CAN YOU PICK THE THINGS THAT ARE SUPPLIED BY THE ADA?
When I was attempting to get Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender students specifically mentioned in school district policies on Bullying, Harassment, and Nondiscrimination so their inclusion would not be left up to the personal, religious, or political opinions of district employees, I was always asked two questions as a form of objection.
The first was, “If we add ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘Gender identity’ to the list of protected classes, where will it end?”.
I would hope there wasn’t an end, as that would mean the district would decide that there were some students for whom Bullying, Harassment, and Discrimination was permissible.
I always thought that the question was ridiculous.
The other question was, “What about the fat kid, the left handed kid, the kid who had eyes of two colors?”
To this I would explain that people had to choose which battles to pursue, so that they would have success in that battle as opposed taking on multiple battles and winning none, and my concern was for the GLBT kids, but I was sure there were those who would advocate for the kids listed in the question.
What arguments they had to not do the right thing could not be based on reason, so they attempted to appeal to guilt. However, I was a person of Boston Irish descent who eventually lived some time in New York, so it was more than obvious that their Heartland attempts at guilt-tripping were amateurish at best.
The person who was the first to ask about the “fat” kid was an assistant superintendent who was himself rather corpulent, so being in a position to write, propose, and promote the acceptance of a school policy, it would seem he could have answered his own concern by being the person to represent and advocate for that kid.
He had explained that when he was in middle school and he was made fun of for being large, he would go home and cry to his mother who, being old world Italian, would seek to ease his pain with food.
His understanding of the needs of GLBT kids came when I asked him how he would have felt, and how he would have dealt with it if, instead of sympathy from his mother, she had thrown him out of the house for good.
In the end, as a compromise, I agreed to the words “or any other reason” being added to the exiting list of protected groups, unless it became obvious that this still allowed for the interpretation of inclusion based on the personal, religious, or political opinions of district employees.
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So I insisted on, and eventually got the more inclusive language I had originally been seeking.
At a town hall event this past weekend, Indiana state Representative Woody Burton, a Republican, compared laws protecting GLBT people, which include kids, to protections for serial killers, pedophiles and even “fat white people.”
Claiming sexual orientation was a “behavioral thing’ ,this obviously less than well informed expert on human behavior stated,
“You can’t control it sometimes. I understand that. If someone’s a psychopathic killer, it’s a behavior thing. They can’t help it. OK? Somebody’s a homosexual, maybe it’s a genetic thing. Maybe it’s not. They can’t help it. But it’s still a behavioral thing.
This thing with Subway and Jared is a classic example of what’s the next step. And you say, oh that will never happen. I’ve got articles on my computer at home from the English newspapers saying that those people can’t help it and they ought to be protected in England.”
He then dismissed protecting GLBT people because they did not deserve to be protected by law because “fat white people” enjoyed no special rights.
“If I pass a law that says transgenders [sic] and homosexuals are covered under the civil rights laws, then does it say anywhere that fat white people are covered? What if I’m overweight? I don’t mean that to be facetious. I’ve been fat all my life and people used to make fun of me when I was a kid. I could probably do something about it, okay? Maybe I can’t. Maybe it’s just my habits. Maybe I got some physical thing. But when I was a kid there were people who discriminated against me because I was fat.”
Now, he is a state representative and a member of the party in control of his state, and he is in a position to help those with whom he identifies if he sees there is a need.
If he sees a lack of protection for “fat” people, why, rather than prevent others from being protected, does he not take the positive step and work on legislation that would address the group to which he belongs.
He does not seem to realize that under many circumstances obese people are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act which says employers have to provide disabled workers with “reasonable accommodations” to help them do their jobs, and makes it illegal for employers to fire workers for being disabled, and the American Medical Association has determined that people with body mass indexes of more than 30 have a disease instead of a medical condition, and are, therefore, covered by the law.
So one would have to ask the Rep. that since obese people, even fat white ones, have protection under the law, why can’t GLBT people have those protections that preserve their rights as American citizens?
And to clarify:
GLBT people having the same rights as others does not make them “special”, just equal, unless as this Representative apparently admits, there are a lot of people who already have special rights, and he just refuses to share them with others.