Thursday, November 7, 2013

Boehner's Irrational Fear

Today the US senate passed a bill protecting homosexual and transgender individuals from discrimination in the workplace. Boehner has stated his opposition to the bill because it may open businesses to "frivolous lawsuits". His logic would be more sound if it weren't for the fact that 99% of companies already have rules against discriminating by sexual orientation and 84% have rules against discriminating by sexual identity.

One might argue that passing such a bill is frivolous since a majority of companies already don't discriminate, but there are some that do and unless there's federal or state law prohibiting it directly, the possibility will always be there. One might just as easily argue that there's no longer any need for federal protection for women and minorities by such logic - or that it shouldn't have been granted in the first place because it might cause "frivolous lawsuits".

Naturally, there's going to be something to protect religious organizations who might not hire a LGBTQ or transgender individual (or fire them upon finding  out, regardless of their work record), but I don't think this is a good idea since I've not yet heard of Islamic organizations being allowed to discriminate against women based on their religious beliefs here in the US.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Miscontuct of war

Not so long ago, some US Marines were caught on video urinating on dead members of the Taliban and Rick Perry is saying they should not be prosecuted for their crimes.

He terms the Marines in question 'kids', and I can't help but wonder what he'd be saying if it had been four Taliban members of the same ages the Marines had been caught on video urinating on dead US soldiers bodies. Somehow I don't think he'd be saying that prosecuting them would be a mistake.