculturalism of the 1950s, which "assumed that if people could keep significant aspects of their culture they would choose to integrate in their own way"; the 1980s "'soft' multiculturalism of tolerance and equal rights"; and the more recent "hard" multiculturalism "of positive promotion of religious and ethnic identities".

Rod Liddle says in the Spectator that multiculturalism is a notion that cultures, no matter how antithetical to the norm, or anti-social, should be allowed to develop unhindered, without criticism.

Melanie Phillips takes this argument further in the Daily Mail, arguing that multiculturalism is a form of reverse-racism and "sickeningly hypocritical".

However, Madeleine Bunting of the Guardian says Mr Cameron has offered "a straw man version of multiculturalism". Instead of promoting segregation, she says, it is "a matter of pragmatism" - reaching out to organisations within ethnic communities who can help the government achieve its goals of maintaining good community relations.

In the same newspaper in March 2010, Antony Lerman, a former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, pointed to some of the academic work on multiculturalism to show it is the opposite of a philosophy of separateness. He cited Professor Bhikhu Parekh's definition which says, far from "putting people into ethnic boxes", multiculturalism is a "fusion in which a culture borrows bits of others and creatively transforms both itself and them".

Professor Tariq Modood is director of the Centre for Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol and wrote Still Not Easy Being British: Struggles for a Multicultural Citizenship. He says in a Runnymede Trust web chat that multiculturalism has many meanings, but the minimum is the need to politically identify groups, typically by ethnicity, and to work to remove stigmatisation, exclusion and domination in relation to such groups.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12381027

[Andrew D]

I believe I have made reference to it several times already - legislation that provides protection from discrimination in employment, housing, etc. Legislation that is typically called a "human rights code" or a "human rights ordinance" by the jurisdiction promulgating it.

I do not see those references in this thread.

Regardless of that, with respect to what are more accurately (and quite often are) called anti-discrimination laws, the same question arises: It is illegal to discriminate on the basis of some characteristics, but it is not illegal to discriminate on the basis of other characteristics. (If I refuse to rent rooms in my motel to black people, that is illegal. If I refuse to rent rooms in my motel to violet-eyed people, that is, as far as I know, not illegal.)

So what is the principled distinction -- the distinction articulated as a general rule which we can apply to specific cases -- by which we ought to determine which characteristics it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of and which characteristics it is not?

[Scooter]

An interesting question that has no particular relevance to my original statement and risks dragging this thread even further off course.

[dgs49]

Scooter, are you an idiot or a provocateur?

(a) Whether or not a law is "Constitutional" is not determined by public opinion.

(b) Stupid laws can very well be Constitutional.

(c) Many laws that people find silly or anachronistic are not repealed (e.g., marijuana prohibitions) because politicians do not want to antagonize even a small constituency that feels strongly about a particular issue, and they don't want to be characterized by their opponents as "favoring" sodomy, drug abuse, spitting on the sidewalk, failing to milk a dairy cow, and thousands of other behaviors that remain the subject of silly, archaic laws. Police do not enforce such laws, except as a means of harrassing those for whom they need a pretext, and even in those rare cases, I have not heard of anyone being arrested for sodomy in decades.

(d) The "right of privacy" which has been found in the Constitution is a matter of a great deal of good-faith debate, with both sides of the argument holding very tenable legal arguments. There is nothing "radical" or "extreme" in certain Justices of the Supreme Court finding that State laws - stupid though they may be - cannot be overturned by a Federal court on the basis that they violate the "Constitutional right of privacy," which they in good faith believe does not exist.

(e) The number of people - religious or not - who believe that men should be incarcerated for private acts of sodomy is miniscule, trending to zero. I cannot recall seeing, anytime in this century, any demonstration or placard, or public statement, or advertisement to the contrary. Having said that, I have no doubt there is probably a website or two out there titled, "Death to Buggers!" or something like that, which proves nothing.

Did someone decide to impose Sharia Law while I was napping?

[Scooter]

Best to edit out the response to Dave's irrelevant blather and just cut to the chase. Dave has been kind enough to restate the ridiculous assertion that began this exchange, to wit:

The number of people - religious or not - who believe that men should be incarcerated for private acts of sodomy is miniscule, trending to zero. I cannot recall seeing, anytime in this century, any demonstration or placard, or public statement, or advertisement to the contrary.

The truth of the matter, from a Gallup poll on the subject from 2003:

Gallup first asked about the legality of homosexuality in 1977, with a basic question worded as follows: “Do you think homosexual relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?” At that point, Americans were evenly divided on the issue, as 43% said yes, 43% said no, and 14% were not sure. In Gallup’s recent Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 5-7, the public has clearly become more moderate toward homosexuality than was the case two decades earlier: 60% of Americans now say that homosexual relations should be legal, 35% not legal, with 5% unsure.

35% who, in this century, believe homosexual acts should be criminalized.

What's that, Dave, sorry I can't hear you with your foot jammed so deep in your mouth.

[Sean]

This may be a good time for a gentle reminder that this thread concerns government policy in the UK and not the US...

[Andrew D]

An interesting question that has no particular relevance to my original statement and risks dragging this thread even further off course.

Translation: "I have no answer."

[thestoat]

This may be a good time for a gentle reminder that this thread concerns government policy in the UK and not the US...

Yeah, but you'll nick it like you did our language

[Sean]

LMAO - You may have confused me with a Seppo there old boy...

[dgs49]

Poll results frequently depend entirely on how the question is presented.

(a) Should sodomy laws be repealed? No

(b) Should people be incarcerated for private acts of sodomy? NFW.

An apparent contradiction,eh?

[Scooter]

An interesting question that has no particular relevance to my original statement and risks dragging this thread even further off course.

Translation: "I have no answer."

Start a thread about it and I'll be happy to answer.


(edited because I was confusing two different branches of the discussion)