Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
— Matthew 7:16
By David Tulis
The rainbow cult in city government wishes to toughen its discrimination bans, a move that is part of the gay lobby’s fastidious but dreary theory of American culture.
That idea is for a caste system in culture, with the state as enforcer, setting people apart as being specially protected. By force, by threat, by a ring of barbed wire, as it were, the gay ushers in the great society in which we all get along together.
Homosexual activists in the 1990s were an oppressed minority but are today celebrated heroes of a new egalitarian struggle whose great conquest is marriage. The Obergefell opinion is said to have overturned marriage law in Tennessee and deconstructed statutory forms of marriage. Insofar as that’s true, such gains must be consolidated in city rule.
[This essay first appeared at Chattanoogan.com. — DJT]
The Chris Anderson revision comes across as righteous and properly severe.
“Sexual orientation” is to be added to create a “working environment free of all forms of sexual and other unlawful harassment and discrimination. *** Any form of harassment related to an individual’s *** sexual orientation *** is a violation of this policy and will be treated as a disciplinary matter. The term ‘harassment’ includes, but is not limited to, slurs, jokes and other verbal, graphic, or physical conduct, statements, or materials relating to an individual’s race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age or disability[,] sexual orientation, gender, identity or expression, and ethnicity. ‘Harassment’ also includes sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, unwelcome or offensive touching, sexually provocative or abusive language, and other verbal, graphic, or physical conduct of a sexual nature” [new provisions in italics].
Most would agree that some forms of office tit-for-tat are troublesome and should be warned against. Slurs, graphic statements, sexual advances clearly are under veto, libertine and Christian would agree. But what about “other verbal *** conduct of a sexual nature”? Here is where marriage comes into view. A married man talking about married life or making reference to his wife could trigger in a homosexual a sense of oppression, a feeling of being condemned, a perception that somehow the married man looks condescendingly on his co-worker’s Jim-Joe union, with Joe being the wife, and Jim the husband.
A revision in the ordinance creates new cause for action, new grounds for grievance, one more trigger for those whose sensibilities and dignities are easily aroused. The ordinance creates another official ground of complaint, left-to-right among staffers, up-and-down between the boss and employee. By it the boss man raises one more guard tower over the workplace in which the foreman won’t cotton defiance or indifference. Employment is the relationship between master and servant (Black’s Law Dictionary), and such rules increase the humanity gap between the greater and the lesser.
Twenty years of activism and litigation and media favor brought the homosexualist movement to its height. But when queer living and gay hijinks have outlived their welcome, gays will become the targets. Homosexuals forget that laws that protect them now will be used against them later when regular people have simply had enough.
For, indeed, flying a rainbow flag on one’s computer will be tantamount to an attack on the married man in the next cubicle. Violation. An overheard phone conversation about a trip to a gay bar in Atlanta offends a coworker’s commitment to a contradictory system of life that includes marriage and children. Violation. Joe’s conversation about Jim, his he-wife, may be construed as an argument in favor of adultery, an attack on a married co-worker’s lifestyle. She complains — violation! The standard for such complaints is subjective and decidedly political.
The promise of rulemaking is as bright as ever. Progressives think that if they just write enough regulations, society will become more civil, that human beings will become more accommodating and better. Rules demand the fruits of grace without the grace. Earnest conversation, heartfelt discussion, personal disagreement among office staff should not be elevated into causes of action that will get people fired. Best the city hire honorable men and women, not tantrum-prone children.
An idealist city council will favor the proposed rulemaking. A responsible council will see the existing ordinance as good enough, especially now that we have Obergefell to save us.
— David Tulis hosts Nooganomics.com on AM 1240 Hot News Talk Radio 1 to 3 p.m. weekdays, covering local economy and free markets in Chattanooga and beyond.