Kevin Leininger: What to do with gender identity ordinance?
http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100211/NEWS/2110312 (http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100211/NEWS/2110312)
2/10/10
"I've been on City Council 10 years, and we've never received more letters against something, either in number or disparity," Tom Smith said, referring to an ordinance that would ban discrimination based on "gender identity."
But even though e-mails to Council's research office were running 287-38 against Karen Goldner'sproposal as of Wednesday morning, just hours after Council refused even to consider it, Americans' fundamental rights should not be subject to public opinion.
The article is a column which opposes gender identity protection. It claims that the proposed ordinance is unenforceable and that a need for it hasn't been documented.
From what I have read elsewhere, the proposed law doesn't carry any penalties. The columnist restates that claim and adds that the proposal would only allow the Human Relations Commission to investigate and possibly mediate a dispute. Would that be enough?
Where the columnist goes wrong is that he claims that the need for this ordinance hasn't been documented. Yet by the statistics he provided, 6% of the complaints filed over the past 8 years with the Human Relations Commission have involved transgender concerns. That is a demonstrated need right there. However, those complaints were dismissed because gender identity is not a protected class. How many more cases never get brought to the attention of the authorities because the community knows that no protection exists?
Surely need is an affirmation of the basic rights of individuals.
In a society that has almost no murder, should there be no law against murder?
The principal is that individuals have the right to live as they choose.
Law must anticipate or it will degenerate.